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lavendertook Aug. 13th, 2007 01:52 am)
lavendertook Aug. 13th, 2007 01:52 am)RRRR, here be a post.
Remorse, Regret, Racism, and Respect Within and Without Fandom:
Thoughts on the D_D mods responses to the miscegenation discussion and LJ's responses to fandom
Taking a theme from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, since the HP community is at the center of pan-fandom discussions lately, and keeping this general so as not to put spoilers here, the last book takes time to illustrate that there is a great deal of difference between remorse and regret. The former, remorse, can lead the person who experiences it towards emotional growth. The latter, regret, is a dead end n itself. Remorse involves empathy--grief over other people who you feel you have wronged. Regret involves sorrow for losing what is useful to you, an opportunity or a benefit. Remorse and regret play an important role in determining whether you are expressing an apology to someone or are making an excuse or justification for your own actions. One is outward directed; the other inward.
At the risk of being pretty sanctimonious, I'm setting these ideas here to foreground my calling out of continuing lousy behavior that I haven't seen rectified yet within fandom, and without.
Please take a look at the statement of apology in this comment thread as follows:
http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/408520.html?thread=1306312#t1306312
This is how an apology is done. It's focus is on the other person's hurt and taking responsibility for the speaker's own actions, not excusing them away. She doesn't pretty up her initial ignorance, naming it by the culturally negative term of "assumption" and openly admits the racism in her words. Again and again, she acknowledges and takes responsibility for "insult," "pain," "and "hurt" of the party she is addressing.
I think this apology is an indication of an instance of real anti-racist work on the part of the OP because she can focus on the person who she offended as a person and is addressing her like she matters, as she did with the other people she badly offended with her racist assumptions. If you want to question the sincerity here, which I don't, what is clear is that she is focused on her audience with understanding. I did see the apology before I saw the raciststatements she made on a prior thread, so I'm not sure if I would let myself be as touched by her apology because I'd have a bed of anger already that would need smoothing over from seeing this first. And as a white person, I do not even know what it is like to hear these racist judgments on a daily basis, and I am not the brunt of the OP's statements. That standing, I like people in my life who can make an apology like this, and I hope I can manage to react with such grace without defensiveness when I am next wrongfully trespassing against someone with my own unconscious racist assumption, or any other wrongdoing on my part.
The so-called apology from the D_D mods expresses no such quality.
http://community.livejournal.com/daily_deviant/169702.html?page=1#comments
There is one line of apology in this whole post, and it is very generalized as "any offense it has caused," as if there were not an aggrieved party and specific expressions of offense and hurt expressed by many others. The rest of the post consists of justifications--the focus is all on the speakers, not witchqueen and others expressing offense from the accusations and dismissals of the first mod statement.
This is not how an apology is done. This public generalized apology from, ragdoll, one of the mods of D_D is a justification, not an apology. The focus here is not on comforting the other party, but on justifying her own actions and making them understandable to others to lessen anger directed against her. In fact, accusations against the other party are more prevalent than words of apology here. Most of the regret and sorrow expressed here is inward directed--not outward. Remorse outwardly directed, not regret, may be an essential ingredient that those with white privilege, or in any privileged position, need in combatting racism, and that kind of work isn't showing here at all. This post is a dead end.
This is not an apology I could accept, because it's not an apology--it's a justification. I'm angry that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
witchqueen has received no apology from any of the d_d mods. It stinks after all the work she has done. And this is not good for fandom at all. It's an open sore.
And I hope it is clear to everyone, now that we are seeing true censorship in action from the LJ team, that witchqueen's request and the pressure exerted by those of us who supported her critique is not censorship--no one was trying to, or in a position to shut down and stifle this community.witchqueen mobilized public opinion without engaging any strong arm of law. It was a matter of respect, not enforcement.
What we're dealing with from LJ now is indeed an issue of censorship, and of people's ability to participate in a community being severed. And frankly, from the position of power to censor us which he has as a representative of LJ,burr86 would need to make a damn good apology to acceptable. This offense was compounded by LJ's support of him, asking fandom to forgive burr86 as "blowing off steam" rather than focusing on apologizing to their offended customer base. This lack of apology demonstrates a lack of respect on the LJ staff's part toward their customer base in fandom--to show this is bad business, but interpersonally burr86's slur on fandom and the fans who were banned was abusive due to the power position he has in this situation.
Sincere apologies require remorse on the part of the apologizers toward those they offended. It involves being able to empathize with and respect the humanity of those who have been wronged by your words or (in)actions. What we see in both the D_D mods response and LJ's response is regret. The D_D mods were pressured by fandom into enacting change in the expression of a racist term, and if their regrets here really involve remorse, they are going to need to make this clear--it is not yet evident. Whether fandom will be treated with respect by LJ remains to be seen--we have yet to see expressions of regret over the bannings and the lack of respectful treatment of their user base continues. Within that user base in fandom, as the lack of respect given to reasonable requests to do anti-racist work still persists, so does the need to do internal work here.
Remorse, Regret, Racism, and Respect Within and Without Fandom:
Thoughts on the D_D mods responses to the miscegenation discussion and LJ's responses to fandom
Taking a theme from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, since the HP community is at the center of pan-fandom discussions lately, and keeping this general so as not to put spoilers here, the last book takes time to illustrate that there is a great deal of difference between remorse and regret. The former, remorse, can lead the person who experiences it towards emotional growth. The latter, regret, is a dead end n itself. Remorse involves empathy--grief over other people who you feel you have wronged. Regret involves sorrow for losing what is useful to you, an opportunity or a benefit. Remorse and regret play an important role in determining whether you are expressing an apology to someone or are making an excuse or justification for your own actions. One is outward directed; the other inward.
At the risk of being pretty sanctimonious, I'm setting these ideas here to foreground my calling out of continuing lousy behavior that I haven't seen rectified yet within fandom, and without.
Please take a look at the statement of apology in this comment thread as follows:
http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/408520.html?thread=1306312#t1306312
This is how an apology is done. It's focus is on the other person's hurt and taking responsibility for the speaker's own actions, not excusing them away. She doesn't pretty up her initial ignorance, naming it by the culturally negative term of "assumption" and openly admits the racism in her words. Again and again, she acknowledges and takes responsibility for "insult," "pain," "and "hurt" of the party she is addressing.
I think this apology is an indication of an instance of real anti-racist work on the part of the OP because she can focus on the person who she offended as a person and is addressing her like she matters, as she did with the other people she badly offended with her racist assumptions. If you want to question the sincerity here, which I don't, what is clear is that she is focused on her audience with understanding. I did see the apology before I saw the raciststatements she made on a prior thread, so I'm not sure if I would let myself be as touched by her apology because I'd have a bed of anger already that would need smoothing over from seeing this first. And as a white person, I do not even know what it is like to hear these racist judgments on a daily basis, and I am not the brunt of the OP's statements. That standing, I like people in my life who can make an apology like this, and I hope I can manage to react with such grace without defensiveness when I am next wrongfully trespassing against someone with my own unconscious racist assumption, or any other wrongdoing on my part.
The so-called apology from the D_D mods expresses no such quality.
http://community.livejournal.com/daily_deviant/169702.html?page=1#comments
There is one line of apology in this whole post, and it is very generalized as "any offense it has caused," as if there were not an aggrieved party and specific expressions of offense and hurt expressed by many others. The rest of the post consists of justifications--the focus is all on the speakers, not witchqueen and others expressing offense from the accusations and dismissals of the first mod statement.
This is not how an apology is done. This public generalized apology from, ragdoll, one of the mods of D_D is a justification, not an apology. The focus here is not on comforting the other party, but on justifying her own actions and making them understandable to others to lessen anger directed against her. In fact, accusations against the other party are more prevalent than words of apology here. Most of the regret and sorrow expressed here is inward directed--not outward. Remorse outwardly directed, not regret, may be an essential ingredient that those with white privilege, or in any privileged position, need in combatting racism, and that kind of work isn't showing here at all. This post is a dead end.
This is not an apology I could accept, because it's not an apology--it's a justification. I'm angry that
witchqueen has received no apology from any of the d_d mods. It stinks after all the work she has done. And this is not good for fandom at all. It's an open sore. And I hope it is clear to everyone, now that we are seeing true censorship in action from the LJ team, that witchqueen's request and the pressure exerted by those of us who supported her critique is not censorship--no one was trying to, or in a position to shut down and stifle this community.
witchqueen mobilized public opinion without engaging any strong arm of law. It was a matter of respect, not enforcement.What we're dealing with from LJ now is indeed an issue of censorship, and of people's ability to participate in a community being severed. And frankly, from the position of power to censor us which he has as a representative of LJ,
burr86 would need to make a damn good apology to acceptable. This offense was compounded by LJ's support of him, asking fandom to forgive burr86 as "blowing off steam" rather than focusing on apologizing to their offended customer base. This lack of apology demonstrates a lack of respect on the LJ staff's part toward their customer base in fandom--to show this is bad business, but interpersonally burr86's slur on fandom and the fans who were banned was abusive due to the power position he has in this situation. Sincere apologies require remorse on the part of the apologizers toward those they offended. It involves being able to empathize with and respect the humanity of those who have been wronged by your words or (in)actions. What we see in both the D_D mods response and LJ's response is regret. The D_D mods were pressured by fandom into enacting change in the expression of a racist term, and if their regrets here really involve remorse, they are going to need to make this clear--it is not yet evident. Whether fandom will be treated with respect by LJ remains to be seen--we have yet to see expressions of regret over the bannings and the lack of respectful treatment of their user base continues. Within that user base in fandom, as the lack of respect given to reasonable requests to do anti-racist work still persists, so does the need to do internal work here.