Ooops, racism

[salinea]

Nobody likes being called a racist. That holds true as well when you're being explained very nicely and politely that something you said could, in certain circumstances, be interpretated as racist. It's an upsetting accusation. It's one of the thing we typically think of as EVIL, right along the Godwin point and rape.

Trouble is, more often than not, the accusation is true.

The thing is, we're all, in some way, racist. we're all liable to one day say something with racist conotations. That means me, you, my family, my friends, my coworkers. That's no because me, you, my family, my friends, my coworkers actively think that Black people (or whatever other "races" would be targetted) are not human being, should be oppressed, exterminated or whatever exemples of active and violent racist. That's simply because our culture is dripping with implicite racism (and also with sexism and homophobia, etc.). We breath it and we often don't realize it, at least not until we fall victim to it.

So being called up for it when we didn't realize in the first place we said anything wrong, when we really believe ourselves to be a enlightened, self-concious, progressive person is upsetting.

Sometimes (way too often) that causes knee jerk reactions. The 'OMG HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A RACIST' kinds.

I understand that, but... while saying something racist while not being aware of it is one thing that's going to happen to anyone, conciously ignoring and scorning the people who've kindly (or not) informed you of your own prejudices is a whole other thing.

No, I am not saying that you should bow and let anyone who pulls a "Racist!" card get their way, but you should seriously consider your own prejudices. Because it's likely you have some, and no, it's not going to kill you to admit it, rectify, appologize.
Sure it's embarrassing and upsetting, but the alternative is worse.

The alternative is being of those people who intentionnally turn a blind eye to racism because they held their own pride as more important than actively trying to not be racist.

I've been there. I've said stuff that were offensively ignorant regarding Black people. It took me a full day before I backpedaled and appologized (and I'm very glad I did). It will likely happen to me again despite the fact that I think myself as anti-racist.

Again, appologizing and rectifying isn't that hard. It's not going to kill anyone.

Post related to the current daily_deviant merrygoround :
witchqueen's initial post.
liviapenn's collection of links on the subjet.
bethbethbeth's take on it.
daily_deviant's current official answer.

ETA: On the other side, here are some of links to posts by people that try to defend D_D :
greenspine on racism
celandined on racism which is particulary funny in the way she accuses people of making unfounded accusations, makes herself an unfounded accusation which she then admits was wrong, and then do something very similar to what she was accusing witchqueen of. All in one post, kudos.
with a cute anecdoque on bullying that has nothing to do with anything. Links removed after poster's request.

ETA : Thank God, daily_deviant has removed the tag and appologized.

Comments

[dizilla.livejournal.com]

thanks for the links, i only saw the post at D_D and was like "oh kay..."

For me, like most kink terms i see in various comms, I didn't really understand the word. Living on the West Coast, I've never heard that word before. Even with the lil definition they gave it, didn't make sense to me. So I just shrugged like I always do and looked at the art if it was a pairing i liked or an artist i admired. I was confused to see the same kink term used in a beastiality post and an art post where it was blaise and pansy. Still didn't see the connection.

But after d_d's official answer I was like "ohhh..." Being of mixed non-white (as i don't consider central americans white) background, it didn't seem to bother me. But after reading a bit more from your links, there's just no way you can justify lumping interacial and interspecies as the same, even in the magical world. it would only work for werewolves and vampires at most as they were/are human.

I don't think they should be blamed for their ignorance, some of us our lucky to live in rather open-minded and tolerable places. And being too PC is as bad as not being PC, but if their members want the word changed, they probably should, it is a community after all.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't know the word and its background either. That was a completely understandable mistake. It's the part where they ignored the e-mail and decided to keep on going with it that I'm criticizing.

They could have done two things :
- change the "prompt" to interracial, and remove the inter-species part because lumping them together carries lots of offensive conotations
- keep the "prompt" as miscegeneration but inform the community of the context the word is used with via lots of helpful links, and that the prompt is about the racist conotations as well as the interracial component.

I don't know what the D_D members want, actually, (witchqueen isn't a D_D member AFAIK) seems like they had a flocked discussion about it before the mods posted their answer. bethbethbeth is the only D_D member I've seen take a stand against their policy. It's not impossible the majority of the D_D members are standing behind the mod. I wouldn't know. (God, I hope not, I know and like way too many of these people).

[nedsagirl.livejournal.com]

I had the exact same reaction as you, which is why I feel the need to pipe in here.

Frankly I think the DD people tried to interpret a term that came up in a 'magical' sort of way. Clearly this came across poorly, and going through the links it's also clear why. However I think the real problem now isn't that the mods don't understand what the problem is but more of a "where's the line" point. The other thing that people seem to be getting upset about is that it is listed as a "kink". Whereas I think people involved in D_D understand the monthy "kink" as more as a theme (indeed, they even list it as such) rather than an "unconventional sexual practice". The other thing is that if you go through the wank on the original post there are actually some fairly hurtful things that have been said about fics that were posted under the monthy theme, which I personally just don't think is fair. I mean, come on, lats face it folks. It's porn. While I understand the hurt and frustration (on both sides) it's still Harry Potter Porn.

Also? On a personal note, when my mother married my father she actually got several hurtful and anonymous letters because she was marrying "out of her race" (I find this debatable, but that is neither here nor there) and diluting her "good Scandinavian blood". So I feel a bit in touch with this issue (though clearly not very) and I still feel that it has all gotten out of hand.

Because, as I stated above, it's still porn.

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

I'm a watcher of daily_deviant and I was surprised when 'miscegenation' was chosen as a prompt. It's a word I've only ever seen used by people concerned with racial purity (i.e. racists) but I figured that there would be lovely pureblood/muggleborn dark!fic. Instead there was perfectly vanilla Neville/Parvati...and beastiality fic and art. Yet it never occurred to me to say anything. I feel like a coward now and I applaud the people who've given this the attention it deserves.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

It's very hard to know when to act without being wanky, yeah. I'm glad some people have spoken about it.

[xraytheenforcer.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's really unfortunate.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

innit?

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I feel like I don't have to say anything because you already know what I think, and I just have to send you thought waves.

I'm not in daily_deviant, and I don't even watch the comm, otherwise I might have noticed the use of this word and scratched my head. It's the word used for the anti-interracial marriage laws that many states had. These laws came up recently in my state in public discussions of gay marriage. (We have it and other states don't.) I figured that all of these folks who are up on the gay marriage debate would know about the miscegenation laws, but I guess they don't, or aren't, or whatever.

It does seem kind of weird to decide not to respond to any complaints because you are wedded to a prompt table. That's how they came up with the prompt--an encyclopedia of kinks, chosen at random, that they feel they must work through no matter what. Just so you understand the principles at stake.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Well recieved ^^

I'm not on daily_deviant either, but I know enough people that are that I felt more concerned than I was about the previous SGA racism kerfuffle...

I don't understand how people can still pretend that the word "miscegenation" is only possibly controversive. Once you look up a little tiny bit at the context and history of the word, it's obvious the racist conotation has to be there.

I sort of understand the DD policy as such, I guess. Because some of the kinks they use (non con, chan, bestiality, necrophilia, etc.) are the kind of stuff that lots of people will get offensed at and I've no problem with them ignoring those complaints. The problem is they thought this was a similar issue, which it's painfully clear it's not.
Moreover, implying that the people who are offended by the use of "miscegeneration" as a prompt are in the same position as the people who object the existence of various kinky fics is quite offensive.

[bitterfig.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in this controversy because during my time in the Harry Potter fandom (a little over a year) I haven't really seen the issue of race be explicitly addressed. I've seen via metafandom that it's been an issue in other fandoms like Dr. Who and Battle Star Galactica. The Harry Potter books do concern themselves with issues of race, but in the form of Mudbloods and purebloods, giants, elves and werewolves rather than real life issues of black and white, cultural stereotypes or antisemitism. In some ways, this gives fandom an excuse not to look at their own attitudes. It's easy to be horrified by the views of the Death Eaters but think nothing of writing a post-war story where Cho Chang turns up as a geshia whore (I remember being very disturbed when I was a story like this some months ago.) While the Harry Potter books on the surface promote a picture of effortless racial harmony where it is almost an after though to learn that Dean and Lee are black they are for the most part centered on white characters, as is the fandom. I can't say. I feel authors should be able to tell their story without having a duty to be politically correct but that might just be my own white privilege speaking.

Of course the face that this controversy centers around daily_deviant just adds another layer of murkiness to the issue because kink and fetish takes strong cultural taboos and turns them backwards and inside out to the ends of erotic gratification.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

You raise a couple of extremely interesting point.

I totally agree with you that while the Harry Potter books deal with themes about racism via thin metaphores about pureblood and stuff that often ends up allowing people to elude real issues of racism and antisemitism because "they're not true in the Wizarding World". Even from JKR, who has some many non white people in the background but none of them take centerstage. Kingsley, Cho, Dean, the Patil twins... they're not bad characters as such, some are even very cool, but none of them are one of the main characters. And in Fandom of course they're not the most frequently written either (of which I'm just as guilty as anyone else >_>;;, the only time when I've written non white characters were in anime fandoms).

There was a relatively small wank during the Snarry Games about the use of racial stereotypes, respectively American Indians and Rrom. While the former was meant to make fun of the stereotypes, it wasn't very successful at doing it without, well, turning into those stereptypes themselves. The latter was mostly a case of ignorance. That sounds very much like what you mention about Cho Chang as a geisha *facepalms*. Stereotypes and racial stock characterizations and the lure of the exotic for comedy and erotic purpose. Those things are still very common in our culture despite everything and so it's not surprising people end up using them without realizing how truely offending they are.

In a way, I think JKR also fell to this trope and it particulary upset me that she did even as she was blatantly using the History of opression and extermination to strengthen her own work. But I don't think I have sufficient background yet to make that point, so I might do an essay later if and when I've gathered enough evidence to do that ^^

To be honest one of the thing I love about SF and Fantasy is the ability to deal with real issues with metaphores and allegories. So I hate to say that, but it only goes so far. It's time people use real issues rather than the metaphore (or as well as the metaphores) because it's not efficient enough anymore. Fantasy as a genre carries a terrible racist history especially. We need more writers to aknowledge and deal with it.

About daily_deviant as using strong cultural tabooks backward for eroticism, well... that's the point of the comm. So, while it's somewhat tacky to consider Interracial sex a kink, as such, it's no more tacky that consider non con, chan and the like in the same way. I am not in any position to call someone up about what makes them hot because a lot of things I find hot to read about go way against my morality.

I don't like the idea of Dumbledore/Grindeldwald as the new hot ship, for exemple. Because writing Pseudo!Hitler has someone sexy to write about totally makes me balk. However I've never had that problem before about Death Eaters in general including their hideous ideology being used in fics, so it would be extremely hypocrite of me to start wanking people who want to write Dumbledore/Grindeldwald.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

I don't follow that comm so I hadn't heard of the problem until now, but I still wanted to give a big WORD to your post. It's perfectly natural to say something offensive without the intention to offend - but the right way to fix is to apologise and think about it, not to flip out. Of course, flipping out will be the first reaction... but this is the internet, a written medium, so we have the luxury to stop and think before we reply.

I think it's especially important to pay attention when other people tell us we're being racist/sexist/etc because when we're online, we're dealing with people from all over the world. Sensitive issues and key words are different. I know I have to be extra-careful when I'm online because Argentinians are very, very politically incorrect and we don't get offended at pretty much anything, so I might say something that *I* find completely innocent but makes people explode.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yeah! It's very interesting being on the internet, seeing other cultures and realizing how and why some things are offensive to them, too. In a way i've learned a lot about racism by being confronted with the American idea of it. In France you don't use the word "race" seriously usually (actually it was so taboo that it's become an expletitive like "fuck" for teens) because the word and concept itself is seen as racist (only someone racist thinks there is such a thing as human races). In the US they use the word "race" to refer to ethnicity or phenotypes in official ways, but they allow also them to address the subject in ways that's never done in France because people don't dare to put words on it.
I can see good sides and bad sides to both attitudes, BTW, but it's interesting to see the difference.

I really agree with your point about being extra careful when you're with people from all over the world because the incident when I was offensively ignorant was tied to that, actually. I was assuming that no Black men in Europe would have any reason to be directly concerned by the History of Slavery. They would be concerned by Imperialism and Colonization and the racism that comes with immigration, but not slavery. Then the person I was arguing with pointed to me that actuall all Black people from the West Indies (some of which are still French territories these days) are extremely likely to be from slavery. That means there's a lot of Black people I've talked to, been friend with, etc. who are descendant of people enslaved by French people in History and I'd never even thought of it. For me slavery was an American issue and that's it. How incredibly silly of me.

[metzhead.livejournal.com]

I dislike the term "racist." It's overused and has connotations of white hoods and lynch mobs. I prefer "prejudiced" as it merely implies pre conceived ideas about people based on how they look, where they're from, etc. Could I be considered prejudiced in some situations, well sure. But racist? Well after I'm done chuckling at someone's feeble attempt to create unnecessary drama, I'd say consider the source of such words, young master jim.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

"Racism" is overused. It means Nazis and Gobineaut's elaborate ideology of Human races as separate and hierarchised and with specific traits. It means the Xenophobia that leads people to talk of "those people" and "go back home" and various racial slurs. It means the unconcious prejudices and institutionnal discrimination about different ethnicity and cultures that still exists in our society. That's three things I would call racism, and ideally we'd need different words for all three even though they are in many ways related.
However I disagree that "prejudiced" is a good remplacement word. Prejudice means something else, something slightly tamer, something broader (in subject) and not as systemic.

[kaleidoskope]

A big Word to this post. Thank you.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[brownbetty]

Thanks for this post. It puts a big part of this calmly in context.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it.

[modillian.livejournal.com]

Well said. I know I've said things and needed to apologize after seeing how I was wrong. Apologizing, learning, and changing is nothing to be ashamed of -makes a body better.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly! Only idiots think they never make mistakes/don't admit they're ignorant and all that Socratic jazz.

[emiime.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't going to jump into it, but if you're going to go about making accusations at my friends, you could at least try to get their names right. celandineb, as far as I can see, hasn't made a single unfounded accusation. Perhaps I missed something in that post. Would you be so kind as to let me know what I've missed?

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

celandineb (thanks for correcting the user name) accused witchqueen of deleting comments that were speaking against her. Then corrected that because the deleted comments happened to have been deleted by the commenter themselves. By the way I've seen lots of people take on the whole "deleted comments that disagree with her" idea against witchqueen (vikingcarrot did that rather virulently before admittng she was wrong, for exemple). I'm not sure if celandineb's entry is where the idea originated but it felt like that to me. I was amused celandineb ended up screening all comments which is close enough (if not the same thing) of what she had previous accused witchqueen of doing.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

dropping in because i saw a comment you made on a certain post about getting whitey...

i think that there's a tremendous amount of narcissism involved in going to such great lengths to assume that black people in particular are consistently out to get you, as if black folks have nothing else to do with their time. however that assumption seems to be a fundamental underpinning of racism in the US at least.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

It's the "why don't we get back to talk about me, me, me, ME, ME, ME" part. (I'm failing at remembering Buffy quotes).

Funny how men do the same in sexist discussions. Funny how people who know how to recognize that in sexism don't when it's about racsm.

There's something funny in the fact that I now know more about racism in the US than I do about racism in my own countrie. Yay for fandom teaching me stuff.

[floweringjudas.livejournal.com]

It's just typical that I didn't even find out about all this til two days ago, even though I write for daily_deviant; and I want to say that this morning I actually read over the (sometimes horrifying) comments on the d_d post and I was really impressed with yours.

So, hi, friending you! *waves*

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you liked my comments *blush* Friending back ^^

May I ask you, I've seen one line in your journal about "being a D_D member but not being a racist" and I've seen other people post similar stuff... has some people bashed D_D members in general? 'cause that would be totally uncool if that was the case :(

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Late comment to say that you're very great.

The thing is, we're all, in some way, racist. we're all liable to one day say something with racist conotations. That means me, you, my family, my friends, my coworkers. That's no because me, you, my family, my friends, my coworkers actively think that Black people (or whatever other "races" would be targetted) are not human being, should be oppressed, exterminated or whatever exemples of active and violent racist. That's simply because our culture is dripping with implicite racism (and also with sexism and homophobia, etc.). We breath it and we often don't realize it, at least not until we fall victim to it.

It seems that regarding both this issue and others, the figure of a "monster" has been created, that is the only one guilty of racism (and sexism, and homophobia). Tt allows people to 1) excuse their own behaviour when it doesn't go as far as that of the monster, 2) keep away from the idea that these problems are systematic, and it causes them to panic when accused of racism because only a monster would do it.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

your point is very right. I've seen other people argue the same with more eloquence than I did, shaggydog especially had a great post on that subject.