...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

[ryf.livejournal.com]

I read and try to internalize most posts on the subject, but I am seriously way too nervous to every comment because I don't want to be flamed. My experiences as a European from a country where I see a black person maybe three times a day and the main racism is against a completely different group (Turkish and Eastern European people) with a completely different history behind it than in the US sometimes seems too different to comment in a meaningful way on POC in a pre-dominantly US/UK/Australian-centric fandom. I am afraid of saying something that might come across as offensive, even after years of reading those kind of posts. Not being a native speaker does not help with terminology, for example. Yes, I was still taught 'coloured' was an appropriate, not offensive term (it still is in the UK, I think?). Imagine just what the reaction to that would have been had I used it in a fandom debate...

[thelana.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder if there is a particular racism trigger for Germans/former Nazi states. Because it at least feels to me like we are disproportionately represented in the current race discussion (usually with versions of "racism is important, but the way we relate to it and what it means to us is very different").

Or maybe I just see us/hints of us more.

[ryf.livejournal.com]

I am not sure where you are going with that comment, but I am also very tired right now :) So I'll ramble a bit more and hope nothing offensive comes out, as I always do in these posts.

I think especially Germans have grown up with an internalized guilt about any kind of oppression. It makes it difficult to discuss anything objectively. No one really blames today's living white US-Americans for slavery (and no one should, though the history obviously means a lot of problems), but since WWII is 'only' two generations in the past, it is still very much present today, even for people like me who are two generations removed from it. It's difficult to debate it without really wanting not be come across as an 'evil Nazi'.

And also, the way racism manifests is just so different here. The whole discrimination of people because of their race/religion (Jews, people from Islamic countries) instead of on race and the way things currently are with the Turkish communities... it just is different from the way I hear about it from US-Americans. I don't know what's worse neither can I judge that nor should there be a hierarchy. There are no affirmative actions for minorities at colleges for example, only a handful minority politicians, but there is also not centuries of bad history standing between the groups. So yeah, different starting point.

And no, I don't really know what i wanted to say with that.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

Not really going anywhere :) I have just been reading a bunch of the discussion posts and going through the comments I had a bunch of "Ah, a German!" or "Wow, didn't realize he/she was German too". (is it just me or does it sometimes feel like we can sometimes be sort of "in the closet" about being German?)

Which makes me wonder whether they really gravitate more to these posts or if they just "jump my eye" more.

Turkish representation in Germany is a strange thing. Maybe I should do a pondery post about it in my journal once. :) Not here of course since it would be kinda off topic/defeating the purpose of the entry ;D

[ryf.livejournal.com]

I've actually never really seen anyone who outright said they were German in those discussions. Though I usually only read a couple of post (those on my f-list and a few I am linked to) each time the subject is raised in fandom. I see a lot of Germans in religion/Atheism debates, which is what I spend a lot of time on ;)

*trying not to hijack this post*

[tielan]

Oh, I admit that the current discussion is primarily related to the issue of race as seen by the USA (although the same issues and perspectives apply in varying ways in the UK, Australia, and Europe - heck, even in Asia: did you know that a Chinese-looking person who speaks English is less of an authority to Chinese people about many non-cultural matters than a Euro-looking person who speaks English?)

But I think that the learning experience can be replicated for all peoples when dealing with matters of race, presumptions of ownership, and the assumption of a minority ("ethnic") cultural identity by lighter-skinned people towards darker or 'coloured' ones.

I was still taught 'coloured' was an appropriate, not offensive term

Yeah, I was taught that, too. And I did I use it in a fandom discussion the first time. I still do sometimes when I forget. Usually, it takes a subsequent explanation that the term is intended from the speaker (me) as non-pejorative, and a crossout/change.