Taking Time for RaceFail09

[chomiji]

I have not been posting here very much, and I am way behind in replies. A fair amount of my online time has been taken up with the RaceFail09 situation. I am having a lot of trouble looking away. The draw is irresistible enough that I really have to be careful at work. On Friday, I took a little break before the final push of the day, and when I looked up, it was time to go. So I had to spend the first 90 minutes of what should have been the weekend making up for it.

Part of this is the "train wreck" fascination. There were a number of people involved in this situation - authors, columnists, editors - who use communication as their means of earning a living. And yet somehow they were managing to dig themselves deeper and deeper with every statement (summary here). But the main part of it is the eloquence of the people who have either been hurt by this or outraged by this or both.

My confession here: I am a privileged person. We own our home, in an interesting, diverse neighborhood that we chose because we could. My 17-year-old car is dying, but there's no question that we will be able to replace it. Our daughter goes to the public schools, but we were savvy and connected enough to make sure she took advantage of every special program for which she qualified. My health has become compromised recently, but we have health insurance, and can afford the treatments I need. And although I am a member of a minority (Jewish), my pale skin and non-Jewish surname mean that the daily indignities often suffered by POC in this country are pretty much alien to my actual experience.

And yes, these indignities still happen. Despite the fact that an African American man now leads our nation, hate crimes and lesser but no less meaningful insults happen all too often to people who don't look the way some people think an American should. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports 62 hate crimes around the nation already this year (as of this posting). Some of these were not racial - crimes against GLBT people are included, for example - but most were. And these are only chargeable crimes that have been reported. All sorts of lesser nastiness certainly exists, as well: these crimes don't come out of nowhere. So it's very strange to me that some people have reacted to this whole business with a "so what?" and claim that all this stuff is no longer an issue.

Not only that: I thought we were fandom. I thought we understood what it was like to have others single us out for humiliation because we were different. I thought we were supposed to be forward-thinking and hang together, drawn by our common interests. And I was naive, because we're not. In fact, there seem to be those who would say I'm naive to think that there's even a "we" involved at all.

Last August, I turned 50. AARP has sent me a membership card. If I were to stop coloring my hair, it would be almost completely white. Sometimes it seems I get the terrifying feeling that I'm running out of time. But there's still enough time to spend on things that really matter. Some really powerful and beautiful things have been said, and I've also learned a lot. These are some of the things I've gained and want to keep:

• A fascinating article on "aversive racism": Color Blind or Just Plain Blind?
• The R-Word (by asim)
• Sees Fire (by bossymarmalade)
• Racefail '09: point and counterpoint - a point by point comparison by stoneself of bossymarmalade's "Sees Fire" post with the post that inspired it
• Writers of Color 50 Book Challenge (an online reading club ... yes, I already posted a link to this)
• verb_noire (a nascent magazine with a mission "To celebrate the works of talented, underrepresented authors and deliver them to a readership that demands more")
• Fighting the Derail Since March 2009 (a community with a mission to be "a central location for the benefit of those who want to continue the conversations about cultural appropriation, racial diversity and multiculturalism in SFF fiction and fandom, racism in ditto, and its intersectionality with other oppressions")

For more, the true archive is kept by the amazing and dedicated rydra_wong.

Edited to fix wonky links. Thanks, stoneself!

Comments

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you were almost fifty! Not that it's a bad thing, I'm just-- see the assumptions we make, again. :D

The surprise, alas, that us being 'fandom' and sticking together was not the same as mine; I've read too much about the early days of feminism to entertain that illusion, alas. But at least we have each other in a smaller, friendlier sense.

[chomiji]

Actually, I'm already 50 ... I was born the same year NASA was! It's all this manga reading and fellow fangirl company that are youthening me.

I think it's a sad shock to me almost every time, how far away someone else can be, mentally and emotionally, even when they share my interests. It's been so seldom, until these past two years on LJ, that I've found other people - especially other women - who like the sorts of things that I do.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I think my brain would've died long ago without the Internet, honestly.

[nic]

I thought we understood what it was like to have others single us out for humiliation because we were different.

I used to think so too. But the most vicious 'attacks' on me, the cruellest people, have been by people who were fans I thought were friends. There's an immature, group mentality out there which is very sad, and the reason I don't let myself get too close to people simply because we love the same shows.

(Here via metafandom, hi.)

[chomiji]

Hi! Welcome!

I think that fandom can also attract people who are not very well socialized, and that can lead to the sort of experiences you've had. I'm so sorry that's happened to you.

[nic]

That's a good point - we do have people in fandom who don't have a lot of life/people experience.

I was reading this again tonight and recognising so many of the traits, formerly in myself and definitely in others.

http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html