*insert less self conscious title here*

[sqbr]

I'm pretty sure I've said this before but I was probably obscuringly wordy about it so (lol, not like this post): I choose to use my lj to talk about social justice (especially race) a moderate amount.

I think this is the right thing for me to do for various reasons and will argue against anyone who says it isn't.

But that doesn't mean I think you all should do it, and are bad people if you don't. People use their ljs for different things, and are suited to different types of conversation, and have different focii and numbers of spoons.

And I don't assume that level of posting = level of caring or level of action outside lj. That certainly isn't true of me.

Also I am TOTALLY not in a position to be smug about how I'm Making The World Better.

For a start, I'm a lot worse at actually speaking up to people one-on-one or taking any real life action than I am about making vague lj posts. And many of those posts are, in retrospect, full of ill-thought-out crap (that's kind of the point: I say my crap opinions and you tell me why I'm wrong) And I am still, despite my best intentions, kind of racist.

And then when you get to other Important Causes (the environment for example) well..let's just change the subject.

On the whole I do think australians and fans etc as a group should pay more attention to this stuff. But that doesn't necessarily translate linearly to more lj posts, and certainly doesn't mean I can be all judgmental about any individual's choice(*).

It kind of relates back to my previous post about judging people I guess. (And, as it came out in comments, the fact that I tend to err on the side of "assuming the best of people")

Oh and if you're curious where this came from, there's been a flurry of "I feel pressured to talk about RaceFail09" posts and in general I get the feeling every now and then that people feel like I'm Judging them. (Which I am, sometimes, but not mentioning particular topics on your lj is not one of the things I get judgey about :))

I have a sneaking suspicion this all comes off as horribly pompous, but I'd rather look like a self important idiot than inadvertently make people feel guilty when I don't mean to.


And while I'm at it: If you feel like you should be doing something but don't think posting is it, here are some positive easy somewhat-fannish anti-racist things (3 of which I discovered in the past 2 days :)):
verb_noire (who are taking donations), racism_101, 50books_poc, 12films_poc and The Indigenous Literacy Project.

(*)Ok, if you write a long rant about how racism doesn't exist or whatever, I will be pretty judgmental about it. Just so you know. But hopefully you get my point :)

Comments

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

I consider you a friend, therefore of course I care about what you think of me.

However, I'm pretty sure you don't think I'm a racist, so.

(As far as the RaceFail posting pressure things go - I really don't feel the need, personally, because if someone doesn't know me well enough to make a call on whether I'm a racist or not, they don't know me well enough for me to care about their opinions, and if they do know me better than that, I think my record of behaviour speaks better and more convincingly than any post I might make to LJ.)

[alias_sqbr]

You know, I realise that "Assuming you care about my opinion" ended up working in a "fishing for compliments" sort of way *edits wording* Because obviously you guys care somewhat about my opinions, or you wouldn't put up with all these huge tl;dr rambles :)