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drewkittyI've been following bits and pieces of RaceFail 2009 with a degree of interest.
It is all![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vito_excalibur's fault that I am doing so, by the way. Her thought-provoking, insightful posts are appreciated by at least this particular reader, even though I reserve the right to almost entirely disagree with anything she says. With respect.
I am a white racist thug. I mean different things than the norm by each of these words, but taken in concert and filing off the serial numbers, it's close enough to the truth for most values of progressivism and all values of harassment. So none of this is about me; it's all about the RaceFail. IMAO, a Good Thing (TM). Here's why:
1. The Internet does not carry race as a tag. So it is not obvious to all parties concerned whether a particular commenter, poster, etc. is white (well, pink) or black (well, closer to mocha or teak) or any other color unless the information is volunteered, UNLESS THEY ASK or in the case of famous/notorious persons, work to Google it up. This has resulted in all sorts of thought-provoking argument and not a few cases of drama caused by mistaken identity. Friendly fire isn't. However, these discussions would not take place the same way, if at all, face to face or in a panel discussion.
2. Valuable works of art and culture are not necessarily the products of good people. I've read a lot of books written by jerks and Not Very Nice people. A point well worth remembering, as one reads Mein Kampf if one is fighting Nazis. Dead White Males set up a lot of the power structures in this society. Study up. Everyone.
3. Science fiction fandom has had its collective nose rubbed in the obvious gap between our egalitarian fantasies and our elitist realities. No, People of Color are NOT going to go away. Why should they? As many of them have eloquently pointed out, it's Their Fandom just as much as anyone else's. We'll all be People of Color soon, if we aren't already. (White people in California are people of color in an alien land. If you don't know or believe this, read up on some history. Start with the Mexican-American War and work both forward and backwards.)
4. The formation of a great community, http://community.livejournal.com/50books_poc/ in which the contributions of people_of_color are being recognized. (If one listens closely, little cries of "Oh!" and "Aha!" can be heard in that direction. Each one is a blow against racism and xenophobia.)
5. The "Aliens" are here. They are reading your LJ. They are commenting on your works. THEY ARE TAKING OVER YOUR FANDOM. Deal with it. In a fandom so obsessed with visions of "The Other," it is downright disheartening to see some people react so boorishly when The Other takes a seat at the table, as if by right.
6. Some of our greatest science fiction writers, editors and other heroes have serious Feet Of Clay. So do you, and her, and him, and the guys down the hall, and the editors at [Publishing House.] A valuable life lesson.
7. RaceFail 2009 is a massive discussion of race and culture issues which I figured would never happen in my lifetime. Summary of links is here. It's about time! I may disagree with much of what is said in the debate, but it's overwhelming more important that We're Finally Having The Discussion.
8. A lot of Overt Racism (TM) in science fiction can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s eugenics movement. This was not quite as fully discredited as one might think by World War II. John Campbell, a man of many controversial views who helped shape science fiction into what it is today, is one big reason why. No less a luminary than Robert A. Heinlein has put his foot in his mouth over the nature-nurture argument. To quote Lazarus Long,
“In my early days it was an article of faith among a self-styled ‘intellectual elite’ that they could teach calculus to a horse…if they started early enough, spent enough money, supplied special tutoring, and were endlessly patient and always careful not to bruise his equine ego. They were so sincere that it seems downright ungrateful that the horse always persisted in being a horse. Especially as they were right..if ’starting early enough’ is defined as a million years or more.” [This quote is both Fair Use and political speech, folks.]
LL and RAH are not talking about horses. Racism: it's in your fandom and After Your Children! Been there for many years. So stop shooting the messenger(s) already.
I remain a big Heinlein fan. He wrote believable, tough female characters long before it was fashionable or politically correct to do so. Two of his most controversial early novels were steeped in race issues: Sixth Column and Farnham's Freehold. Just as Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huckleberry Finn have shifted in the cultural tides of the 20th century from controversial anti-slavery novels to controversially racist novels, Heinlein's works show how much society has changed in a mere sixty years.
9. "Knowledge is infinite. Your life is finite." Someone's WRONG on the Internet. Especially me. OK, deal with it. Now go live your life, hug your loved ones, and get over it now. Disengagement is a perfectly valid strategy. For everyone, even Elizabeth Bear. (Although declaring a cease fire knowing that one has provoked a breaking of it is a classic reverse Pearl Harbor move.)
10. White people are sneaky bastards. Machiavelli. So are non-white people. Sun Tzu. Generalization based on the race, gender, ethnicity, social class or standing, or life experience of a person is often fallacious and denies a central mythology of science fiction . . . the ability to rise above and be so exceptional, so smart and so competent.
It is all
vito_excalibur's fault that I am doing so, by the way. Her thought-provoking, insightful posts are appreciated by at least this particular reader, even though I reserve the right to almost entirely disagree with anything she says. With respect.I am a white racist thug. I mean different things than the norm by each of these words, but taken in concert and filing off the serial numbers, it's close enough to the truth for most values of progressivism and all values of harassment. So none of this is about me; it's all about the RaceFail. IMAO, a Good Thing (TM). Here's why:
1. The Internet does not carry race as a tag. So it is not obvious to all parties concerned whether a particular commenter, poster, etc. is white (well, pink) or black (well, closer to mocha or teak) or any other color unless the information is volunteered, UNLESS THEY ASK or in the case of famous/notorious persons, work to Google it up. This has resulted in all sorts of thought-provoking argument and not a few cases of drama caused by mistaken identity. Friendly fire isn't. However, these discussions would not take place the same way, if at all, face to face or in a panel discussion.
2. Valuable works of art and culture are not necessarily the products of good people. I've read a lot of books written by jerks and Not Very Nice people. A point well worth remembering, as one reads Mein Kampf if one is fighting Nazis. Dead White Males set up a lot of the power structures in this society. Study up. Everyone.
3. Science fiction fandom has had its collective nose rubbed in the obvious gap between our egalitarian fantasies and our elitist realities. No, People of Color are NOT going to go away. Why should they? As many of them have eloquently pointed out, it's Their Fandom just as much as anyone else's. We'll all be People of Color soon, if we aren't already. (White people in California are people of color in an alien land. If you don't know or believe this, read up on some history. Start with the Mexican-American War and work both forward and backwards.)
4. The formation of a great community, http://community.livejournal.com/50books_poc/ in which the contributions of people_of_color are being recognized. (If one listens closely, little cries of "Oh!" and "Aha!" can be heard in that direction. Each one is a blow against racism and xenophobia.)
5. The "Aliens" are here. They are reading your LJ. They are commenting on your works. THEY ARE TAKING OVER YOUR FANDOM. Deal with it. In a fandom so obsessed with visions of "The Other," it is downright disheartening to see some people react so boorishly when The Other takes a seat at the table, as if by right.
6. Some of our greatest science fiction writers, editors and other heroes have serious Feet Of Clay. So do you, and her, and him, and the guys down the hall, and the editors at [Publishing House.] A valuable life lesson.
7. RaceFail 2009 is a massive discussion of race and culture issues which I figured would never happen in my lifetime. Summary of links is here. It's about time! I may disagree with much of what is said in the debate, but it's overwhelming more important that We're Finally Having The Discussion.
8. A lot of Overt Racism (TM) in science fiction can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s eugenics movement. This was not quite as fully discredited as one might think by World War II. John Campbell, a man of many controversial views who helped shape science fiction into what it is today, is one big reason why. No less a luminary than Robert A. Heinlein has put his foot in his mouth over the nature-nurture argument. To quote Lazarus Long,
“In my early days it was an article of faith among a self-styled ‘intellectual elite’ that they could teach calculus to a horse…if they started early enough, spent enough money, supplied special tutoring, and were endlessly patient and always careful not to bruise his equine ego. They were so sincere that it seems downright ungrateful that the horse always persisted in being a horse. Especially as they were right..if ’starting early enough’ is defined as a million years or more.” [This quote is both Fair Use and political speech, folks.]
LL and RAH are not talking about horses. Racism: it's in your fandom and After Your Children! Been there for many years. So stop shooting the messenger(s) already.
I remain a big Heinlein fan. He wrote believable, tough female characters long before it was fashionable or politically correct to do so. Two of his most controversial early novels were steeped in race issues: Sixth Column and Farnham's Freehold. Just as Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huckleberry Finn have shifted in the cultural tides of the 20th century from controversial anti-slavery novels to controversially racist novels, Heinlein's works show how much society has changed in a mere sixty years.
9. "Knowledge is infinite. Your life is finite." Someone's WRONG on the Internet. Especially me. OK, deal with it. Now go live your life, hug your loved ones, and get over it now. Disengagement is a perfectly valid strategy. For everyone, even Elizabeth Bear. (Although declaring a cease fire knowing that one has provoked a breaking of it is a classic reverse Pearl Harbor move.)
10. White people are sneaky bastards. Machiavelli. So are non-white people. Sun Tzu. Generalization based on the race, gender, ethnicity, social class or standing, or life experience of a person is often fallacious and denies a central mythology of science fiction . . . the ability to rise above and be so exceptional, so smart and so competent.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 01:16 am (UTC)Back when SF was the He Man Girl Haters Club and acted like girls had icky cooties, it certainly didn't acknowledge that women might read the stuff, and those who did probably didn't appreciate being told that they didn't exist, or were so unimportant that they never appeared in the story.
Tangent: while Joss Whedon put brown people into Firefly/Serenity, it kind of creeps me out that, with all the Chinese language and cultural references, there are no visible Asian people. Was every Asian actor and extra in Hollywood just booked solid on other projects during the making of the show and the film? Or did casting brown people for the Zoe, Book, and Government Assassin roles fill the Nonwhite People Quota and leave no room for any yellow people to help fight the Alliance and cuss in bad Mandarin?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 05:44 am (UTC)Suffice to say that when I said "no one in fandom wants non-white people to go away", I was thinking of current, active fans, not golden and silver age authors. The issues may exist in modern published SF to some degree, but as above, I do not have spoons enough to do more than refine my statement.