dipping a toe in the water: safe spaces

[tielan]

Writing The Other/Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of DOOM '09 - links put together by the amazingly talented and patient rydra_wong.

And a link of continuation from coffeeandink, in which she describes how two of the people who got defensive about the Rights Of Whites try to out her real name, obfuscate her arguments, and tell lies about her past.

My point of interest from her post:

sf fandom is so insular, so white-focused, and so white-dominated that some of the people involved can ignore the literally dozens of people involved in an argument about race, the literally hundreds of posts made, out of a conviction that race is not the issue when people of color say it is, or out of the conviction that there are no people of color who argue about sf fandom online because people of color generally do not attend sf conventions

Emphasis is mine.

What worries me is less that RaceFail09 is still going, and more that someone thought that personalised hassling and targeting was acceptable behaviour simply because the target disagreed with them.

What worries me still more is that the two people targeting coffeeandink are probably scaring people of colour out of fandom, sci-fi publishing, and even out of voicing their own opinions.

Where is the safe space for people of colour?

Clearly, it's not fandom, because this shit has followed coffeeandink into fandom and out of it again, and real-life holds more than enough examples of racefail to make anyone who isn't white grimace as they go through their day.

If online fandom is white people's safe space, where they can be as "post-racial" as they like (eg. "we have a black president! That means that there is no longer racism!" "I don't write about non-whites as real people in my fanfic, but that's because there aren't any important non-whites to write about in canon!" "I'm not racist, but I don't think that coloured people should get to say when they're being discriminated against!") then where is the safe space for people of colour?

Don't people of colour have a right to feel safe and unchallenged when speaking out about our experiences, our lives, our disappointments, our anger?

While the verbal answer to this question might be "Yes, of course they do!" from the majority of fandom, certain corners of fandom's behaviour reinforces the, "No, coloured people don't have a right to a safe space," attitude - not least in the behaviour of Will Sh*tterly and Kathryn Cra*er and their supporters.

Comments

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

Don't people of colour have a right to feel safe and unchallenged when speaking out about our experiences, our lives, our disappointments, our anger?

YES. You so fucking do.

And I can tailor my behavior to reinforce that against these people. I will do what it takes.

[tielan]

Thank you.

I think the problem is the old one of "silence means assent". Namely that in a situation like this, it's not enough to sit quietly on the sidelines.

I don't have the arguments to enter the debate, but I hope that by making these posts, I can persuade people who mightn't even look to see what's happening beyond their own backyard that they could play a small part, too - whether it's examining their own beliefs and attitudes in the matter of race, encouraging the people who are out there arguing the debate, or even going in there to say to people like the Hayden-Nielsens, Shetterly's, and Cramer's: This is unacceptable behaviour and we will not stand for it.

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

Yep. I can't keep my mouth shut. I don't care to. It seems like a betrayal of my own values, not to mention-- a betrayal of people who deserve any backup I can offer.