RaceFail 09
I've been following the Ongoing Catalogue of Woe generally referred to as "RaceFail 09" since a little after it started. For those who aren't up to speed on that particular trainwreck, it began as a discussion on cultural appropriation and racism in fiction (particularly SF/Fantasy), and proceeded to rapidly go downhill from there in many ways soon
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Comments 10
It's spread quite far outside the instigators. Then again, it's like the Lernean Hydra (oh dear, I've just made a Greek cultural reference), cut off one head and another two sprout, and it reoccurs every few years.
Personally I think everyone is a racist and everyone is a sexist and everyone is guilty of cultural misappropriation. Especially of their own culture. Especially once anyone claims ownership of their culture.
Personally I like syncretism. It tends to build a stronger sense of culture. And can breed different cultures (such a Imperial Roman and Voudoun). Culture, like society, isn't static. It is constantly being interpreted and reinterpreted. It's only when the author practices deceit (for example, claiming that they are a Hopi shaman), that the worthiness of the work is diminished.
Then again, that being said, I've been taught stuff that I cannot and will not teach others, because it is not my place to do so and I don't have the authority to do so. Then again, this is also the reason why so much of this type of oral ( ... )
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And just to add, the main fear in this sort of discussion is of cultural imperialism rather than just cultural appropriation.
Now I'll actually go read what people have been saying.
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From my reading of the debates, a large proportion of it is not in fact about syncretism or ownership of culture per se. It's about folk of colour who talk about how racism (both intentional and unintentional) hurts them, and white folk who respond by vehemently stating that they're not racist so what they're doing/saying is ok, and that the person of colour who is upset is oversensitive/uneducated/stupid/foolish/wrong.
In that context, given the discussions that have already occurred that I refer to, syncretism-is-good statements from white folk are IMO somewhat problematic.
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Yes, although I had encountered fringes of it. But as I said, it is actually a discussion that recurrs every so often, especially in fields that I have considerable interest in (such as comparative mythology). With the accompanying backlash.
And yes, from what I read it's mainly based on the immediate panic reaction of "I'm not racist," that any accusation of racism gives you, particularly in white liberal America, with it's heritage of "manifest destiny" and accompanying racial (defined in terms of genetic heritage and characteristics rather than just culturally) tensions. But as I mentioned everybody is racist you can't helped by being shaped by the biases of the cultural matrix in which you were raised. And usually they won't even be apparent to you until you leave the water you normally swim in. Go back to the century before last and you'll find plenty of racial intolerance between the Irish and Italian immigrants in New York, for example. But under the modern measure this would not be considered racism.*
And it doesn't help ( ... )
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Permission to quote in my own LJ?
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