Although the initial post frustrated the fuck out of me and hit several knee-jerk buttons at once, I was actually enjoying the comments in
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gerriwritinglog's
Racism, RaceFail '09, and the Meme post. There were lots of excellent informative comments there, a few comments from the OP that made me less ragey, and some useful conversations were happening.
Obviously,
that could not be allowed to continue.
I want to respond to the shutdown comment, but first there are a few threads I want to call attention to:
*
leana106 on the difference between "black and proud" and "white pride"*
sinsense, who consistently brings the awesome in that post,
about the importance of deferring to someone whose knowledge of the subject is greater than your own*
sleepingfear, also ridiculously awesome,
posts an excellent video clip and a good explanation of the problem with "color-blind" in this thread.
There's plenty more good stuff, but those are the specifics that stood out to me as I was reading/participating.
And just for context,
my response to/conversation with the OP.
ETA: gerriwritinglog disabled comments, effectively deleting everything (and rendering my links pointless). But the Firefox cache is a beautiful thing, I've got a screenshot
here, all comments unfolded. I'm keeping the links on the off chance she de-disables.
Son of ETA: She's de-disabled; I'm keeping the screenshot linked anyway.
As far as shutting down goes...well.
"Now, thanks to a couple much appreciated commenters, I have something to continue my growth with."
...
"I have a couple characters who are just as self-righteous as I came off in my OP. The reactions that you, the commenters, gave me help ENORMOUSLY in clarifying how these characters will act and react, as well as the people who will work to change them."
Okay, folks, you have served your purpose, now kindly run along. I've learned all I've decided I need to, please get the fuck out.
That may only bother me because of the reason I like debating/discussing/etc. on LJ - because the conversations aren't only about the people having them, they're about all the unseen readers who might come along tomorrow, a month from now, a year from now, and see something that makes them go "...ohhhhhh,
that's it; I get it now".
When you post something publicly, especially when it ends up somewhere like
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metafandom where it will attract a buttload of people who don't know you and don't care - they're drawn by the topic, not the poster - it's really not entirely about you. It becomes about the commenters and the readers as well; to shut it down because you, specifically, don't feel you have anything more to gain, you're taking something that developed beyond you and closing it back in again; you're depriving the people who do have more to gain from the conversations that were benefiting them.
All of which, I suppose, any given individual has the right to do when he or she controls the space. Perhaps I'm just bothered by how blatant the "whatever else you think you have to teach me doesn't matter, because I've learned it all now" attitude is.
And that's not even what really bothered me.
I would ask that if you take away one thing from this thread, it's that it's not enough to say "You don't understand." Follow up with "Let me tell you about what happened to me." Racism, to white people, is very often dealt with in the abstract. Making the problem concrete with a real example makes a difference to those struggling to understand.
This, immediately after
this:
It's no one's duty to bare their souls to you for your own education, which is what you're asking when you expect someone to follow up "you don't understand the specific issues I face as a POC" with "and here's what they all are". You're saying "I want you to take something that has caused you pain, or shame, or harm, and I want you to write about it, relive it, and I want you to put it out there for public consumption where people will question it, pull it apart, demand to know more, and I want you to do all this so I can learn".
There are explanations out there, there are people who have chosen to educate, to turn elements of their life into a learning experience for white people. Every time, or nearly every time, there's a blowout over racism in fandom, it's because someone has chosen to speak up about the specific way in which she, as a POC, has been made to feel uncomfortable, out of place, like a lesser person because of the multitude of problems with race so prevalent in fandom. When those so often end so badly, I'm certainly not going to be the one to blame POC for not wanting to put their hardships out there for white people to pull apart.
deepad's I Didn't Dream of Dragons post at the genesis of this latest conversation is one of those - look at how big this has gotten, how many people have gotten hurt, all the consequences, and understand that when you say "explain this to me" you're asking someone to risk all that for your benefit.
Any faith I had that the OP truly learned from the experience, that she took all those attempts to educate her to heart, flew right out the window when all she had to say to "it's nobody's job to educate you" was "thanks for the education, and remember, it's everyone's job to teach me shit".
Maybe she locked down too early.
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