...and so I ask myself if I am the stone in your shoe.

[tielan]

"How could anyone love a stone in their shoe?"
~ The Stepmother, Ever After ~

*breathes*

It started with an author called Elizabeth Bear talking about writing the Other without being a dick. Unfortunately, someone pointed out a story of hers which features a magical negro who is 'tamed' by a white woman and stating that it was problematic.

It turned into a big argument about cultural appropriation: who has the right to write about non-whites, how our society perceives and stereotypes the Other (African, Asian, Indian, Oriental, Pacific Islander, Eskimo, Alien), how perfectly nice people can be racist without ever realising it, how it always comes back to the satisfaction and emotional catharsis of white people at the expense of the persons of colour trying to say "I am here, my pain is real, don't ignore what I have to say or dismiss it just because you don't want to hear that you put your foot wrong and might have to apologise."

I'm no good at talking about this stuff - I can't talk about a broader experience, I can only talk about my own experience.

One thing that's repeatedly come up is that white fans feel fandom is their safe space and their place to have fun. That to question the racial assumptions, cultural appropriations, and racist attitudes of fandom is to effectively deny white people their 'safe space', where they can happily squee and post fannishly and never have to question their choices or behaviours or feel guilty about the weight of history upon them regarding racist behaviours, a racist system, and how POC can't hide that they're POC.

And so I sit here and post these thoughts and try to broaden my perspectives and watch as the people who read this journal amble by without ever reading or commenting.

My f-list is primarily fannish. People who like my fic - whatever aspect that might be. People who once liked me. There are a handful of people who are both fannish and people of colour, but they're just that - a handful.

And so I watch the comments rack up on my fiction and wonder if I am the fly in the ointment of my f-list's f-lists.

Am I the crazy lady on the train?

Am I the stone in the shoe?

And if so, are the only options to wince and bear it or to throw the stone away?

Which do you choose?

Do you wince and bear these posts of mine and others like me? Or do you skip over them, safe in the knowledge that tomorrow, next week, next month, I/we/they might post something that you're actually interested in - something that's relevant to you, that doesn't challenge you and your way of looking at the world in any way?

Sometimes I wonder.

Comments

[ubiquitous-girl.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm in that handful, hunh. :p

Personally, I try to disregard colour/race/etc, when dealing with people. I think that to a point, discrimination is, unfortunately, a part of life. Some white people might look down their nose at people of colour, but some people of colour look also down their nose at white people. And some people, they look down their nose at their own kind.

As such, I tend not get worked up by issues regarding race/colour/etc in fandom, so long as it's nothing particularly offensive. Also, I think political incorrectness can be found in almost anything if you're looking for it. I do like reading your posts though, they're a different persepective, which is always good to have. :)

[ubiquitous-girl.livejournal.com]

And in my ramble, I forgot to answer the question - you're no stone in my shoe.

Although considering you're one of the few, if not the only, sources of meta on my flist, you can be the crazy lady on the train if you want to be. :p

not all racism is equal

[tielan]

I think racism goes further than the individual, though.

To repost a reply I made to a comment in someone else's locked post:

Like I said above, racism is racism. It can happen to anyone.

At one level, yes, racism is racism.

At another level, all types of racism are not equal.

On a personal front, everyone experiences prejudices based on their race - that's racism. White people are insulted by non-whites, blacks get called the N-word, people dismiss non-Western backgrounds, or presume that anyone not of the same cultural background is evil, bad, or at the least, not someone to be trusted.

On a cultural front, however, non-whites experience racism at a level that white people do not and never will. White people are the dominant paradigm. As a group, they will always have positive role models and not just negatives; they can turn on the TV and find heroes of their skin colour and not just villains; they can be assured that cosmetic companies will make cosmetics in their skin colour; they will never ask if they were rejected for a job, overlooked for a role, turned down at a restaurant, or pulled over at a traffic light because of the colour of their skin.

And if they did experience an individual case of racism against them then it would be the exception rather than the rule.

There are two kinds of racism that come up in these discussions: the individual act of racism from one person or group of persons to another, and the collective benefits that the dominant paradigm gain from maintaining their status quo as the dominant group.

As a society, we've mostly overcome the first. However, as individuals and as a society, there's a long way to go before we eliminate the second - mostly because a lot of people who would not be individually racist are unwilling to admit that they are benefiting from a society that radiates racial superiority and racial inferiority everywhere we look - and that refusing to admit that benefit is contributing to the racism that non-whites experience.

Many people - both the nice and the nasty - don't stop and question their beliefs, question their attitudes. A lot of people don't question that the representatives of the alien races are all coloured, or that the reps of the technologically advanced human races are all white. People assume that the "best roles go to the best actors" but never look at the racist foundations of such a statement when 99% of the "best roles" end up played by white people - that coloured actors just aren't as good as whites.

So, yes, I see where you're coming from in that, as an individual, you disregard colour and race in your interactions; but there's more to it than just the individual - there's the social structure in which we exist and interact and hold our beliefs about race.