Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Mar. 15th, 2009 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theotherlexSorry for lack of glee posts. I have four day weekends, so it does all kind of blur together. I had fish and chips for my main meal on Friday (I like to refer to it as dinner and eat it at about 1pm). That was after chatting to P and L over Skype, which happened after the room viewing. I got a text from my landlord yesterday thanking me for the house being tidy, because it so hasn't been the previous two viewing. Another viewing tomorrow afternoon - I'll probably be at or on my way to Pilates.
Saturday I bought food. It was fun. Pesto, yum. Even yummier: Pesto and cheese and tomato on a tortilla and microwaved!
Today was a brilliant Spring day. The kind of day that makes you think, oh, yeah, it's coming up on the end of the yeah, hey, Christmas is in the future now, instead of in the past. Sadly, this is not actually the case at the moment. However, Easter-y things are making much sense than they ever have before.
I have been spending too much and not enough time reading about is being referred to as RaceFail 09. I'm still having a bit of trouble getting my head around the extent of the Fail, so I thought that I could summarise it briefly for anyone interested in the dynamics of online fandom, or race and racism in Science Fiction and Fantasy works, or (political) Privilege in general.
There is always, somewhere, a new post about the presentation of characters of color (I'm using the American term of non-white characters, characters of non-majority ethnic backgrounds) because the debate is American-centric (more so than often because the catalysing posts were about a book set in modern day America).
The most recent round, or explosion of livejournal and other blog posts about the issues and about the other posts about the issues, started in January.
Elizabeth Bear, a writer whose livejournal I've followed and whose work I've enjoyed, wrote a post on how to "write the Other" - how to write characters of color. It was half good and half bad. It said, basically, that people of color are people and have all the idiosyncratic characters of anyone and therefore they shouldn't be stereotypes. But it ignored what I later worked out was the other half of the equation - making sure that the character's journey is not a stereotypical one.
A blogger, a Science Fiction reader who is a woman of color, called Willow from the blog Seeking Avalon, wrote a post directly in response to E Bear's post making the point that E Bear's book Blood and Iron (which I read in New York, which is where the book is set), perpetuated a nasty stereotype about Black men and Black men's relationships with white women. Willow's reaction to the initial introduction of the characters was enough for her to give up on reading the rest of the book.
E Bear responded to that saying that she was sorry, that she tried always to subvert those stereotypes and that she hoped that, had Willow read the rest of the story, she would have felt that the stereotypical story arc had been avoided.
People posted comments to Bear's apology calling Willow names.
Sarah Monette, a friend and sometimes a co-writer of Bear's, and another author whose work I've enjoyed, also wrote a post on the issue. She said (without seeing to realise the contradiction here) that she wanted to disagree with Willow because Bear was her friend and that she disagreed with Willow because Willow had misunderstood the stereotype. The Black character in the book was a kelpie, from Irish mythology, and Bear was playing off that myth, not off the stereotypes of African-American men. (I'm not sure that this matters: the fact that stories about the danger Black men present to white women, and their enslavement by white women are older than European enslavement of African peoples doesn't make the story less problematic in a modern context.)
People posted comments to Monette's post implying that Willow was not educated enough, not sophisticated enough, not rational enough, not smart enough, to properly read and react to Bear's work. The fact that she had been unable to bring herself to read the rest of the book was evidence, apparently, of Willow's vindictiveness and ignorance, rather than evidence of Bear's inability to cover all her bases in ensuring that she did not inadvertently perpetuate racists stereotypes or offend people of color.
Since then, Bear has said that she didn't really mean the first apology, she was trying to set an example of how to engage with fans of color (by lying? that's how people are supposed to behave?). She also asked everyone to please stop talking about it for a couple months. Then other authors connected a prominent white ally fan's livejournal username with her legal name. A few professional authors have also been trying a lot of derail the debate to talk about what is the proper medium for such a discussion, and how fans of color are mean or vindictive or classist, and other things that show that they just don't get it.
Meanwhile, many fans of color and white allies having writing a lot of about the history of presentations of race in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and how racism affects the daily lives of fans of color generally and within SF&F fandom, and how characters of color are marginalised and stereotyped in current Science Fiction and Fantasy works, and have been doing things like setting up a small press to showcase works featuring minority characters and a fanfund to help fans of color get to conventions.
I've learnt a lot and thought a lot. But, it's a little like learning a lot about disaster management: really not worth the pain caused by the events you're learning from.
I won't be buying any more books by Elizabeth Bear or Sarah Monette in the foreseeable future.
Today I cleaned the kitchen. Tomorrow I look forward to sleeping in and going to pilates and resuming regular glee posts.
Saturday I bought food. It was fun. Pesto, yum. Even yummier: Pesto and cheese and tomato on a tortilla and microwaved!
Today was a brilliant Spring day. The kind of day that makes you think, oh, yeah, it's coming up on the end of the yeah, hey, Christmas is in the future now, instead of in the past. Sadly, this is not actually the case at the moment. However, Easter-y things are making much sense than they ever have before.
I have been spending too much and not enough time reading about is being referred to as RaceFail 09. I'm still having a bit of trouble getting my head around the extent of the Fail, so I thought that I could summarise it briefly for anyone interested in the dynamics of online fandom, or race and racism in Science Fiction and Fantasy works, or (political) Privilege in general.
There is always, somewhere, a new post about the presentation of characters of color (I'm using the American term of non-white characters, characters of non-majority ethnic backgrounds) because the debate is American-centric (more so than often because the catalysing posts were about a book set in modern day America).
The most recent round, or explosion of livejournal and other blog posts about the issues and about the other posts about the issues, started in January.
Elizabeth Bear, a writer whose livejournal I've followed and whose work I've enjoyed, wrote a post on how to "write the Other" - how to write characters of color. It was half good and half bad. It said, basically, that people of color are people and have all the idiosyncratic characters of anyone and therefore they shouldn't be stereotypes. But it ignored what I later worked out was the other half of the equation - making sure that the character's journey is not a stereotypical one.
A blogger, a Science Fiction reader who is a woman of color, called Willow from the blog Seeking Avalon, wrote a post directly in response to E Bear's post making the point that E Bear's book Blood and Iron (which I read in New York, which is where the book is set), perpetuated a nasty stereotype about Black men and Black men's relationships with white women. Willow's reaction to the initial introduction of the characters was enough for her to give up on reading the rest of the book.
E Bear responded to that saying that she was sorry, that she tried always to subvert those stereotypes and that she hoped that, had Willow read the rest of the story, she would have felt that the stereotypical story arc had been avoided.
People posted comments to Bear's apology calling Willow names.
Sarah Monette, a friend and sometimes a co-writer of Bear's, and another author whose work I've enjoyed, also wrote a post on the issue. She said (without seeing to realise the contradiction here) that she wanted to disagree with Willow because Bear was her friend and that she disagreed with Willow because Willow had misunderstood the stereotype. The Black character in the book was a kelpie, from Irish mythology, and Bear was playing off that myth, not off the stereotypes of African-American men. (I'm not sure that this matters: the fact that stories about the danger Black men present to white women, and their enslavement by white women are older than European enslavement of African peoples doesn't make the story less problematic in a modern context.)
People posted comments to Monette's post implying that Willow was not educated enough, not sophisticated enough, not rational enough, not smart enough, to properly read and react to Bear's work. The fact that she had been unable to bring herself to read the rest of the book was evidence, apparently, of Willow's vindictiveness and ignorance, rather than evidence of Bear's inability to cover all her bases in ensuring that she did not inadvertently perpetuate racists stereotypes or offend people of color.
Since then, Bear has said that she didn't really mean the first apology, she was trying to set an example of how to engage with fans of color (by lying? that's how people are supposed to behave?). She also asked everyone to please stop talking about it for a couple months. Then other authors connected a prominent white ally fan's livejournal username with her legal name. A few professional authors have also been trying a lot of derail the debate to talk about what is the proper medium for such a discussion, and how fans of color are mean or vindictive or classist, and other things that show that they just don't get it.
Meanwhile, many fans of color and white allies having writing a lot of about the history of presentations of race in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and how racism affects the daily lives of fans of color generally and within SF&F fandom, and how characters of color are marginalised and stereotyped in current Science Fiction and Fantasy works, and have been doing things like setting up a small press to showcase works featuring minority characters and a fanfund to help fans of color get to conventions.
I've learnt a lot and thought a lot. But, it's a little like learning a lot about disaster management: really not worth the pain caused by the events you're learning from.
I won't be buying any more books by Elizabeth Bear or Sarah Monette in the foreseeable future.
Today I cleaned the kitchen. Tomorrow I look forward to sleeping in and going to pilates and resuming regular glee posts.
