Writercon 2009: -ism in Fandom

[rahirah]

At Writercon 2009 this last weekend, I was on a panel entitled "Evil In Our Midst: Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Fandom." And before I start talking about it, I want to give some background, because as I discovered through some conversations at the con, some of the people who attended weren't aware of why the convention decided to host this

Comments

[texanfan]

After over an hour of civilized discourse I admit I was shocked when the lady in question was shouted down without being allowed to finish her statement. It is my feeling that, barring her going into a filibuster rant, she should have been allowed to finish and then told her statement was inappropriate to the session, if it was. It is very hard to get people to listen to others if they are confronted with demands that they sit there and shut up

[rahirah]

Sure. But the thing is, for a lot of people, this is not the first time, nor the third, nor the thirty-third, that they've had these conversations. When tempers fray, it's all too easy for the person on the privileged side of the equation (and I've been that person all too often) to say "You got angry, so I don't have to listen to you any more, and all your points are automatically invalid," and walk away. Or bring out the tone argument -"People would listen to you if only you weren't so angry all the time."

In an ideal world, everyone would be cool and calm and collected all of the time. (And I'm pretty sure most of us try to be - no one wants to lose control.) But in an ideal world, we wouldn't need to talk about this to begin with. I'm very glad that xionin got a chance to talk to the original speaker afterwards, and I totally agree with her that the first speaker is due a lot of credit for not escalating a tense situation. But what I'm trying to explain is why the situation was tense to begin with.

[texanfan]

I do understand why things were tense. My only point is that politeness, on all sides, always helps. Rudeness always hurts.

[rm]

Do you understand why asking people in marginalized groups to be nice is more loaded than asking that of people who don't deal with daily, constant marginalization?

Because usually I have to be twice as nice, twice as patient, twice as articulate while being expected to be twice as willing to overlook slights to my humanity to even have a chance at getting respect. And honestly, as a queer person and even as a gender-nonconforming person, I'm in a easier boat than a whole lot of the people who were up there on that panel; as a white person of means, I've got all sorts of privilege, sometimes I handle that well, sometimes I don't.

Look, we all saw Labyrinth, we all know life isn't fair, but the tragedy of being dealt a lot that is marginalized isn't who we are (I'm pretty down with myself, I think the same can be said for all the people up there on that panel too), it's that we're not also always given handy dandy tools to make us better at dealing with the position we've got (I am, for example, not a patient soul).

[xionin]

after the panel dissolved, i had a very long discussion with the lady that was "shouted down". (if there was applause, i missed it entirely

[harmonyfb]

Actually, the history of the panel stems from the last Writercon. After 2006, we had an attendee post a long, offensive homophobic diatribe about how (as a straight white guy) he was being 'oppressed' by widespread mention of slash. (I.e., the mere fact that people mentioned slash in panels made him swoon. ::rolls eyes::)

After that, we decided that it would be a good idea to address issues of that nature in fandom - and why it's especially shocking to find it lingering in fandom. The panel was planned in 2006, but after Racefail and attendant issues, it seemed more timely than ever.

Sometimes it helps to not only get these issues out on the table, but it helps to do it in person, so that there isn't the disconnect between what someone is saying and who they are (if you understand what I mean).

maybe one day we won't feel the need to have sessions like these.

From your lips to the gods' ears.

[willowgreen]

Just want to confirm that yes, there was applause. It wasn't loud and was mostly in the back of the room, so it must not have carried to the front.

[texanfan]

Ah! Forgive my horrible memory for names. I want to thank you for taking the time and interest to find out what the lady was actually trying to say. You didn't have to do it but I think you saved the whole panel for several of us. I really appreciated talking with you.

[rusty_halo]

Barb, thanks for posting this.

A few links that might be helpful for those who are new to this conversation:

* Derailing for Dummies

* rydra_wong has a huge collection of links pointing to the places these issues have been discussed in fandom, including the RaceFail '09 link that rahirah provided above. Please read these if you want to understand the context of what happened at Writercon.

* The Privilege of Politeness by Naamen Gobert Tilahun.

* zvi_likes_tv asks about the tone argument and offers results.

* The comments to this post include a lot of detailed explanations of why the tone argument sucks.

* Google has 5,850 results for "tone argument".

[slaymesoftly]

I've been waiting to hear your take on this incident - having, of course, already been clued in elsewhere. I can't speak to why the person who spoke up did so, nor what she intended to say, but I can speak to how she got there. Had I been still there, I would probably have attended this panel, not just because you were on it and I was being supportive (*g*) but because, at a writing conference, I would have (and did, actually) assumed that it was to educate writers so as to help them write "other". If it was to be a closed meeting of those who think of themselves as non-A people, that should have been made clear in the programming description. I think anyone not aware of the imbroglio that was the impetus behind it would have assumed the same thing. That this was a session to attend so as to learn about others different from oneself

[rm]

Racism, Sexism and Homophobia exist in the world and are important issues. Therefore, with or without whatever happened in 2006 (I've no idea, as I was new to WriterCon this year) and the events of RaceFail on LJ over the last year (events which significantly involve the professional SF/F creator community), these are relevant topics (and arguably obviously so) for any con where we are trying to write about human experience and also have fandoms dedicated to whole cultures (e.g., bollywood) and sexual orientatons (e.g., slash).

[slaymesoftly]

I'm not saying they weren't worth discussing, or having a panel. I am saying that it wasn't clear to anyone not in the know that the purpose of the panel was not to provide a learning experience for writers who felt they didn't know enough about the subject matter. Which, it seems, led to attendance by some people who were not welcome and not treated politely when, in their ignorance of the actual purpose of the panel, they spoke out of turn. They are relevant topics, indeed. To all of us.

[rahirah]

The thing is (from my perspective, anyway) there's a distinction between a discussion about the problems of a marginalized group, and a discussion about how uncomfortable discussing the problems of that marginalized group makes members of the dominant group. A panel entitled "Racism et al. in Fandom" seems to me to be pretty clearly about the first thing. Which doesn't mean that the panelists may not choose to field questions about the second thing (and in fact I think we did on a couple of occasions, and in a way, that's what we're doing here and now) but it's not the purpose of the discussion.

[texanfan]

I want to be extremely clear, because it's just been pointed out to me I haven't been, no one on the panel behaved inappropriately. There was nothing but cool and even handed dialogue from all the panelists.

As I read about this incident I'm also becoming convinced she was misheard. I happened to be quite close to her (the table in front of her) so I'm beginning to think what we are ultimately dealing with is a miscommunication.

[missmurchison]

*hugs*

I was behind the person who reacted and I know I had trouble hearing what was said.

[lilachigh]

I am beginning to doubt my own senses! I was sitting just in front of the lady in question - and I do wish she would post what she actually said! - and I would have bet millions that she never said she was too fucked up to belong to fandom. All I heard were the words relating to colour, children and age.

And when it comes to the latter, i am 66 next week and let me tell you, girls and boys, you think you have problems now. Just you wait!!!! I bet in twenty or so years, we'll have ageism panels all over the place.

[missmurchison]

I didn't hear anything about children,but what I did hear didn't sound like what was reported.

You're right about the ageism! One comment I've been seeing a lot lately is that everyone over 50 needs to die (usually in a fire) because we're the ones with the attitudes that are causing all the problems in society. I put my birth year on my LJ because there are so many of us of a certain age in fandom but younger members don't always realize that.