I have been adding links to my sidebar. I point out this one in particular because it echoes what was between the lines of my Open Letter; the post that started it all. It further defines what I assumed writers willing to talk about 'Writing The Other' would already know.
I threw a book across a room, because:
1. A being associated with the word Caribbean; ate humans, and was enslaved. And I thought, "Your WTF Spaceship Is Waiting E.Bear" because in that tale, I and those like me were being given an old, tired blueprint/map in our escape to fantasy.
2. The being who assists others in their quest, but whose story is traditionally one of being arbitrarily listened to, and of being tricked and betrayed - now had dark skin. This new map said; you can be powerful, but only in relation to the story of another person's quest. And only in this story all about their culture.
And of what I read, that being didn't want their life disrupted. But it had to be, or the paler characters would never fulfill their dreams. And it didn't matter that the unwilling adventurer is its own trope. What mattered to me was being told, via that story "But you're an important part of THIS story, with celtic faeries and white dreams, why aren't you grateful? Why aren't you excited? What's so important in your little life, making your music, when you could be part of this grand white tale."
And it's not like I don't enjoy Arthurian Legend *points up to blog title* It's not like I can't comprehend or recognize Quests to save the Land, the King and all the People; quests of Freedom; quests of Self Determination.
Especially considering I seem to be on such a quest.
It's seeing the familiar, worn and dreaded path. It's seeing a character with skin like mine and possibly hair like mine, not being given an option to say no. The lack of autonomy is an over used and tattered map/life lesson. Watching a black woman essentially be told - if this white man wants you, then he will get you. End. Done. It was having to throw away the visual image of someone who had history and a life of their own, up on a virtual slaver's block, with two pale characters bidding for them, in whatever form that bidding would take. [Seduction can be currency when the auctioneer is inside one's (the character's) head.]
* Asian Woman Blog Carnival: Deadline - DEADLINE: April 3rd 2009.
* PoC in SF/F Carnival Special Edition: De-Colonizing The Mind (Intra-PoC Dialogue) - DEADLINE: March 27, 2009
It Is Time To Tell Our Stories.
It Is Time To Go Somewhere That Wants To Publish/Spread Our Stories.
It Has Been A Mistake To Believe Anything Else Would Work.
This.
ReplyDeleteI said elsewhere that progress and white comfort ("cookies for oppressors") can't fit in the same basket and it's so damn true.
"How can we be more inclusive without actually having to deal with -those- people?" can be rephrased a thousand ways but in the end, must fail, because it's the logic of insanity. And looking to the insane to act reasonably and do right by anyone?
Survival begins with that realization.