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cimoreneHere is a news story I read this morning:
(Answer: YES.) It's not suspicious for a white person to sit outside the public library waiting for it to open. Young white men aren't generally assumed by default to "possibly" have a gun in any and all circumstances, including sitting under a tree.
The events which followed are just as obviously due to a clusterfuck of racist stereotyping and institutionalized racism. The young man is now being punished for the grave offense of being a black man who didn't know that it was his place to stand there and take as much verbal harassment as a cop cared to dish out without calling him on it or walking away, and to then submit to the subsequent assault (choking from behind and pepper spray) without fighting back.
For a black man to point out that he is the victim of police harassment is generally to invite the most severe punishment the cop and his colleagues and the local judge can dish out. In this case, eleven days of solitary confinement and interrogation followed by transfer to a mental hospital for the inexplicable circumstance of being "non-responsive and disturbed" after being attacked, abused, and hunted down with dogs.
***
And that brings me to the woman who used the recent Haitian earthquake as backdrop for her J2 story.
This story has been shocking to a lot of us in fandom, but it's still just one piece in a pattern of institutionalized racism. This author was raised in a culture so saturated in racist stereotypes, racist paternalistic colonialist narratives and narrative tropes that she couldn't recognize them while reproducing them with a nauseatingly breathtaking accuracy and profusion. The racism she's been surrounded by every day of her life led directly to this story: the lack of characters of color, the fact that they are never the main characters, the twisted and biased representations of them. And all those racist things the story is saying are the same things being said everywhere else in our culture (Transformers and Iron Man, just to name a few blockbusters my brothers-in-law have refused to admit were less than awesome when I criticized them on grounds of racism).
These racist stories have real, concrete consequences, because racism has real consequences for the people who are constantly harassed and assaulted and arrested for standing/ sitting under a tree/ driving/ trying to get on a plane while anything other than white. In the news story above, someone no doubt very much like the author of this story, someone who probably didn't know they were racist, saw a young black man sitting outside the public library under a tree in the morning, and instead of thinking he wanted to read a book, they thought that he was lurking dangerously or stalking the elementary school across the street or some shit and that he possibly had a gun, because isn't that what black men do?
Racism isn't just the cop who strangled the boy from behind when he was walking away from verbal threats after submitting willingly to a fruitless search for weapons. Racism is also all the things that taught that caller that young black men are automatically dangerous and probably have guns. And the racist movies and books we read that spread poisonous stereotypes can do just as much harm as that cop can, because without these racist ideas being reproduced all over tv and the books we read and the books we give our children, that anonymous caller might have acted differently.
The racist tropes reproduced in this story - that author's been seeing them all her life. But what if when she was a child, and she read or watched something like this, a bunch of people had stood up then and explained what was wrong with it? Maybe she wouldn't have written that story. That's why it's important and good that fandom reacts in this way - for the people in the anon meme who commented that they didn't see anything wrong with the story at first, but after reading the other comments they got it.
facetofcathy: How could they? How could anyone?
furiosity: idefk
kanata: various links
Teen With Asperger's Arrested: Were Callers Racial Profiling?
(Answer: YES.) It's not suspicious for a white person to sit outside the public library waiting for it to open. Young white men aren't generally assumed by default to "possibly" have a gun in any and all circumstances, including sitting under a tree.
The events which followed are just as obviously due to a clusterfuck of racist stereotyping and institutionalized racism. The young man is now being punished for the grave offense of being a black man who didn't know that it was his place to stand there and take as much verbal harassment as a cop cared to dish out without calling him on it or walking away, and to then submit to the subsequent assault (choking from behind and pepper spray) without fighting back.
For a black man to point out that he is the victim of police harassment is generally to invite the most severe punishment the cop and his colleagues and the local judge can dish out. In this case, eleven days of solitary confinement and interrogation followed by transfer to a mental hospital for the inexplicable circumstance of being "non-responsive and disturbed" after being attacked, abused, and hunted down with dogs.
And that brings me to the woman who used the recent Haitian earthquake as backdrop for her J2 story.
This story has been shocking to a lot of us in fandom, but it's still just one piece in a pattern of institutionalized racism. This author was raised in a culture so saturated in racist stereotypes, racist paternalistic colonialist narratives and narrative tropes that she couldn't recognize them while reproducing them with a nauseatingly breathtaking accuracy and profusion. The racism she's been surrounded by every day of her life led directly to this story: the lack of characters of color, the fact that they are never the main characters, the twisted and biased representations of them. And all those racist things the story is saying are the same things being said everywhere else in our culture (Transformers and Iron Man, just to name a few blockbusters my brothers-in-law have refused to admit were less than awesome when I criticized them on grounds of racism).
These racist stories have real, concrete consequences, because racism has real consequences for the people who are constantly harassed and assaulted and arrested for standing/ sitting under a tree/ driving/ trying to get on a plane while anything other than white. In the news story above, someone no doubt very much like the author of this story, someone who probably didn't know they were racist, saw a young black man sitting outside the public library under a tree in the morning, and instead of thinking he wanted to read a book, they thought that he was lurking dangerously or stalking the elementary school across the street or some shit and that he possibly had a gun, because isn't that what black men do?
Racism isn't just the cop who strangled the boy from behind when he was walking away from verbal threats after submitting willingly to a fruitless search for weapons. Racism is also all the things that taught that caller that young black men are automatically dangerous and probably have guns. And the racist movies and books we read that spread poisonous stereotypes can do just as much harm as that cop can, because without these racist ideas being reproduced all over tv and the books we read and the books we give our children, that anonymous caller might have acted differently.
The racist tropes reproduced in this story - that author's been seeing them all her life. But what if when she was a child, and she read or watched something like this, a bunch of people had stood up then and explained what was wrong with it? Maybe she wouldn't have written that story. That's why it's important and good that fandom reacts in this way - for the people in the anon meme who commented that they didn't see anything wrong with the story at first, but after reading the other comments they got it.
facetofcathy: How could they? How could anyone?
"First and primarily: in order for this story to exist, a person has to be able to sit down in front of the television, watch graphic depictions of horrific tragedy, destruction, pain and death, and react as if they are watching a drama unfold for their enjoyment. [...] There has to be a disconnect between the viewer and the scenes they view, a dulling or total dissolution of empathy for the people harmed in favour of the thrill of watching events unfold in real time. The viewer has to be self-centred. The most important element of the event for them is their emotional response to the images they see on the screen, not the event itself."
furiosity: idefk
"It appears as though some folks are a bit miffed that they can no longer say (or write fiction about) stuff in a growing number of fandom spaces without having to "worry about" offending women, LGBTQ people, people of colour, the differently abled, and members of minority cultures (to name a few).
First of all, let me just say, and I mean this so very sincerely that I will even forgo a sparkly penis background to avoid completely trivialising the message of this very personal opinion of mine:
TOUGH SHIT, CUPCAKE."
kanata: various links
"
I checked the rules post for the fest. Following is a list of ways the mods already "censor" what people can create:1. Stories must have a minimum length of 20,000 words. There is no maximum length.
3. The central story element must focus on characters from Supernatural OR on Jared and/or Jensen.
3a. In Supernatural fics, at least one character must be a canon character (one seen on-screen). Any Supernatural pairing is allowed.
3b. In RPS, any pairing is allowed, as long as either Jared or Jensen is one of the central paired characters.
FOR EXAMPLE: Misha/Jared or Jensen/Genevieve is allowed, Misha/Genevieve is not.
ADDITIONAL: Yes, you can write a menage or "moresome" as long as Jared and/or Jensen is part of that grouping.
6. AU's are allowed. Crossovers are not.
8. Stories must be beta'd.
But they're not willing to ask people not to be racist.
Yes, I am totally judging them."
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(no subject)
Date: 19 Jun 2010 05:48 am (UTC)Have heard about countless stories of this type and had come to the conclusion that a subculture mostly populated by self-absorbed shut-ins (and I use that term both an amused and derogatory manner, being occasionally one of those self-absorbed shut-ins myself) probably would produce a fair amount of fiction of this sort.
In fact, the newest and shiniest aspect of this particular kerfuffle seems to be the larger and more aware negative reaction from fandom as a whole. So, y'know, there's a silver lining and all.
Judge away, darlings, judge away. *salute*
(no subject)
Date: 19 Jun 2010 06:40 am (UTC)Thank you for linking to me. I just wanted to let you know I have linked back to you; if you'd prefer this entry not be included in my post, just let me know.
(no subject)
Date: 21 Jun 2010 04:20 pm (UTC)So true. When you consider that it's only recently that internet fandom has been readily available to anyone below the upper middle class, and that computer literacy for older people is even more linked to class and income... well, of course fandom is a place with a lot of privilege in its background. It's also a place with a lot of minorities, because it attracts people who are socially awkward or neuroatypical or who identify as weird in some way.
In fact, the newest and shiniest aspect of this particular kerfuffle seems to be the larger and more aware negative reaction from fandom as a whole.
Definitely! I was just saying that to Wax the other day. Sometimes lately it seems like MORE offensive shit is happening in fandom, but on the contrary, what's happening is that
1. More people in fandom are recognizing that it is offensive so
2. More people are speaking out about it so
3. Everyone in fandom is more likely to hear about it.
And that is definitely a good thing. Every single time it comes around, more people wake up and say that they've had their eyes opened and just realized it, so it is a good thing.
(no subject)
Date: 21 Jun 2010 04:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 17 Oct 2010 05:40 pm (UTC)I have to admit that's the part that depresses me a little (http://hesychasm.livejournal.com/257429.html?format=light).
Thank you for your post.
(no subject)
Date: 17 Oct 2010 06:23 pm (UTC)