A Very Public Post

Dear Nnedi Okorafor

When W*ll**m Sh*tt*rly is AGREEING WITH YOU (and complimenting you - on being a good negro) - that's a sign you took a wrong turn into internalized isms and non confrontational agreeableness and have lost. your. way.

I bring you back to Chimamanda Adichie, and The Danger Of A Single Story. Which I think is one of the single best lectures/explanations of how Colonialism, and Privilege affect the psychology and sociology of the global landscape.

The stories we tell ourselves, shape ourselves. The tropes and stereotypes we repeat to ourselves begin to have a foundation that's at the very least subconsciously counted on as truth.

I am extremely and immensely hurt that you would not consider broader context and the complexities of media representation and have seemingly bought into exceptionalism and how it conquers all; everything from racism to sexism.

I don't begrudge your right to have/hold your own opinions. But I do begrudge you, as a seen and known writer of colour making this statement public:

My point is that I think we should refrain from blindly stamping every film with a white male main character who seeks to infiltrate an "other" society and ends up changing things forever as a "white man saves the day" film or a racist film (does that sentence make sense?). It's unknowingly privileging such characters, as if their mere presence makes them instantly special. I think we should take each film as it comes.
 

Ms. Okorafor, it is NOT people of colour who are privileging those white characters who save the day and influence their circumstances by their specialness. Recognizing the trope is NOT perpetuating it.

How can you not see that?

Haiti & Privilege

There's something bothering me. Bothering me a lot. So much so that even though I got into it some with someone and realized we would never see eye to eye and it wasn't worth continuing the conversation - I feel a need to say something here in this space. Because it is seriously bothering me. It deserves some energy.

My view of the USA in Haiti right now is this:

We are the conquering heroes. The world must marvel at our largess. We are here to help with our military, who are trained and shiny and have many guns to KEEP THINGS UNDER CONTROL. And OMG, these poor people; not a pot to piss in, not a phillips screwdriver to turn a screw. And we will not break out some empty bottles for people to piss in, and butter knives for people to use to screw, because our procedural mandate instructs pots and screw drivers. It also mandates backhoes not shovels. We cannot do anything innovative or outside the box. We cannot use back strength and gloves and rope to help dig people out. We cannot rumble through on our humvees since that would destabilize buildings, but neither can we send people out on foot to check things out, mark buildings, etc. And we will not listen to, or take comments from individual organizations and groups that are used to this environment and what can be done without our massive shiny technology that will save lives. Yay technology! We are America.

And the thing that gets me is how whenever anyone points out there is industrialized privilege in expecting and waiting for a backhoe, a screw driver, a humvee, etc... someone American says "Oh, you don't understand the logistics. You don't understand the US military doesn't use anything but these kinds of vehicles and this kind of equipment. And there's no room to use the weight of American technology in Haiti because they have no infrastructure!"

It reminds me very much of archaeologists going 'The Aztecs and Mayans had no metallurgy' and 'There is no way Nubians built Pyriamds'.

I do not understand how some people can say that things Haitians can do themselves, if they had rope and gloves and shovels and bottles of water and dettol and bandages - the US military can't do.

Why can't they do it?

It's not sufficiently first world? They'll lose cool points?

Is it really the best thing, to not dispatch aspirin in a packet when there are doctors there doing surgery on children with no anesthesia - because you, the US Military, state there's no place to keep more delicate pain killers and medicines?

Is it really the best thing to say that a liter of water is too small, and so is five liters, so it's perfectly ok for no water to be brought until it can be brought in the gallons?

Is it really the best thing to call people who are angry and upset; over emotional and irrational and unable to grasp logistics, because they're accustomed to 'making do' and America(ns) are not?

Is it really the best thing to tell people their expectations of what help looks like are all wrong?

It's all very well to point out that UN Peacekeepers are raping folk in various countries in Africa. But that doesn't change what the US is NOT doing in Haiti, how it is NOT acting and the privilege that is preventing it from doing some small help while planning out their big, majestic, this is what first world rescue looks like.

This is what is bothering me. First World/Developed Nation/Industrialized Nation Privilege. And how very, very much people do not want to look at what it encompasses.

At how certain actions are somehow beneath them, even though those same actions, small and rural and old fashioned as they might be, offer help and hope and the potential to save lives.

A Reply To Hapax

The Tor Thread:

* My query / 186 .

* Hapax response / 189.

*_________*

I think you are assuming a certain level of reader awareness and open mindedness as well as counting on individuals to have learning experiences, as you've claimed this thread to be, but which come at the expense of another's time, energy, personal pain and story put on parade (possibly for the umpteenth time).

When there isn't a parent/guide aware of the difference between being polite and being anti-racist or being polite and being anti-ablist or being polite and being for equality of gender or being polite and being for acceptance of multiple religions - then what's left is for individuals to draw their conclusions of the world from the fiction they read without questioning it.

I learned many things from books, specifically SF. I discovered there were other people like me, women who liked women, via SF. I discovered the possibilities and applications of math and physics and history and politics via SF. And then later in life I either had what I learned challenged or challenged it myself to discover more and discover deeper layers.

But everyone is not me. Everyone is not you. There are individuals who just want a good story and who are not equipped (due to socialization via home, or school) to question things, to wonder about things. The person who wrote the OP review has stated that she didn't see a problem and was ready to accept no First Nations people as the mere background conditions of the story the author wanted to tell.


Engaging with a story fully, be it text or media or opera for that matter is one of the best ways of interacting with information and realizing that it is not static. But it IS NOT something that everyone does either automatically, nor is it something everyone is raised to do.

In fact, it's my personal belief, that half the reason some books are challenged because they bring up issues around gender and sex and sexuality and depression and mental health and drugs and power displacement is because the challengers recognize that many readers are passive readers and the challengers fear that these books will be read and WILL be adding blocks of how the world is in the minds of others.

Must PoC and/or their Allies, raise a fuss with every book like this, for the sake of those passive readers? So they're aware there's controversy and might be brain tickled to discover what said controversy is about? Must everything that causes pain be a learning moment for those who are in the majority?

Because as I've said before, though some people feel that it's all about them and their learning moments. They're not that special - simply because they're ALWAYS having, or demanding, said moments from PoC and others who're just trying to live their lives.

I would much rather people were thinking to start with and NOT releasing books into the world that perpetuate these pains than be part of a daisy-chain of objectors dealing with being called book burners and over-sensitive too PC mambypambies, or whatever the insult of the month is, orcs, nithings, etc...

White people do not believe they need to learn about racism. Yes, this is a broad generalization, but not quite so broad, really. White people tend to believe that the word racist is a highly charged grenade and when it's used against them, it's actually being lobbed in some kind of street warfare and that it is not a matter of someone going "Uhmm.. you've got some privilege on your chin there and some racist thoughts dotting your shirt." And on some occasions. "Pssst. You left the house without pants."

Since learning about racism involves confronting one's internalized racist thoughts, there's a whole lot of avoidance which leads to things like this book, where there was an avoidance of the issues such as the PEOPLE themselves were left out - genocide, it's just too messy.

Thank you for answering my questions.

Open Letter: To Elizabeth Bear

Sometime this January there will be a PoC in SF & Fantasy Carnival and the topic of discussion will be the representation of Men of Colour in SF and Fantasy fiction. But I've recently had an experience online, very well summed up in Livejournal's Deepad's essay here on cultural appropriation and the erasure of self.

Dear Elizabeth Bear,

It's about Mandingos. It's about the great scary, long cocked black man who will devour, rape, sexually satisfy like never before, protect and or die for this one, oh so special, white woman.

It's about we-sha-sha and the noble brave; the Indian scout. And it's not really progress when that 'Indian' is an amalgamation of cultures, shot into space and yet is still loyally following the phenomenal against/despite her circumstances white woman.

Aside: My historic strong female captain is Tryla Scott. She appeared on screen long before Janeway, was highly respected by her peers; was in fact the youngest officer to gain the post of Captain in quite a while. And ends up possessed, controlled, shot and never heard from again.

It's about my personal confusion that an author so highly spoken of by people I respect, would write about a magical, negro who gets bridled by a white woman after trying to kill or eat another white woman and, to my horror, becoming some sort of beast of burden/big buck protector; my horror at watching the humiliation of yet another black man so that a white woman can be empowered in front of her peers.

It's about the fact that you and writers like you don't have to think about this stuff. That you have the ready made excuse that it all 'serves the story' and that said character was written intelligently and as a well rounded individual with wants and needs of his own; with plots even. It's about the fact that I couldn't finish reading your book because I threw it across the room in disgust.

Aside2: Though I will admit that part of that was disappointment at yet another magical adventure in the land of Europa Celtic where every magical being the world over owes allegiance etc to a white Empire. In this case a FAIRY white empire.

It's about Tyr Anasazi being one of the most powerful and original black, male, SF characters I'd ever seen - subsumed and hobbled by Kevin Sorbo. The black man in the future is the ultimate epitome of what humanity can become? Strong, powerful, cunning, independent? Well, let's make him a sneak and pretender, woefully misguided, just plain wrong and then killed off for his own suddenly inserted stupidity and ambitions.

It's about Ronon Dex being yet another powerful character of colour, but existing, buck and strong and 'animalistic' at the expensive of Lt. Aiden Ford - left to become the black man junkie in space; because the writers didn't know what to do with him. The character was a US Marine, weapons & explosives expert - but he just wasn't 'buck' enough; no mandingo he.

It's about Geordi being blind. It's about Worf being, time and time again, a tragic mulatto. It's about holding on to Benjamin & Jake Sisko with finger nails and eye teeth. And also about conflicted feelings over Julian Bashir - South Asian & East Asian academic stereotypes vs someone who even knew what a sari was, up on a mainstream American show.

It's about Teal'c being solitary and alone, without a love life and an emancipation preoccupation. It's about Gerak ending up the personification of a newly freed people's inability to govern themselves.

It's about the first Black Power Ranger, being the actual first Black Power Ranger. And his martial arts style being something akin to break dancing. It's about the absolute and utter joy I felt when T.J Johnson became the Red Ranger. After seeing little black boys coming up with everything from Orange to Grey in schoolyards in my neighbourhood so they could pretend in that universe - here was a chance for them to say 'I can lead the Power Rangers. I can be the Red Ranger. TJ was!'.

Have you noticed yet that I'm listing? That I can list? That it's not impractical for me to list? And in my listing there's heartache and anger and depression and disgust?

It's about Avatar: The Last Airbender except in the live action there will be no Heroes of Colour, because the cast has been decided and they're all white. So too are the major Heroes of Dragonball Z. As were the main hero of SciFi Channel's EARTHSEA.

Even when the culture is non-white, even when it's not a case of aspects of my culture or some other non-white culture being incorporated into some white Europic Fantasy for some white Europic goal - there's no guarantee of proper, respectful representation.

It's about being fed up with all of that and not in the mood to pamper or pet someone who has far more privilege than they seem willing to admit to in the realms of fantasy and science fiction. And not wanting to watch them parade in a hairshirt when there are others who are actually hurting from a true lack of something.

I'm not calling you a monster. I'm not calling you a racist. But I am calling you clueless and ill worded and more than a touch thoughtless. Your ability to think about things, sometimes, does not erase my pain or lack. And only thinking of how things come across, sometimes, is not enough to make me like you. In fact, I don't think there's anything that could make me like you, other than you somehow earning my respect. And that's never going to happen if you keep checking in with me (metaphorical me, the larger culture and audience of PoC me) to see how you're going. Cause then it looks like so much brownie points, so much patting yourself on the back, so much excuses and dissembling; so much pride.

PS: I despise the phrase happens to have. Do you happen to be white? Do people happen to be straight? No. You hear "He or she happens to be Chinese/Indian/Gay/An Immigrant/Etc..."

And you, Elizabeth Bear in particular have written that someone just 'happens to have that cultural background'. I do not happen to be black or gay or have a Caribbean culture background. I'm not a straight white woman who just happens to have on these "accessories". Who I am, the facets that make up me cannot be picked up somewhere for $3.95, no matter how well you think you shop in exotic locations for true bits of said exotic culture. I am not white down deep beneath my brown and my dreads and my accent and SGL. And I'm as offended by it as white women would be if they were told that surely, surely, they're really a good thin girl down deep inside and they just happen to be fat on the outside.

Open Letter

Dear Tamora Pierce, (and others),


I've been black since the doctor smacked my butt and I took my first breath.

I've been black while teachers tried to figure out how to keep me behind but send kids far less bright than I into specialized advance placement tracks.

I've been black while teachers told me to sit down and shut up about slavery being wrong because black people in Africa had slaves too.

I've been black when cops stopped my wee little girl ass on the sidewalk for walking with melanin or daring to discuss homework with more than one other black friend in front of the corner library; unlawful assembly anyone?

I've been an immigrant since I set foot in this country.

I've been an immigrant while people tried to talk to me really slowly assuming I didn't speak English and that somehow made me stupid.

I've been an immigrant hassled by police, as a child, because I didn't look like their all American little girl.

I've been gay since my first crush on a girl.

I've been gay since I began to object to boys calling each other 'fag' in my highschool classes.

I've been gay since homophobes shouted and chanted and threatened to throw things while I marched in DC. Incidentally I was gay AND Jewish then too.


So I'm so sorry if my identifying with being black, an immigrant and gay, before identifying with a cause that promotes itself as by/for American middle class white women, whose lives are already filled with CHOICE, reads to you as stupid.

And I'm sorry if you don't get it.

But the truth is, it's just ONE more example of you and yours NOT GETTING IT. So really? What's new there?

Intersectionality - I live it, breathe it, read my comics to it. Feminism has enough supporters who wring their hands and cry and go 'But the Sisterhood!'. I turn my attention now, to the sidelines which are NOT sidelines in my life.

---

***

Oddly enough this is reminding me of my run in with Girlwonder.Org Forum Members. I brought up a lack of PoC. They screamed I was homophobic and I needed to mind my tone. And how dare I even suggest that it's easier to imagine a character gay that imagine a character is a PoC despite it being a visual medium. I realize I've been backing the hell away from that sort of feminism for a while now.