2009-06-15

hermionesviolin: young black woman(?) with curly hair and pink sunglasses, facing away from the viewer (every week is ibarw)
2009-06-15 08:54 pm

RaceFail (boosting the signal)

[livejournal.com profile] oyceter posted: 2nd Asian Women Carnival: Intra/inter/transnationalities

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The Willow posted about the impending The Princess & The Frog movie and etc.

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gloss linked to something The Willow had said complaining about white people posting with RaceFail or Racism in the Subject Line but then going on to merely navel-gaze and self-congratulate.

mona commented:
Uh-huh. I've come to realize, after following and participating in many an internet or IRL argument, that the ego is hands down the most exhausting, obstructive entity in existence. How curious that it's so very preponderant among privileged POVs, but so rarely the reverse! It's almost as if some people are taught their voices are more important than others'! :O

I just wish, when playing at allyship, people's FIRST act was to sit and listen (and think! and deconstruct themselves! BASICALLY: What bell hooks said), before they tried to yell and scream and maintain their socially enforced positions as Most Important and Listened to Speaker at all costs. Trying to maintain privilege in this area truly obstructs even approaching unpacking it everywhere else, and yet somehow there's this privileged assumption that talking and posting and dripping privilege and ignorance all over the world is a great form of allyship, something that's going to help you, and the people around you, learn and grow and change! It all comes back to ego, I guess: I'll get more out of basically talking to myself, of talking over you and convincing myself that I'm saying something new and changing slowly but surely, than I will out of listening to you.
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[livejournal.com profile] coffeeandink pointed out that "science fiction fandom is not a special snowflake and media fandom is not the greatest place ever for racial discourse."

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[livejournal.com profile] delux_vivens wrote:
something i've seen repeatedly brought up on lj over the years are objections to the concept of 'safe space'.

and particuarly, the objections that somehow if there is a 'safe space' the people in it are somehow depriving themselves; of a commitment to intellectual rigor, of any opportunity for mental growth and development, of any sort of opportunity to learn from people that are different from them because, of course, safe space means that you squelch any and all dissenting opinions, about, well, everything.

I was under the impression people within a particular community can be a part of that community and have extreme disagreement, but also agree to disagree. Case in point: [livejournal.com profile] sex_and_race and interracial dating. I'm just sayin'. There's folks there who are married to white people, and those who refuse to ever even consider the possibility of ever letting a white person see them nekkid and most likely cut someone for suggesting it. Yet and still they manage to understand each other's position, no matter how much extremity people may feel about it.*

This is fascinating to me. because, really, participation in an online (or offline) community somehow means that I and others am devoting my life to the pursuit of avoidance of aaaaaaaaany exposure to anything else *but* that community? Somehow by doing that I can insulate myself from the larger world that as Hanifa Walidah** put it 'dont wish me right' and make it all just go away.

Uh huh.

This sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me, so i'm starting to wonder if this means something else.

So when brownfemipower asks this question: But isn’t that interesting how when women of color control the space, racist ignorance is not rewarded? I'm starting to think its about safe space as a challenge to power imbalance. I'm just saying.
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I was on [livejournal.com profile] sparkymonster's LJ the other day, and in a WisCon writeup, she wrote, "I discovered Shapely Prose thinks rolling around in straight white cis privilege is AWESOME and was not amused."

[livejournal.com profile] isilya commented:
I would not have felt this fear if Kate had not set herself up as a platform, if she had simply admitted that Shapely Prose is a bunch of white girl friends with white girl voices, and that is how she likes it.

But it terrifies me that someone can be "committed to diversity" and yet choose someone who "feels like part of the family" or "someone who feels like they just fit in" or "someone they click with" instead.

A) I am going to make a hell of a lot of potential employers feel uncomfortable. I challenge the status quo, I am not what they are expecting. I am everything a white male doctor is not. It scares the fuck out of me that even white people who are educated about white privilege can still decide to rely on their "gut feeling" that they "click" with other white people and not even look any further.

B) What the fuck does diversity even mean if your primary criterion is "someone who feels like they are already part of the family". Does that mean someone who feels white?
hermionesviolin: image of Buffy in the desert in "Restless" with text "small girl in a big girl world" (small girl in big world [_extraflamey_])
2009-06-15 08:55 pm

on rape, domestic violence, etc.

(1) repost original post [and easier-on-the-eyes version from MendezBerry.com] of Elizabeth Mendez Berry essay "Beyond Gossip, Good and Evil" on domestic violence (and undercutting macho posturing in gangs)

(2) [livejournal.com profile] cereta's post "On rape and men (Oh yes, I'm going there)".

There's lots of good stuff in the comments -- including how insulting it is to men is the cultural idea that they "can't control themselves" (e.g., if a woman is "acting slutty" or whatever), and how problematic it is that girls grow up knowing that they're going to need to be a "credible victim" (i.e., if they accuse someone of something, they're going to need to not be vulnerable to counters that they were "asking for it" or whatever), and also the importance of teaching children that "stop" means "stop" and that there's no shame in saying "stop."  Expandexcerpts )

Edit: [livejournal.com profile] coffeeandink posted this, which links I haven't read yet.

Edit2: In returning to [livejournal.com profile] coffeeandink's post, one thing that really struck me was the problems that come from, as elle put it, "the fetishization of virginity."  How once you've crossed a certain boundary, your decision about whether to cross it again is given less weight.  (I keep starting to write about formulating a personal sexual ethics and how church and culture don't give us good models and tools for that, but everything I have to say feels just a little too me-centric off-topic for this moment.)
hermionesviolin: (hipster me)
2009-06-15 08:59 pm

I also recognized "Macho Man" Randy Savage in Walker, Texas Ranger ["Fight or Die"].

Things I learned on morning tv: Heidi and Spencer got baptized into Christianity by Stephen Baldwin while on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!  Spencer said that he saw that Stephen was surrounded by love and he was like, "Whatever you've got, I want that," and Stephen said "Jesus."

I had a minor epiphany that one major reason I get avoidant is because I'm a perfectionist.  If I don't do it, then I can't do it wrong.  This surprises no one.  (And yes I recognize how self-defeating it is.)

I hallucinate my cell phone ringing, and when it actually rings it startles me.  And it still hasn't been the phone call I'm waiting for.  Barring any compelling counter-offers, I think I'm going to Annual Conference on Saturday (mostly to hear Bishop Violet Fisher).

Sara and I were supposed to have celebratory drinks tonight, but she got a stomach bug (has been going around her family), so we rescheduled for Thursday.  Roza had invited me over for dinner with her and Chaz for tomorrow night but is having some sort of allergic reaction, so we'll reschedule "Once I am back to as normal as I get."

This getting to go to bed early thing is kind of aces.

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Expandjoy sadhana )