Treacle Mine Road

I wish I'd thought of this yesterday, but I didn't. I only digested it in class, so here I am, typing it up now.

I can't link to all the specific things because the LJ posts are flocked and I have half an hour before class starts. Apologies.

Cultural Appropriation, presented by Sheroes

And just for funsies, here's a Racefail bingo card! And a cultural appropriation bingo card! I'd forgotten these existed. Later, I'm going to go back and play.

Firstly, the argument that wyldlittlepoet should have been more respectful of pet owners when she said they 'could get rid of their cats': this is a fucking tone argument. If only she had been more respectful, if only she had been less callous, things would not have gotten out of hand.

Where is this respect, when we tell you that the discussion is offensive to us? You talk about cat ladies, comparing us to animals, no matter how much they may be family to you. They are animals, because they're not human. We are. Why do we accord less respect than them?

Secondly, zoethor's comparison of gay rights and cat ladies. streussal brought up the point that it was also an issue, but refrained from delving further into it because she didn't want to derail. colorwhirl commented to say that it could read as a swipe at wyldlittlepoet herself. I then commented to say I found it enraging and depressing.

To the both of us, ly_ragnarok replied to clarify that zoethor identifies as gay, and it was probably an unfortunate choice of analogy, but not meant as a strike at anyone. zoethor also replied to both myself and colorwhirl. To me, she voiced agreement with ly_ragnarok, and said she failed at life. To colorwhirl, she remarked that it was pretty rich of her to assume something of an absolute stranger. (This exchange is in one of the locked posts, which I currently cannot see any longer either.)

There are a number of issues here. Firstly, the double standard. Why is wyldlittlepoet held to her unfortunate word choice, lambasted for it, called names, had insinuations made that she was a heartless person despite her devotion to her animals, which she repeatedly stated -- while zoethor is allowed to get off scot-free? Why is wyldlittlepoet given a standard while zoethor doesn't have to comply with it?

And the other issue: I looked at the Sheroes thread while I was not logged in. My previous activity on Sheroes was not conducted on my current laptop, so there shouldn't be any misconceptions about leftover cookies or whatever. I was able to read the thread in its entirety, which I can also verify because I did log in later. colorwhirl, presumably, would be able to do the same. Why is it necessary to know the details of zoethor's life in order to understand all the nuances of the conversation? While I recognise zoethor's name, I do not remember significant interactions between us while I was on Sheroes. Why didn't I rate a nasty comment? Because I'm a former Sheroes contributor? Because I was only reacting to colorwhirl's assessment? I don't know, because I do not know zoethor well, at all. But it shouldn't even matter, because it was a public thread, and because actions (such as frivolous comparisons or a lack of response to accusations of derailing) sometimes speak a hell of a lot louder than words.

The internet is not a private sandbox. Sheroes Central is not a void bereft of contact with the outer reaches of the web.

Finally, (and this is in the actual Sheroes thread), zoethor claims: 1) that wyldlittlepoet was attacking her and 2) the nature of threads on Sheroes is to evolve into their own and the culture of off-topic on Sheroes justifies her branch into injustices against cats.

1) It was not an attack. It was a response to attacks on wyldlittlepoet which ended in anger. Sometimes, assholes, anger is the only way to get heard. Obviously 'polite' discourse wasn't working. You can see the long, patient evolution of the thread in the link (which I will later provide). And I classify them as attacks on Linwen because they claimed that she was not listening to them, that she was brushing off their concerns while she would have been angry if they had done the same to her (which, you know, they were doing), and a number of attacks which I would like to say are outright ad hominem: she was the reason why laws for the better consideration of animal welfare were necessary.

Funnily enough (or not, really), in a thread about a touchy subject, one of the few apologies I see is when wyldlittlepoet says she doesn't consider pets a part of the family. Nothing to anyone who may have been personally hurt by the encounter. (Go to the full thread, hit ctrl+F, search for 'sorry' or 'apologize'.) (But the fail is not completely directed at one person: tarrinthetree is a champ, and has more patience than I.)

The fact that it was presented as an attack put the onus of fixing the conflict on wyldlittlepoet. Be less angry, tell me what I did wrong in terms that will make you go away, back off.

2) The culture of off-topic on Sheroes is alive, so far as I can say since I left. However, this was not a post about shipping, nor was it a boxers or briefs poll. This was about a real person being hurt, and having her concerns being brushed off. This was about something that is prevalent, something that does happen, and it was being obscured, obfuscated behind concerns that, while perhaps no less real, were in the wrong space and which detracted from the issue.


All right, I need to get to class, I will post links later done. I am pissed off, I have held off on a lot of sarcasm (trust me, I had a fuckload more), and I have an internship interview today that is pretty damn important and that I have taken time and focus away from to address this fucking thing.

Edited for a bit more coherency and another observation or two. This post is open because ly_ragnarok, zoethor, colorwheel, and other people whose posts I've linked to are not on my flist. I'm not going to seek anyone out to throw this in their faces, but, just in case, I don't want anyone to say shit about hiding behind flock.

Edit: Links up, with bonus fun stuff.

RACEFAIL '09

I ran across it a few weeks ago; I thought it had blown over and decided I didn't need to comment on it.

And then I found out it was still ongoing.

Here's a quick summary of the brouhaha.

And an additional development wherein Elizabeth Bear is a little conspicuous about her unclothed arse.

So here's a thing about me: I love fantasy. I adore speculative fiction, I revel in it, it is my pride, my joy, my refuge, my comfort zone.

Here's another thing about me: I am Asian -- my parents can both trace ancestry to Qin China, and I have a smidge of Nonya blood through my father's side of the family, which I found out about quite recently. I have lived in Asia almost my entire life, first in Hong Kong, then in Singapore. I was born in Malaysia, and I am so very glad to call my mother's hometown my own also, because I love the town, though I don't know that I could live there year-round.

And apparently, if I want to make it in this industry, it'll have to be alongside people I have virtually lost all respect for. Who have stepped all over my racial background, who have marginalised me simply because I haven't a shred of Anglo-Saxon about my person, and who refuse to see that they have hurt me.

I've lurked around fandom for a long time. I've seen people from all over the world involved in it. I've interacted with some of them, and the days of my actual interactions with fandom people lies far in the old, old days of Sheroes. This section of the fanbase now means ... nothing?

Oh, fuck that.

I used to think Making Light was cool. Now, I'm glad I never really got involved there. Goodbye, Elizabeth Bear; I'm relieved I didn't pick anything up after Carnival now.

Will Shetterly can fuck off, and take Kathryn Cramer with him. You know, I've been questioning my paranoid decision in like '04 or something to flock my LJ. The whole coffeeandink thing? Is absolutely reminding me of why paranoia can be good.

Here is one more thing about me: I attend an American university, which is jarring for me, since I grew up in bits and pieces of the British Commonwealth, along with being, you know, Malaysian Chinese in America. I've been congratulated, more than once, for my grasp of the English language. Most times, I demur and I reply that English is my first language. This is untrue. My first language is Singlish, which has a horrendous grammatical structure, made of piecemeal scraps of Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, I think? hammered forcibly into the English.

But if you asked me to articulately write on something, anything, in Singlish, I would not be able to. It just feels and looks too awkward to me.

My cousin asked me, this past December, to say something in an American accent. I tried, and I found that I could not, because I associate my different Englishes with different people. I have trained myself to the point where I cannot speak Singlish to my schoolmates, and I cannot speak American to my family.

I am proud that I can approximate a 'neutral' accent. There was a boy in my international high school who was Indonesian Chinese, and had a very strong Singlish accent (Singlish, Malaysian English, and Indonesian English are about interchangeable, though there are regional differences, of course, as the language/dialect is jargon heavy). He was made fun of a lot, though he took it with good grace. I always thought myself superior for being able to avoid the teasing where he couldn't.

Now, I wonder if he was braver than I could ever hope to be.

I have trained myself to write in the Queen's English, and I don't know how to express myself in the written word with Singlish. I don't know that I could express myself face-to-face with you in Singlish.

How's that for cultural appropriation?

Thank you, SF/F pros, for telling me that this means just about nothing to you.

Oh, what a negative note that is to end on! Just to fix that, here, links: verb_noire (whoops, almost spelt that as 'verbe'; evidently there is too much French being screwed into my head (this is a lie, I'm failing it!)) and fight_derailing.

---

Edit: I posted this entry late last night, fuelled on a nauseous stomach (which is not entirely the fault of RaceFail) and a diet of, uh, cornflakes and dried beef. So! There are things I want to add to this public entry, clarify my position a bit.

I mentioned up top that I'm Chinese. I mentioned that I was hurt by the discussion and poo-flinging that has been around through the entire debacle, but I failed to touch upon my RL situation re: privilege, which people know if they live around South-East Asia, but probably not if they're American, which is where most of the primary players in this thing reside.

Me, currently? I am in Switzerland, doing a year of study overseas. If there's anything wonky about timestamps, it's because my LJ is still set to Singapore time, and because I am not actually in LA at this moment in time.

I'm Malaysian, and a Malaysian Chinese who happens to be Christian, which comes with a set of problems in Malaysia, which has a racial majority of Malays, and Malay Muslims. It is the norm for my cousins back home to bribe their way into actually getting their driving licences. For me to get my Malaysian IC, my aunt had to help us through her contacts in Kuala Lumpur, or it would have taken forever and a day.

However, I grew in Singapore, which is quite unlike most of South-East Asia in that its population ratios, from least to greatest goes like this: other minorities, Eurasian, Indian, Malay, Chinese. Last I read, in my social studies textbook when I was twelve, the percentage of Chinese peoples in the Singapore population was 70%. This means that I grew up as part of a racial majority. Before I was seven, I lived in Hong Kong, which is an island off China, so you imagine how that goes.

Now, I'm a girl geek, so I feel more at home in fannish settings and am generally rather awkward at social situations. I am subject to lovely things as geek fallacies and a weakness for a good book over, say, clubbing or attending church events. I tend to feel more at home online, in the midst of geek media culture, particularly to SF/F, and more recently, manga and anime fandom.

One of these two, which is the one I grew up with, is predominantly white. I've been immersed in white culture since I was very young; after the move to Singapore, my mother slipped an Enid Blyton book into my lap, I turned to British and subsequently American lit, and I never turned back. TV shows and movies, which I watched infrequently, were usually in English. (This is probably why I fail at my Mother Tongue. Oh Mandarin, how I hate to love you.) When I left primary school, my parents sent me to an international school, where I came into contact with people from everywhere, but the predominant language was English, our teachers were predominantly white (my three favourite teachers were from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada goooooo British Commonwealth).

But I have always lived in places where I was surrounded by large Chinese populations. I have never been threatened in the way one reads about in newspapers. I have never been harassed for the colour of my skin or the shape of my eyes, because the majority of everyone looked like me. I knew I had to be wary, of course, at all times, but that's also because I'm female and small, and because of geek paranoia.

I am a person of privilege.

If I have ever felt marginalised, it has been in the places where I chose to rest my head, in the fandoms that I sought out. But they all live far away from me, and the reality of my physical life, the one I spend offline, is that I am a little grain of sand on a beach of sand grains.

So while I feel horror and hurt over the comments of people I used to look up to, this is me having nothing next to people who have had to be a minority all their lives, and even in the relative anonymity of the Internet, are still being set aside because they 'look funny'.