A Spoon-free Signal Boost About Racefail.
Sometimes when you have a chronic illness you hear about something going on in fandom that you want to talk about, that you want to get involved with, but you just don't have the spoons.
But even if we only have enough energy to hit the repost button at the bottom of this page we can still do something. Though we may not be able to add to the discussion ourselves, we can help others to be heard. We can boost the signal; we can spread the word.
In Supernatural Fandom, a Big Bang writer has written a stereotype-riddled story that uses the recent earthquake in Haiti as little more than window dressing for their romance fanfic. The attached artist took pictures of the disaster and photo-shopped them to provide art.
amazonziti has an excellent link roundup here.
bossymarmalade has picked out some of the quotes from the story here, so you can see some of the issues without going through 80k words.
If you're wondering how this could happen,
facetofcathy has an answer for you here.
This is not the first time it's happened; there's been a previous occasion where a white fan used Cambodia's Killing Fields as a backdrop for their story.
But this isn't a problem that's restricted to Supernatural fen, the attitudes that led to this are endemic. It's not even restricted to fandom, but that doesn't mean that fandom should throw their hands up and say "pro-fic/movies do it, why can't we?" The answer to that question has been given, repeatedly, in both this instance of Fandom Racefail and many others.
This isn't about "bullying" the author and artist involved (the feelings of two white people are not the focus of this discussion); this is about getting people heard. This is about getting people to read, and getting them to think, and getting them to realise that this behaviour is not okay. That making this story and this art was not okay, and that telling people to shut up about it is not okay. Maybe next time a writer sees a disaster on the news and thinks "GREAT BACKDROP!" they'll remember this and stop. Or maybe their beta will read the fic and think back to this and link them to
amazonziti's post. Or maybe the artist will. Or maybe someone on their friends list will. Or maybe the mods of the challenge will.
tl;dr:
This is not okay. Pass it on. Pass it on far and wide.
(Note: Clicking on the link will get you to the repost button. You'll get the opportunity to change the settings on your post after pressing this button. If you can't cope with comments right now, you have the opportunity to switch them off. You can also set the post to friends only if you'd rather not leave it public.)
But even if we only have enough energy to hit the repost button at the bottom of this page we can still do something. Though we may not be able to add to the discussion ourselves, we can help others to be heard. We can boost the signal; we can spread the word.
In Supernatural Fandom, a Big Bang writer has written a stereotype-riddled story that uses the recent earthquake in Haiti as little more than window dressing for their romance fanfic. The attached artist took pictures of the disaster and photo-shopped them to provide art.
amazonziti has an excellent link roundup here.
bossymarmalade has picked out some of the quotes from the story here, so you can see some of the issues without going through 80k words.
If you're wondering how this could happen,
facetofcathy has an answer for you here.
This is not the first time it's happened; there's been a previous occasion where a white fan used Cambodia's Killing Fields as a backdrop for their story.
But this isn't a problem that's restricted to Supernatural fen, the attitudes that led to this are endemic. It's not even restricted to fandom, but that doesn't mean that fandom should throw their hands up and say "pro-fic/movies do it, why can't we?" The answer to that question has been given, repeatedly, in both this instance of Fandom Racefail and many others.
This isn't about "bullying" the author and artist involved (the feelings of two white people are not the focus of this discussion); this is about getting people heard. This is about getting people to read, and getting them to think, and getting them to realise that this behaviour is not okay. That making this story and this art was not okay, and that telling people to shut up about it is not okay. Maybe next time a writer sees a disaster on the news and thinks "GREAT BACKDROP!" they'll remember this and stop. Or maybe their beta will read the fic and think back to this and link them to
amazonziti's post. Or maybe the artist will. Or maybe someone on their friends list will. Or maybe the mods of the challenge will.
tl;dr:
This is not okay. Pass it on. Pass it on far and wide.
(Note: Clicking on the link will get you to the repost button. You'll get the opportunity to change the settings on your post after pressing this button. If you can't cope with comments right now, you have the opportunity to switch them off. You can also set the post to friends only if you'd rather not leave it public.)