Meta, Race and Censorship
I scrolled to metafandom on both of my flists (this LJ/IJ thing is making me schizophrenic) and decided to check out ignazwisdom's post, In which I dip my toes into the churning waters of race meta, and hope not to be bit by sharks*. And it was interesting, and the replies were interesting, and I wrote a response...
And then I thought about it. I realized I was going to be A White Person Talking About Race. (Let's not discuss whether white is "a race" or not; race discussions are not about whiteness. Not in the US or most of Europe. Part of the weirdness of privilege is that your own identity gets blurred into the generic background.) And I realized that, since it'd been posted at Metafandom, Ig's post (and any replies thereto) were no doubt going to be viewed by the various FoCs who dominate the IBARW discussions, who, for the most part, intimidate the fuck out of me. Enough that I've tried to stay the hell away from the race discussions. I dabble at the fringes... where they blend into religious discussions (comfortable ground, for me), usually about Judaism. (About which I am gaining probably the world's most erratic education. metafandom is a hell of a shule.)
So I was gonna comment with my thoughts about Foreman, and my thoughts about him being ignored or sidelined in Housefic.
There was some chance my words would be offensive. Some chance that someone would find them offensive, regardless of what the majority thinks, because there's always that possibility. Also some chance that my words would be read with the harshest possible filter, because I've recently clashed with people over GBLT issues, and while those are different from race issues, there's a lot of similarities in how they're addressed, and in the efforts involved in trying to achieve legal and social equality. And a lot of the same people wind up in both kinds of discussions.
And I decided, why bother?
Nobody's eagerly waiting to hear my thoughts on racial issues in fandom. Nobody's eagerly waiting to hear my thoughts on racial issues, period. And being told firmly that my thoughts on other issues, which I see as either related or similar, are firmly Not Wanted, makes me disinclined to attempt to enter the conversation.
There've been a number of posts recently that had messages something like,
"if you start to say something like [this], stop. Think about it. Maybe you don't need to say it." There have been pleas that insensitive white folks (which may or may not include me) should self-censor, should just stop when they realize they're offending people. (It is not clear if they're supposed to stop when they have offended any single person, or when they've offended enough that there's a consensus that the post/comment/whatever was offensive by some objectively-identifiable standard.)
I don't know if what I was going to say was "something like [this]." My perceptions are, I've been told, whacked in some areas; I obviously have no idea whatsoever what some people find offensive or why. But I do eventually get the message that they are offended.
So... if I actively don't want to offend anyone, I have to just shut up. Well. I suppose I can do that. Like Ignaz said, "And I could manage to not go there--I had the privilege of being able to avoid that conversation." I don't need to talk about race. I don't need, for the most part, to think about it, except to try to figure out if my kid gets picked on because she's one of the handful of white students at her school, or because she's geeky and weird. (Or rather, how much each factors into the teasing and occasional bullying.) But I don't need to process those thoughts on LJ/IJ.
I'm unsure if I should join into such discussions, knowing full well I'm going to offend someone, knowing that race relations and prejudice are insanely complex subjects that there are no "right" answers to (but plenty of wrong ones), and trying to understand more of the issues through interaction... or just leave the subject alone, occasionally looking at it from a distance, absorbing a bunch of words about it but not having any way of relating them to my own experiences or values. And without the back-and-forth to process my thoughts, to connect to other people rather than just reinforcing whatever prejudices or enlightenments I already have, there won't be any real changes in my thoughts and habits.
But I don't know if I "should" change anything. Without participating in the discussions, I have no way of knowing if I'm doing anything "wrong." And yet... I don't feel welcome in the discussions. I'm not going to endure likely painful, time-consuming debates in order to be told I need to change aspects of my life that are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch, and not causing problems for me nor anyone dear to me.
For politeness' sake, I don't jump into these debates, where I know I don't fully understand the issues. So for politeness' sake, I don't change any of my own understandings, because all of the discussions are about strangers dealing with issues that don't much affect me.
It's possible that my understandings of race are just fine where they are. That I'm reasonably enlightened, sensitive to racial issues in the ways that it matters, and devoid of discriminatory tendencies. It's possible that I am mostly sensitive enough, with a few areas that I am just plain wrong about. (It's possible, I suppose, that I'm a bigoted racist bitch, but I'm betting against that; there are people who would've let me know by now.) But whatever flaws might exist in my awareness of racial issues, they aren't likely to be addressed or corrected... because there's a really firm message of "STFU, White Person" that certainly doesn't encourage the awkwardness and weird stretching in odd directions that are required for real growth.
As mentioned, because of the privilege situation, it's not an area I need growth in. My life won't go through any notable problems if I keep my current attitudes forever. Neither will the lives of people I care about, including various persons of various colors. I am not important to these issues. And without a compelling reason, I haven't got the energy to submit to getting my hand slapped, over and over, as I try to figure out the dual issues of "what areas in myself could use improvement" and "what public expressions will get me bitched at."
Comments are enabled at my InsaneJournal post.
And then I thought about it. I realized I was going to be A White Person Talking About Race. (Let's not discuss whether white is "a race" or not; race discussions are not about whiteness. Not in the US or most of Europe. Part of the weirdness of privilege is that your own identity gets blurred into the generic background.) And I realized that, since it'd been posted at Metafandom, Ig's post (and any replies thereto) were no doubt going to be viewed by the various FoCs who dominate the IBARW discussions, who, for the most part, intimidate the fuck out of me. Enough that I've tried to stay the hell away from the race discussions. I dabble at the fringes... where they blend into religious discussions (comfortable ground, for me), usually about Judaism. (About which I am gaining probably the world's most erratic education. metafandom is a hell of a shule.)
So I was gonna comment with my thoughts about Foreman, and my thoughts about him being ignored or sidelined in Housefic.
There was some chance my words would be offensive. Some chance that someone would find them offensive, regardless of what the majority thinks, because there's always that possibility. Also some chance that my words would be read with the harshest possible filter, because I've recently clashed with people over GBLT issues, and while those are different from race issues, there's a lot of similarities in how they're addressed, and in the efforts involved in trying to achieve legal and social equality. And a lot of the same people wind up in both kinds of discussions.
And I decided, why bother?
Nobody's eagerly waiting to hear my thoughts on racial issues in fandom. Nobody's eagerly waiting to hear my thoughts on racial issues, period. And being told firmly that my thoughts on other issues, which I see as either related or similar, are firmly Not Wanted, makes me disinclined to attempt to enter the conversation.
There've been a number of posts recently that had messages something like,
"if you start to say something like [this], stop. Think about it. Maybe you don't need to say it." There have been pleas that insensitive white folks (which may or may not include me) should self-censor, should just stop when they realize they're offending people. (It is not clear if they're supposed to stop when they have offended any single person, or when they've offended enough that there's a consensus that the post/comment/whatever was offensive by some objectively-identifiable standard.)
I don't know if what I was going to say was "something like [this]." My perceptions are, I've been told, whacked in some areas; I obviously have no idea whatsoever what some people find offensive or why. But I do eventually get the message that they are offended.
So... if I actively don't want to offend anyone, I have to just shut up. Well. I suppose I can do that. Like Ignaz said, "And I could manage to not go there--I had the privilege of being able to avoid that conversation." I don't need to talk about race. I don't need, for the most part, to think about it, except to try to figure out if my kid gets picked on because she's one of the handful of white students at her school, or because she's geeky and weird. (Or rather, how much each factors into the teasing and occasional bullying.) But I don't need to process those thoughts on LJ/IJ.
I'm unsure if I should join into such discussions, knowing full well I'm going to offend someone, knowing that race relations and prejudice are insanely complex subjects that there are no "right" answers to (but plenty of wrong ones), and trying to understand more of the issues through interaction... or just leave the subject alone, occasionally looking at it from a distance, absorbing a bunch of words about it but not having any way of relating them to my own experiences or values. And without the back-and-forth to process my thoughts, to connect to other people rather than just reinforcing whatever prejudices or enlightenments I already have, there won't be any real changes in my thoughts and habits.
But I don't know if I "should" change anything. Without participating in the discussions, I have no way of knowing if I'm doing anything "wrong." And yet... I don't feel welcome in the discussions. I'm not going to endure likely painful, time-consuming debates in order to be told I need to change aspects of my life that are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch, and not causing problems for me nor anyone dear to me.
For politeness' sake, I don't jump into these debates, where I know I don't fully understand the issues. So for politeness' sake, I don't change any of my own understandings, because all of the discussions are about strangers dealing with issues that don't much affect me.
It's possible that my understandings of race are just fine where they are. That I'm reasonably enlightened, sensitive to racial issues in the ways that it matters, and devoid of discriminatory tendencies. It's possible that I am mostly sensitive enough, with a few areas that I am just plain wrong about. (It's possible, I suppose, that I'm a bigoted racist bitch, but I'm betting against that; there are people who would've let me know by now.) But whatever flaws might exist in my awareness of racial issues, they aren't likely to be addressed or corrected... because there's a really firm message of "STFU, White Person" that certainly doesn't encourage the awkwardness and weird stretching in odd directions that are required for real growth.
As mentioned, because of the privilege situation, it's not an area I need growth in. My life won't go through any notable problems if I keep my current attitudes forever. Neither will the lives of people I care about, including various persons of various colors. I am not important to these issues. And without a compelling reason, I haven't got the energy to submit to getting my hand slapped, over and over, as I try to figure out the dual issues of "what areas in myself could use improvement" and "what public expressions will get me bitched at."
Comments are enabled at my InsaneJournal post.