...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

[autumn-whispers.livejournal.com]

That should not be taken as making it about you?

I understand where you are coming from, the 'my' wasn't meant to be me but suppose to be those who aren't considered POC in general. In retrosepct I didn't phrase it well, I wasn't trying to make this about me but I was trying to give an example that was different. I was trying to say you can't blanketly say just because someone is white they either dont understand, emphathise or have gone through something similar.


it is very typical response and reflection of your privilege

And by privilege you mean my being white?

I have not been disrespectful to you.

Thank you and I hope I have not been to you because it wasn't my intention.

I would still like to know your ideas on racism vs discrimination though.

[sugargroupie.livejournal.com]

I was trying to say you can't blanketly say just because someone is white they either dont understand, emphathise or have gone through something similar.

I understand. We have completely didn't readings of this post, because, that wasn't the message I took away at all.

And by privilege you mean my being white?

Yes, your white privilege (http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146). I highly recommend reading this guide.

I would still like to know your ideas on racism vs discrimination though.

Sorry, I meant to answer your question in my previous reply. I'll just c&p what's found in the link above about the key differences in discriminating against POC vs. whites:

"The same power dynamics that create privilege have created a hierarchy of prejudice so that discrimination against a privileged group is not the same as discrimination against a non-privileged group. This is because discrimination against a non-privileged group is backed up with institutionalized power, whereas discrimination against a privileged group is often a singular act and therefore easier to avoid."