A white girl's IBARW post.

[millefiori]

It’s International Blog Against Racism Week and I don’t want to let the week go by without posting something. (In fact, I wish I'd gone with my instinct to post something on the recent 'Miscegenation' brouhaha, not because I had anything profound to say, but because I think every voice counts.) On the other hand, I'm a total newcomer to the race

Comments

Here from Metafandom

[vampirespider]

This post sums up a lot of what I feel about racism (or any -ism in fandom), namely - surely more awareness is a *good* thing? One of the things I love about fandom is that it's an opening gate to people with different points-of-view and different backgrounds, so not only am I getting my fic-fix, but I'm also learning more about, well, other people.

Re: Here from Metafandom

[millefiori]

Me too! I think it's too easy in real life to just sort of automatically spend time/pair off with "our kind of people". In fandom--especially online fandom--it's easy to make connections and build relationships with people who are different, because those differences have nothing to do with the interest that brings us together in the first place (if that makes any sense). Then, once those relationships are in place, if those people start telling me something about life that I never knew before, I'm going to want to listen!

[pensnest]

(here via metafandom

I'd like to second this. I'm very glad to be educated into the big issues and implications, and am grateful to so many people on LJ who have broadened my mind. If I read something now and think that it isn't quite as clean and shiny as I'd once upon a time have thought it was, then that's because I've learned to see, just a little bit better, through other people's eyes - and I can't see that as a bad thing.

[millefiori]

I had originally written a whole thing about homosexuality, but I ended up taking it out since this is supposed to be about racism, but the same thing happened with me with regard to that. I'd never considered myself homophobic, and I knew and liked gays and lesbians, but it wasn't until fandom that I really got to know some LGBT people, and learned about the issues they face--stuff that never came up in my life before fandom.

[pensnest]

Yes, indeed - when you suddenly realise that asking "Are you married?" is making assumptions that you didn't even notice you were making... readjustment of world-view is a good thing, but it's hard and it takes a while.

I've just found myself in a small discussion of racism on customers_suck, and it's depressing *me*, so my respect for FoCs who can carry out discussions without vitriol is climbing all the time.