*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

Re: let me get all esoteric

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I just skimmed over it because well, I really found it hard to read.

But the 'ideal' of American interpretation of Taoism isn't the one I'm familiar with.

Russell Kirkland is essentially trying to define something that Lao Tzu said wasn't definable, to say something 'isn't' means you have to show what 'is'. And the point is, nobody knows what it 'is'.

I'll be honest, I'm not really comfortable in debating Taoism as some academic subject, because I can't say what it is, there are a about 50 chapters in the Tao Te Ching that still confuse me, and a good 10 that....I'm almost certain I know what it means, but sometimes I'm not sure.

And I've read over 15 translations. Chuang Tzu, oh man, yeah, look up esoteric in the dictionary and you'll get his name. It's hard work, I find the Bible easy, I find the Koran easy. The Tao Te Ching is hard*

(and I wish I could come up with a way to describe it as hard, but it's not something that comes easily..)

In some ways, I find the essay very hypocritical in the extreme, even the heading, is just well, it's contradictory.

But I'm not university educated, and not learned in the ways of debating, so I am probably missing something there. As far as cultural appropriation, that I would have to disagree with, the Tao Te Ching isn't some super secret document for a secret society in the depths of China (the nation that it was produced in, doesn't exist anymore either), it's for everyone to read, and everyone to decide on, just the same as the Bible, or the Koran, or the Torah.

Re: let me get all esoteric

[alias_sqbr]

I'm sorry if it's inaccurate or didactic with regards to Tao, like I said I don't know anything on the subject, so I'm definitely not going to argue that he was right! What he was saying did match my experiences with a Wiccan friend of mine's amazingly blase attitude to appropriating bits of other culture's religions (he once argued that american indian shamans refusing to share their rituals was elitist) but since all the other Wiccans I know disown him he's probably not indicative of their general attitudes either.

Re: let me get all esoteric

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

Heh, if you want to chat (and I understand if you don't) I'm on gmail now, so if you email me (danamaree is my username) send me an email (if you have a gmail account too obviously).