brownbetty: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] brownbetty at 06:12pm on 27/04/2008
I'm kind of guessing that you don't have a long history in fandom, although I could be wrong, but I'm seeing from your comment that you're unfamiliar with the following pattern which I have seen in every single fandom where someone tries to discuss race:

Someone says "Hey, there's not a lot of fic with [Character of colour]. What's with that?"

And then a lot of people reply "It's not that he/she/they are of colour! It's just that they're not personally interesting to me for a variety of reasons! Why does it have to be about race?"

And I don't mean to say that this isn't true for everyone who says it, but after a while it doesn't really matter if it's true: in every fandom, ever, the large majority of fans are uninterested in characters of colour. If it's not about race, it's an alien conspiracy we should probably look into. If it is about race, we should look into it. Either way, it's significant.

I know my username misleads some people, so I want to make clear, I'm white, and I do understand that sometimes you want to write fic about one person, and not about another. But our personal preferences weren't formed in vacuum, they were at least partly influenced by our society. And our society has some icky race issues.
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ext_58859: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] xcarex.livejournal.com at 07:27pm on 27/04/2008
Yeah, I've been in other fandoms before, but I suppose before I've generally avoided this kind of meta discussion. And from the hostile reaction I've gotten, I suppose there's a reason why I've kept my trap shut. I guess I just don't know how to discuss my personal preferences without coming off as an ignorant and apparently latently prejudiced white girl. Awesome. :/
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brownbetty: (Effusive)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] brownbetty at 07:33pm on 27/04/2008
I do get that advice is not particularly welcome when it comes from random people on the internet that you've never met before, but I'm going to strongly advise you to view this as one of those situations where you can learn a lot if you can listen to what other people say without taking it personally.
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ext_58859: (other: oh kanye)

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] xcarex.livejournal.com at 07:56pm on 27/04/2008
I had no intention of getting into an argument when I made my original comment, I was just expressing my own opinion. It's hard not to take something personally when I say how I personally feel about the issue and get attacked for it by multiple people.
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brownbetty: (Effusive)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] brownbetty at 08:11pm on 27/04/2008
Which is painful, yeah. But, I think you can appreciate, at least hypothetically, that there are contexts in which it's just not the best time to share how you personally feel. Maybe to make this more impersonal, if two women are talking about their experiences of sexual assault, that's probably not the best place for a man to share how much it hurts him when women behave with distrust toward him, because he's certainly never even considered behaving with violence toward women. Those feelings are real, but the women weren't talking about him, and he's kind of presuming when he introduces that into the conversation.

I don't want to offend you, and I hope I don't come across as equating racism and rape, or anything, but I find it helpful to try to imagine myself in an analogous situation when I'm trying to figure out why my words had an impact I didn't intend.
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