tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4506995090336963455.post6575646404537023684..comments2023-03-21T05:49:21.694-04:00Comments on Seeking Avalon: Once Upon A Time I Was Clueless & Other TruthsAvalon's Willowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07539301720154191607noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4506995090336963455.post-17054045147148489102009-05-16T20:32:00.000-04:002009-05-16T20:32:00.000-04:00*claps*
As always, your post was engaging, passio...*claps*<br /><br />As always, your post was engaging, passionate, and intelligent. I learn more every time I come here, and I will continue to come here so long as you continue to write. Through this and other resources, I feel that I am becoming a better person overall, and less like the people you write about. <br /><br />I'm not perfect, nor will I ever be, but I hope to not make the mistakes I've made before, and that I will be able to stop myself in time from making mistakes I recognize. <br /><br />It still frustrates me to hear about the ignorance and stupidity faced by PoC, and how if one thing is okay, than another must be. One example I ran across this was my own little rant on how uncomfortable Resident Evil 5 made me in the beginning, and then the blatant and stupid racism that came later on in the game with the horrible spear-chucking black people in giant wooden masks. <br /><br />I had one comment on the post, that said that games should stop treating black people differently, and that "By treating them more positively than others, to me that's racist."<br /><br />Frankly, I don't think that killing ANYONE is good, but that this is a game, and I can tell the difference between games and fiction. However, there's this thing called context, and in the history of the world, there's many many MANY years of white, armed men going around, brutalizing PoC, and of movies and TV shows showing PoC to be nothing more than stupid, ignorant savages. RE5 did all of that, and had Sheva, the only constant PoC, as nothing more than assistance and cheesecake. <br /><br />She was also drawn Ed Benes Black. <br /><br />I guess my ultimate frustration with this example is that the counter argument is that it's just a game, similar to how it's just a comic, or just a TV show, why take it so seriously?<br /><br />Except that these things are STILL being done, that's the problem, but some would rather not see it, to point at Obama being President, say "Hey, we're not racist, we voted for him," instead of dealing with the problem and their own racism.<br /><br />So, er... yeah, not as smooth as it could have been, but still, an example of fail.Jamie Jeanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440689999991155692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4506995090336963455.post-64129457831012575232009-05-15T20:30:00.000-04:002009-05-15T20:30:00.000-04:00I am not a POC, but I have benefited from those of...I am not a POC, but I have benefited from those of you who have been generous enough to spend your time and energy to be teachers and try to shake some of us white folks out of our ignorance. Over the course of RaceFail, I’ve had opportunites to see how my own ass is often dangling in the wind. It hurts to realize, but I think it is ultimately a good thing.<br /><br />I always find the white people insisting that POC need to "educate" them so ridiculous. It just seems so... rude. To me, it seems the equivalent of me being forced to wear a letter on my shirt indicating my status as a rape survivor and then having a TOTAL FUCKING STRANGER coming up and wanting to play 20 questions about the experience. <br /><br />It's also lazy. Yes, there are books out there and yes, it is easier to UNDERSTAND when you can hear a human voice telling you what it is like. What these folks don't seem to understand is that people aren’t books that you can open, absorb knowledge from, and then discard at leisure. If you listen, you will hear their stories. But it requires being an ACTUAL friend to a POC, which means connecting with them on some level. It requires listening more than you talk. It requires treating these revelations as the gift that they are and not throwing it back in the faces of those who choose to offer it to you. It requires holding your goddamned tongue from trying to compare how their experience is JUST LIKE yours because you are poor/disabled/female/whatever. Because it isn’t. At all. <br /><br />When I lived on the East Coast, one of my best friends was my neighbor Betsy. We became friends over a shared love of Jane Austen, bad horror films, and jalapeno-flavored anything. Over the course of the two years that we lived next to each other, I learned more and more about her life, as she revealed it to me in small dollops. Because I was her friend and that is what friends do. They talk about their pasts and their hopes and their dreams and what pisses them off. Because I listened to her and laughed with her and held her hand when she cried. <br /><br />Because I didn’t see her as nothing but a Latina that was supposed to educate me out of my white privilege and thereby give me a Valuable Life Experience. She was my friend and I loved her. So when she told me that her given name was really Esperanza, but she had always been called Betsy because her mother (also Latina) didn’t want her to seem too “ethnic” and therefore get treated like nothing but a dumb immigrant, I did not try to belittle or rationalize her experience away. I listened and when she changed the subject back to the card game we were playing, I didn’t press her for more details and demand that she educate me. I accepted and loved her as my friend. I still do, even if miles and years and babies have reduced our relationship to occasional phonecalls during naptimes.<br /><br />What kills me that most about all this clamouring for POC to educate the ignorant white masses is the fact that if these people could get over their self-righteous anger that someone dared to point out that they might have the deck stacked in their favor and step back and read for a minute, they would see that some POC are already doing exactly that. I read posts from you and deepad and bossymarmalade and others who ARE laying out their bruised hearts to try and teach or identify with others and I want to shake the ignorant bastards who keep whining, “Teach me! Teach me!” The learning is there! RIGHT THERE, YOU IGNORANT ASSES. I am grateful to all of you that have chosen to share what it means to be a POC with some of us. I am sorry that there are some of us that have thrown your gift in the mud. <br /><br />CristaCristahttp://cristarucker.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com