Fail here there and everywhere

[sqbr]

I am feeling sick and grumpy but also chatty. So, some links from metafandom with rambly commentary.

Failboat! The Cruise Ship of the Damned Sails On summarises a bunch of stuff.

veejane asks what sff fandom is going to do about this crap.

On safe spaces talks about, well, safe spaces.

Re the Will Shetterly/Kathyryn Cramer vs coffeeandink thing(*): outing someone under their real name because they disagreed with you and banned you from their lj? Is unbelievably low. Dismissing the opinions of everyone who disagrees with you "because all their IPs come from Ivy league colleges"? Low and stupid. Arguing against the use of pseudonyms on the internet? Just..argh. The stupid burns.

Also, given that Worldcon is in Australia next year I find myself putting together my opinions on aussie fandom with all this stuff going on in international fandom. I feel a bit stymied about what I can do personally to try to cut down on the fail, though, apart from trying not to contribute to it myself and encouraging anti-fail.

So since coffeeandink asked people to focus on positive things: I am currently reading "Devil in Blue Dress" by Walter Mosley after being recced it on 50books_poc. It is quite good, even if it's not spec fic :)

(*)People are avoiding saying their names because apparently they google stalk and harrass them, but if NOONE says their names noone will know whose been talked about. I feel too obscure to be worried, but incase they do: seriously, you're going to pick on a no-name australian rambling while sick? This will not help your PR.

Comments

Re: A burst of predictable curmudgeonry

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Do not tell someone who experiences racism that it's not that big of a deal, or imply that them focussing on it is somehow selfish or insular.
I specifically said it was I was speaking from my position as someone who doesn't experience racism, and that I'd feel differently (and by implication act differently) if I did. And I meant that. I'm certainly not arguing that focussing on racism that affects you personally is in anyway wrong -- that would be both callous and pointless. And I also made it explicit that my greater interest in focussing on central Australian issues than fannish ones is a result of my personal experience, and I put most of the arguments specifically in terms of what I personally thought was worthwhile for me, and please don't try to deny the validity of my personal experience, thanks.

I do think that focussing on racism in fandom will always be the middle class focussing on the issues that effect the middle class. And while I acknowledge that people will always want to focus on issues that effect them and this personal connection to the issues is vital, and while there is no perfect answer to the general issue of the progressive middle class focussing on the issues that effect the progressive middle class (and there has always got to be some appropriate balance, these issues can never be ignored), I do think it is a big problem with progressive movements generally, and I'm hardly alone in this, and focussing on issues within fandom seems to pretty clearly be an example.

And I certainly have personally experienced the way being middle class can focus you on issues that effect the middle class (given my past in student politics and my work with the EFA, you could argue that its pretty much all my activist activity so far) and I, personally, am trying to break out of that. I'm not arguing that everyone else should, just being curmudgeonly about having my attention dragged back to my own backyard.

Re: A burst of predictable curmudgeonry

[alias_sqbr]

First off, see Point 2 here (the pdf is also very good)

Noone is saying your experiences aren't valid. The point is, they're not relevant, not to this conversation (feel free to write a post about it on your on lj if you want). And your opinion (and mine) is less valid than Stephie's. White people simply don't get to decide if things are racist or not.

Also:
I think it's important to fight racism in fandom as well as other sorts of racism. While I think the racism suffered by poor POC is extra specially in need of attention, I get annoyed at the way left wing people think fighting racism=fighting class and ignore the racism suffered by middle class POC and POC associated with the middle class like asians. I've spent much of the past few years getting past the narrow if well meaning attitudes towards race I got from my working class socialist family, and get annoyed when I feel like others are acting the same way.

Imagine this:
You write a post about how people should get more involved in helping remote aboriginal communities.

What I would do:
Either say something supportive or helpful, or say nothing.

What I would not do:
Reply saying I think our energy would be more effectively spent fighting racism in fandom.

An aboriginal person comes in to say that racism in remote aboriginal communities is pretty bad and deserves more attention.

I reply saying that ok, yes, I'm white, but afaict the issue is more to do with blah(*), and I get annoyed at the way anti-racism gets taken over by socialist agendas.

Can you see how wrong that would be? Can you see how your statement is equivalent?

(*)I would have to make up something I don't believe here, and I don't have the stomach for it.