Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Horn Of Orcdom Sounds

I just admitted to a friend that I resent her silence. She's spoken up before about RaceFail 09. But she hasn't said anything since her first post. And I told her I felt like I was on the front lines of a war involving bullets and blades on the end of muskets and she was all the way on the sidelines, watching and learning, while my friends and my peoples are bloodied, wounded and falling around me.

Worse yet, as she pointed out, she can't jump in front of me, or any of my friends, because the bullets pass right through her. They can't affect her. Even being aware of her privilege doesn't stop the fact that the pain being caused. can. not. touch. her.

I've been quietly trying not to resent this friend and I finally had to admit to her that trying not to resent her wasn't working - so I was going to tell her what's going on in my head.

There are people currently attacking Deepad, she who wrote I Didn't Dream Of Dragons. They say she doesn't exist. They say she's not like any South Asians they know, so she's fictional. Her years on livejournal mean nothing. Her personal experiences mean nothing. The pain she laid so bare in that entry mean nothing.

She is not like the South Asians that white person knows, therefore SHE IS NOTHING.

And then people like John Scalzi say that the discussion is too angry and too emotional and not having the right tone or being discussed in the right way. And then don't understand when people go, 'Toubab, please! Don't Try That Shit'.

I blow the Horn of Orcdom for Deepad's sake. I point you to where she's being attacked for daring to speak - similarly to the way I was attacked. I challenge you to watch the way someone is trying to erase her, with nice words, and supreme confidence in their status as White Is Right and not realize that your WHITE EDUCATION COMES AT A FIGGING TOO HIGH PRICE.

I challenge you to find a way to change that.

What do you have to offer?

Where is your pound of flesh to match our own?

We are bleeding.

It is not edutainment.

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