Writing For Other People

About a year ago I wrote an essay for 'Pop Culture Socia lClub'. I wrote about Legend of Korra. I mentioned it here.

I went back to it today, and discovered that my byline has disappeared. It says 'guest'. And that half the essay is missing.

I've contacted via the old email I had for who was in charge of things last year; and I'll wait and see if anyone gets back to me. But I'm thinking, given they redid the site but no one bothered to contact me to get the second half of the essay, noticed the content was missing or even cared to input MY NAME; that 'Pop Culture Social Club' doesn't really care about its guest writers. They'll have other people's content up, without credit; and horribly mangled and it's just a whatever.

So yeah, not a happy experience a year later at all.

By end of Tuesday the 18th of June, 2013; I'm going to repost my essay here, on my own site. And depending on the response I get over there? May ask for my words to be taken down.

ETA: Have heard back fro mthe original person I submitted to. The response was 'Content is still there, just been extremely busy'. Mind that they have current content up; but somehow old content isn't worth much? I have no idea. I remain displeased.

TUMBLR, and THE DAYS OF JIM CROW

Signal Fire:

TUMBLR is supporting Racism, Racist Language, Death Threats, Rape Threats, & Harrassment. They are doing so, by telling PoC, in particularly, PoC Women, that maybe they just shouldn't have caught 'Massa's Eye'. That maybe they just should have covered up more. That 'these good white people' have filed a complaint against them and now, THESE COMPLAINTS, by THESE GOOD WHITE PEOPLE, MUST be responded to, and the victims of vicious, callous, racist acts and harassment, need to STOP DEFENDING THEMSELVES.

People are speaking up about it and doing so here and here and here.

I keep a track of certain tumblrs, even though the system irritates me, and I could not grok it enough to start one myself; because it's filled with Conversations I Want To Track. There are conversations about white washing, white privilege, white f*menism's denial of WoC's humanity and more. And these conversations have drawn ire from many, many, many white people. Ire and abuse for which I've never seen a post saying 'Tumblr Support is on it' or 'Tumblr Support is investigating that'.

The conversations on Tumblr happen Daily. Daily! I can still remember what it was like to go through shit at that level of intensity for a good portion of the year back in 2009. And this is DAILY. Multiple conversations. And thus multiple attacks.

And TUMBLR SUPPORT does NOTHING. NOTHING, but come up to 'rescue' white people who complain about THEIR FEE FEES, even while they're telling other people to go kill themselves, hang themselves and the like.

I think TUMBLR; their support staff, their developers, their whole company needs to understand the racism they're perpetuating and supporting. Once upon a time in the Americas, a black person couldn't look at a white person 'wrong'. For THEIR standards of wrong. It could lead to brutality and death. It was a terrorist state. And now TUMBLR is perpetuating that. White people can call you ANYTHING. Harass you ANYHOW. But if you RAISE your voice against them, if you cuss at them, if you defend yourself, then YOU, are the bad guy and we will shut you down. Cause such is our power.

If anyone still reads me, and keeps wondering what they might do, what small action they might take towards making the world a better place? See if you can CONTACT TUMBLR SUPPORT; and/or CONTACT TUMBLR POLICY; contact them and let them know you disapprove of their actions.

Or maybe the path to take is via their investors:

Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners, The Chernin Group and Richard Branson, Betaworks, John Borthwick, Fred Seibert, Albert Wenger, Martín Varsavsky.

Maybe you'd like to ask these groups and peoples why they're supporting racism and racist harassment of Poc and racist and sexual harassment of WoC.

Or at the very least, spread the word, light another signal fire, past the Public Service Announcement about what TUMBLR's doing, about who and what TUMBLR IS!

ETA: Policy@tumblr.com

Nnendi Okorafor Redux

Nendi Okorafor wrote a post. This would be where I mention and quote it.

And this link, goes to a blank page where Okorafor has deleted her post, her thoughts, tried to erase her history/actions online.

Unfortunately my trusty screencapture didn't catch her words. I don't know what happened. But googlecache still has her words, sans WS's comment. And I do have a confirmed screencapture of the cache.

It's been mentioned before that in the world of hyperlink essays and conversations - deleting is heinous. It's an attempt to silence the voice of the other person, and any conversations that happened in that space. It's an attempt to say 'That person is lying on me, because where are my words? You can't find them can you!'

Luckily, once something's on the internet, chances are - it's on there forever. So choose your words wisely - or at least be able to admit you made them.

PS

Yes, I know Chris Sims' article is causing a stir online (look it up). Why? Well he's a white man - that's one. He's politely pointing out, that maybe perhaps even though they didn't mean it to, DC's actions come across sort of bigoted and perhaps to those who have an axe to grind, somewhat racist - that's two.

The third kicker of course is the fact that a regular, transphobic, homophobic, red blooded white man is agreeing that there's something racially short sighted in how DC does things. When someone who seems 'just like a regular white guy' sees a problem, then maybe someone should look into that.

Am I fed up with people pointing to Chris without pointing to what came before, who wrote before, who called out before? Yes. I am fed up with having to be grateful when people mention the whitewashing of Vixen? Yes. Am I fed up that someone is once again equating racism with the KKK and not with a system of aversion and subtle white preferentiality and white superiority - of course they're not racist, they're just short sighted - and that is being lauded as the best article on point? Oh hells yes.

It might be just another day ending in Y during a cycle where people want to seem like they're paying attention; or where things are just too blatant to ignore.

I am tired of it.

But I find myself more irked "And the white man shall lead us and pearls of wisdom shall fall from his mouth" - especially because he makes it so easy for individuals NOT to examine their own privilege and preferentiality.

Why, there's nothing socially twisted in their minds - they're just short sighted and nostalgic and it means NOTHING that they're nostalgic for a time period of Jim Crow laws, and lynching and wrongful experimentation because black people weren't even really human.

Nostalgia. What will they call it next?

2009. Another Bumper Crop Of Fail

 
2012 Movie. Talks Of 2013 Tv Series. Racist As A Mo@$%#$!

Cause the premise will be, that the saved white folks show up in Africa in Cape Town all 'Oh Hai Black People. We Will Be Invading Ur Land & Stealin' Ur Resources. Just Like Old Times. Kbaithanx'.

An American tv show set in Cape Town where black folk are more than background characters, or inept caricatures in need of a Honkey saving them? Not. Going. To. Happen.

And being picked up by ABC? A. freaking. B. C?

2013. The Racist Aftermath. Coming to a tv near you. Soon.

PS: How much you wanna bet no one with a disability survives disaster and if you do see them, they will be representing Racism's Africa, where people lay starving and dusty and wounded on the side of a dirt road. Or maybe someone with a disability will show up to be a lodestone of love around the neck of a TaB character so people can discuss how strong the TaB character is; the white TaB character.

Other human beings that won't exist as survivors in that world? Anyone gay or trans. Is there anyone who isn't straight in LOST btw? Cause I didn't think so.

Dear Chris of ISB

I mean, I know that she was originally intended to be female, and then changed because Capcom thought the American SNES-buying audience would be happier with a transvestite hooker than Mike Haggar actually piledriving a woman, and then replaced with two decidedly male characters for the American release, and the whole thing’s way more complex than it ought to be. Even this issue seems to have fun with it, with Cody’s “you’re not much of a lady” and her irate response, which could be taken a couple of ways.

Not that I particularly mind, you understand, but it’d be nice to know which comics I read involved cross-dressing prostitutes. My filing system is oddly specific.

Dear Chris of ISB,

Transvesite, Transexual and Transgender are three separate and individual words. They have three different meanings. They correspond to sexual identity, orientation, gender, civil rights and sexuality and sexual expression. Transvestite is the one that 99.9 percent corresponds to sexuality (the act of being sexual) and sexual expression (how one performs the acts of being sexual).

While I understand in POST RACIAL AMERCIA (which is apparently POST ISM AMERICA), it's all the rage to be a bigot big and bold, your words are incredibly crass and ignorant. I have a difficult time believing that in the comicbook blogsphere, you are unaware of non cisgendered, non heterosexual comic bloggers. Your little 'joke', hurt and aggravated two people I care deeply about and just PLAIN PISSED ME OFF.

It doesn't matter that CapCom has a hole in the corporate brain and a need to appease 'Americans who don't believe in hitting women'. It doesn't matter that the word Futanari (which is basically a third sex in Japanese art) does not translate well. This is Laura Framingham level 'research' and 'caring' here, that you couldn't stop and think of Posion as transgendered.

For the record, She Is. As stated officially by Capcom representatives, her pre or post op status depending on country being inconsequential. An operation doesn't make someone a girl, being a girl makes someone a girl. Just like the fact you have a penis, doesn't make you man, but instead seems to make you an asshole.

TOR

I was going to do a post today about Boycotting and the possibility it can also mean Constant Reminding Of Negative Associations To A BRAND - IE Tor.

However, giving the lynching comment in that thread, and seeing for myself that my comment using the word fuck, was deleted first and THEN the comment about lynching was deleted (after I tried to post again).

Tor Publishing = RACISTS

And it will = Racists to me for a very long time.

Sorry Mr. Buckell, but at least I can read Aerophilia without throwing up.

Hate & Loathing, people. Hate & Loathing. So much.

Gonna Punch Honkey IN THE FACE

This was going to be just a post where I asked a question of those people who've read the LMB books that have The Lakewalkers.

Because this interlude on the author's myhell page makes me go WTF.

*______*

pronetolaughter: That might be true. But in this case, the Lakewalkers also just happened to have "copper" skin, "tents", canoes, a tradition of long braided hair even for men, use of porcupine quills (maybe even decorating moccasins, IIRC), and were also seasonal nomads, hunters (specializing in bows and feathered arrows), and had nicer furs and better herb medicine than farmers. Plus, they were arguing with farmers over who would live on what land. Seems like a pretty closely inspired version to me.

LMB: Saying that the Lakewalkers are arguably reminiscent of Native Americans seems to me the precise term; they're meant to be arguable. But I was also thinking of Orthodox Judaism, certain Indian (as in, subcontinent of) castes, and other generations- or centuries-long self-defending cultural constructs, and the social mechanisms for maintaining in-group and out-group boundaries over very long periods of time. (Arcane food rules loom interestingly large.)

bests, L.
*______*

And then people pissed Willow off
*

*

*

LISTEN, WHO THE FUCK ever Foxtrot Tango is, and any other fucker who agrees with them over on the Tor thread. They need to check themselves. I am sick and tired - no. I an enraged at honkeyshines (whether by white folk or white identified PoC) that use the word LYNCH to describe a fucking DISAGREEMENT, a debate via WORDS, especially on the INTERNET which is far removed from one on one physical confrontation and DANGER.

The minute someone uses the word LYNCH online, I know they don't know what the fuck they're talking about - One. And they're trying to be inflammatory because they can't counter argument - Two. And it's derailing bullshit - Three. That shows they're seriously lacking in the departments of compassion, empathy and HUMANITY.

White people go on and fucking on, (and yes, I'm so angry I can't even find words to use other than fuck) about how the words RACIST and RACISM are not words, according to them, to be tossed casually around - as if any (majority) instance where the words are used ARE FUCKING CASUAL.

But THEN THEY GO AND USE THE WORD LYNCH like it means fisty-cuffs between five year olds in a school yard.

THAT IS SOME OF THE MOST RACIST AND MINIMIZING OF TRAUMA BULLSHIT I HAVE EVER HEARD AND I AM OVER BEING EVEN REMOTELY POLITE TO PEOPLE WHO DO THIS.

In an internet disagreement, even about race, NO ONE is going to drag you from your home, while your family watches in HORROR, with GUNS in their faces, as you're PULLED THROUGH THE STREET AND TAKEN AWAY, to where men will STRING YOU UP VIA ROPE AND NOOSE, and drink beer and TAUNT YOU, before HANGING YOU and WATCHING YOUR KICKING FEET AND SLOW STRANGULATION OR BROKEN NECK.

AND THEN...

...take pictures of your broken dead body, like you were a prize fucking catch of the day from the sea, BURN YOUR BODY WHERE IT HANGS meaning that your family can't positively identify it, while also quite casually, BBQ-ing and picknicking! AND THEN LEAVING YOUR BODY THERE TO ROT AND FALL DOWN, because your family either doesn't know where it is, or isn't allowed to cut it down.

WHILE THE STRONGEST SANCTION THESE LYNCHERS face is a ticket for LITTERING!!!!!!!

YOU RACIST MOFUCKERS! You don't know shit and every time you open your fucking mouths, you prove how callous and INHUMAN you fucking are.

I SPIT ON YOU.

Ahem, Ms Bear?

Truepenny@Livejournal:

I think it's more accurate to say that Emma, and several other people in this discussion, are trying to talk about the book on a literary/analytic level whereas you got short-circuited before you could reach that kind of discussion by a personal/political reaction. Part of what's going on here, as medievalist and matociquala have also noticed, is that we've got two very different discussions jostling each other for space. (See point II above, particularly that first paragraph where I'm unable to stop myself explaining why your reading is wrong. Also tsubaki_ny below about approaching everything analytically.) This is not about dissing people of color; it's about having a learned, but deeply ingrained, protocol for talking about books. (Given that the readers of this blog--and Bear's blog, for that matter--are writers and readers and all around text-geeks, it's neither surprising nor blame-worthy that these are our instincts and that they cut across lines drawn by class, race, and sex. It's what we do--and I fully include myself in that.)

Now, one must be interpolated into the dominant culture in order to have this ingrained protocol. One also must be taught how to do it. It isn't inherent, but a learned skill set. So it is, inevitably, itself an artifact of race/class/sex privilege. [ETA: And in one's education, one has to have chosen to take a number of English classes--that's not necessarily about privilege at all.] Happily, it can also be turned against the dominant culture, as any number of feminist, Marxist, and post-colonial literary scholars have demonstrated. (This is the thing [info]medievalist is wishing for.) So it is not, in and of itself, destructive. It's also not an approach that inherently denies racism or classism or sexism. It puts text first, personal experience second (and that's an improvement over the days when it was text only), instead of experience first, as a political approach does.

[ETA: End paragraph of pedantry here.]

Neither approach is "wrong." But it's hard--as these comment threads are demonstrating--for the two sides to understand each other.

When I say "it's not about dissing people of color," I am not saying that as a white woman dismissing POC experience yet again. I'm saying it as an academic with many colleagues who are POCs and who use these dominant culture tools with breath-taking grace and clarity. (See, for one example, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook by Gananath Obeyeskere.) It's a different circle on the Venn diagram.

---

I see. I'm not a writer, a reader or an all around text geek. I'm an emotional person who is not interrogating your text from the right perspective.

Perhaps you did not mean to turn me off further discussion, but you have. You are telling me with one side of your mouth that the rules of discussion among this particular group of people is text first, experience second. You are privileging that mode of analysis, not saying it's better outloud, oh no, but privileging it all the same. And I don't think you get to tell me whether or not your words as stated, without codicils of wink-wink, nudge-nudge, let's all be friends here, are somehow not dismissive.

Privileging the text, privileging it by calling it the dominant mode and academic mode, as if dominance in a conversation about institutional racism is a good thing, and academic as if as a reader I'm meant to step back and cold heartedly think about something that's hurt me - are more important than what I naturally bring to a reading; my emotions and experiences.

You are privileging this way of interacting with the text while admitting that it is faulty when it comes to letting academic white women (and men) understand what they're missing and dismissing and discarding when it comes to the narrative as seen through the point of view of not just a person of colour, but a hurt person of colour; one who feels slyly attacked by tropes that dismiss who she is as a person and part of a people who are NOT WHITE.

Your learned, deeply ingrained way of relating to text IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN NOT HARMING A PEOPLE. They're hell of not more important than not hurting me and others like me eager to see some semblance of self in a book and who instead end up having to discuss all over again, for the umpteenth time why YOU STEPPING ON MY FOOT HURTS! And you don't get to tell me that you're a doctor and are used to distancing yourself from pain with medical jargon and xrays and a bloody nurse.

You also don't get to fucking tell me that IF ONLY I were as learned as you in the ways of white tower reading, I would totally get where your colleagues are dialoging from. I know where the hell they're coming from - it's the land of "How dare the uppity minority feel she can analyze anything one of us says or does as if she matters."

It's coming from the place of "How dare you call me evil racist. I'm educated! I'm not taking this personally or emotionally... unlike you, you out of control PoC. Oh you people are so easily aggravated."

Your little comment/speech, truepenny is full of excuses and buffer and is all the more repugnant because you initially presented yourself as someone who was capable of seeing through the eyes of another.

But if you want one of yours to dialogue with you, I'll send one your way and see how you fare when you can't doublespeak your way around a fellow academic.

---

Elizabeth Bear, could you please tell your friends to put on some pants? Pale white buttcheeks in my face are quite unsightly. And the next time it happens, I'm going to grab a pole and shove.

I don't want white guilt. I don't want dissembling. I don't want 'But we don't know how to jump in from an emotional standpoint like you non academic beings,'. White people who keep asking me BUT WHAT CAN I DO?

Don't do this and it'll be a great start.

I am done. Finished. The end. And I've decided that 80% of the lot of you are wastes of space in this matter. I'll try with the next generation.

Atten: B'Sphere

Dear People Who Keep Commenting Me On My Marvel + Gay People = Oh Hells No Post,

Please stop commenting. The majority of you keep wanting to discuss or point out that Guggenheim was being pro equal marriage.

I. Don't. Care

I realize I was not at my most coherent because I was just so effing angry that equal marriage and the bad storyline of A DEAL WITH A SHIV GIVING LORD OF HELL, A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL were being equated at all.

It was a shitty comparison and a shitty analogue. And yes, I still think it showed a level of callousness to have an official spokesperson make such a statement. The level of callousness equates to me that MARVEL DOESN'T CARE ABOUT GAY PEOPLE.

Homosexuality is good enough to mention in a backhanded attempt to pander to homophobic comic reading buzzballidiots and it's good enough to attempt to appeal to some mystery demographic and show your 'liberal cred'. But it's not good enough for any particular attention to be paid to having or promoting a stable character.

And if someone dares to comment/post an essay reply mentioning The Rawhide Kid, consider yourself already internet stabbed.

Guggenheim had a poor, extremely poor choice of words. Why all the surprise that someone would state outright that MARVEL DOES NOT CARE ABOUT GAY PEOPLE?

I've already been saying MARVEL DOES NOT CARE ABOUT BLACK OR BROWN PEOPLE.

Marvel's captained and steered by middle class white guys who're living out their power fantasies even if said fantasies crush the dreams of consumers and other fans - that is people who aren't them. If you're not a middle class hetero white guy and you're still enjoying them - bully for you. But don't expect me to put up with consuming the same amount of bullshit. Garbage in equals garbage out. I stopped swallowing. I won't swallow. Read into that what you will.

The next person who comments or emails me about this, please know that while I delete your remarks without reading them - I'm imagining your private pinkish parts being caught in a cusinart.

In other news, the Special Edition PoC in SF Carnival - IBARW ISSUE. Go read it and learn something. It's good for you.