Classic racism

[2_perseph]

AN OPEN LETTER TO GATORGRRRL

[In all the years that I've been on LJ and now on DW, I've never posted about things going on in other journals. I've never even left comments to original posts. But since comments are frozen on the original post, and I feel I cannot let this one pass without comment, I'm making a post here. So here goes.]

I'm a Nigerian

Comments

[amberlynne]

Thank you for this. I understood on a certain level why the story was horrifically racist, but I obviously still needed to learn more because you brought up things I hadn't even considered.

The only advise I can give you or anyone who feels that in writing people from "another race" they have to go do research, is don't. Don't write it. I'm not talking about researching culture or language. I mean that if you have to imagine "how they must think" or "what it feels like to be them," you're already being weird.

But I'll tell you how it feels, because I'm sure you really do wonder. It feels just like being another human being on this planet. Shitty, cranky, happy, callous, thoughtful, selfish, tired, bored, manipulative, grateful, fill in the blank. Just fucking write people.

That should be on some sort of pamphlet, I was going to say for fandom writers but fuck it, the entire world! If everyone started from that place, we'd be a lot better off.

[spiletta42]

Clearly fandom needs a pamphlet, sadly enough.

[2_perseph]

Thank you for this.

[delux_vivens]

I have also met individuals who honestly believed they were 'saving the natives from themselves'. Who were there to feel noble and self-sacrificing. Who thought that they, as white people, were bringing nothing but altruistic betterment.

This is my primary issue with way too many people in the nonprofit sector.

[skywardprodigal]

Racists write stories like that story. Racists are also all over the world living that story. That's what makes me feel the most sick.

Great comment. And, me too.

[datenshiblue]

Reading your essay via amazonziti's compilation post.

Human beings are all human and deserve to be seen as, portrayed as, nothing less, nothing more. It shouldn't be hard. The fact that it so often doesn't happen is incredibly awful.

I just wanted to say, read, heard, and hopefully understood.

[alasse]

Thank you, very, very, very much for this essay.

[fleshflutter]

Thank you for this. I found it absolutely fascinating and it gave me a lot to think about.