Just too much! It's like twirling mustaches time.

[lavendertook]

After claiming victimization for herself, this idiot is now hitting up the POC fans she insulted to work on her e-zine! Un-fucking-believable! This is an over the top display of privilege and if you want to know what racism looks like, that is it.

If you need some background on what this has come out of, see rydra_wong's LJ for a collection of links, starting here and here.

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

And here she is willing to devote a whole summer to diversity! And set up a listserv! And it's all for Teh Good/sarcasm.

Yeah, I headdesked when I saw that. Especially the part that said "of all the emails I got nobody said, you have an e-zine."....and I was that's because lots of us didn't know you have an e-zine! You are not that internet famous, I guess! Or something!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Look again--she's going through the thread commenting individually to come edit her mag, and shucks, she'll drop any personal disagreement she has with us. It's just too over the top.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

As a white survivor of child abuse meself, I just had to hustle over there and point out that PoCs have been abused for centuries, and that for her to be saying that Avalon's Willow was being mean and manipulative and overwrought is to do to AW exactly what she claims AW was doing to her, that is to say, invalidating an abused person's experience and telling them what they were thinking/doing/feeling rather than accepting that what the abused person is saying is in fact their truth.

I'm expecting full frontal assault and lots of headspinning any second now.

Either that, or being totally ignored.

You know, this has been a really fucked-up shitstorm. Especially since (ignoring Jay Lake's post, which was technically the first one but it didn't start going completely viral until Elizabeth Bear's posts) Bear's truth is that she was trying to say something about slavery and racism, and she acknowledges that she did it in such a way that it failed for readers for whom that's not an abstract topic, and she needs to "fail better" next time and AW's truth is that the book was profoundly hurtful and angering, and both of those can be true at the same time.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I have no evidence mac-stone really gives a fuck about anyone else's pain, least of all people whose histories she can't acknowledge and just sees as an opportunity for editing her slushpile, if she does see us as people, ones who can be bought if she dangles her connections in front of us.

Yes, on the two truth's, but the immediate context to be dealt with is how this exchange was handled. Bear brought it to her LJ, instead of answering Willow on her own space, for whatever reason, and in doing that invited her friends and defender's input. And those defenders began with insult from the very first comment. And though Bear's response was gracious, she did nothing about the stones her defenders were hurling, even though she prefaced the post that she would. Apparently calling some one overreacting from the get go is not offensive, and that's the least of what was hurled. So, yeah, it went badly, and maybe Bear didn't know how to handle it, which is understandable. But there's been days to process, and take responsibility for it. And there's been time to talk about how you handle criticism when those you have privilege over offer you critique over representations that effect them most. I'm not seeing it happen. And I haven't heard any follow up on how behavior in comments contradicted stated intent in her entry from Monette and any address to the people she hurt. And people are hurt and old wounds have been opened that needn't have been and I'd like to see some responsibility taking on this, but I think the time for that has drawn to a close--it's not happening, and more wreckage is left behind.

The good part to come out of this is the Remyth Project and the really fine writing going on there. The fans of color writing there don't need mac-stone's stinking connections.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've been flabbergasted over how people I (used to) respect in their professional capacities - Bear and Sarah Monette, who I do think were trying to be clueful at the beginning anyway, albeit failing rather badly in some very big ways, and Emma Bull and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who have said some appalling things in the trope of "PoC are so emotional (read primitive, uneducated, inferior) that they don't know how to engage with a text in a rational and critical fashion (read intelligent, civilised, superior)," have been saying in these posts.

I guess that most of it is just so awful (and I'm sure that I don't fully get how awful, because I'm still at the point of just trying to fail better myself) that I am (because I have the privilege of being able to) getting stuck near the beginning of the process.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Yeah,it's Seal Press, and Amanda Marcotte, and the fandom "but miscegination is just a kink!" imbroglio all wrapped into one with 20% More Fail Free!

Yup, me too--working on the cluelessness is a life long project--like how I phrased this entry--"if you want to see what racism looks like" was coming from a place of ally fury, but still, anyone who has been the recipient of racism really isn't welcomed in by those words, and I'm leaving out some of my friends by phrasing it that way. )-:

When to use "you" and "they" and when to use "us" without co-opting is really hard. And I feel liminally white as a Jew, and have been dealt some anti-semitism and just a tiny bit of out and out racism, but I don't want claiming my Jewishness instead of my whiteness to be like the co-opting "get-out-of-racism-free" gesture someone does when they say, "but I'm Latvian not white!" So it's complicated. But not so complicated to excuse the shit spewing out of some folks involved in this, not nearly so.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Well, I just bit the bullet and posted something myself, hoping that it doesn't fail too badly and that I'm not coming off like the honky girl riding in to save the day.

One thing I think I've learned from this is that as embarrassing as it is to write something with good intentions and then be shown how badly you failed, it's better to try and fail than to stay silent. Trying and failing is a way of learning.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a hard role not to try to take up for us Pisces, so always something to be mindful of. I will go look when I can. (-:

It is, and knowing when to hold back--sometimes silence is necessary because you're in the wrong position to be the speaker, and the speaking always takes up space, and the fail might hurt someone. But then there's hubris at thinking the fail you dish really is that big a deal to someone else who deals with it every day . . . still you don't want to make your friends go, *sigh* et tu, Brutus? another one rides the bus . . . all of that.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Oh, and yes, the Remyth Project - which I have bookmarked but haven't had time to explore yet because I am having the work project from hell devour more of my available Internet time than any sane person would like right now - sounds really wonderful.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the work project! *hugs*

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

//waves hi shyly -- followed a link from ithiliana

So, yeah, it went badly, and maybe Bear didn't know how to handle it, which is understandable. But there's been days to process, and take responsibility for it. And there's been time to talk about how you handle criticism when those you have privilege over offer you critique over representations that effect them most. I'm not seeing it happen. And I haven't heard any follow up on how behavior in comments contradicted stated intent in her entry from Monette and any address to the people she hurt.

I think this is a really, really good point -- yeah, even just a response post with comments disabled about 'am busy, stepping back and cooling down' now, but it's....weird, to see it not-addressed at all.


The good part to come out of this is the Remyth Project and the really fine writing going on there. The fans of color writing there don't need mac-stone's stinking connections.

The Remyth Project is fabulous and awesome. It's the one good thing to come out of this whole awful shitty mess, and boy is it lovely and heartbreaking. (Which is one reason why I felt FURIOUS when I saw that 'I will edit an e-zine for a summer of diversity' shilling crap -- WTF!)

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Awww, welcome! *offers tea and chocolate* (-:

Thank you! And now she's done a great post . . addressed mainly to us white folks, which is very helpful, and makes me want to say thanks, but the people who really got the rocks hurled at them in her comments and spiraling out from there are still waiting, and well, why should they wait longer when they should have the front row seats? So I'm feeling pretty meh about it.

Yeah, that was shilling all right, timed and phrased in the most exploitive way possible. Good on her for stepping down today, but she said some really awful stuff--apologies at the least are in order.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

MMMMMM tea and chocolate. //happily accepts

addressed mainly to us white folks, which is very helpful, and makes me want to say thanks, but the people who really got the rocks hurled at them in her comments and spiraling out from there are still waiting, and well, why should they wait longer when they should have the front row seats? So I'm feeling pretty meh about it.

Yeah, you know, that's totally it -- I was trying to figure out why it just didn't work for me, and you really put your finger on it.

I do think Avalon's Willow deserves an apology, from both matociquala and truepenny, too -- Bear not so much for anything she said, I don't think, altho I do think truepenny should apologize specifically for the stuff she said about "short-circuiting" and so on, which was awful; not that it's really at all the same thing, but when I was in marital counseling, one thing we learned was that an apology helps the most if it's really specific. That helps the injured person feel visible, like their problems are real and matter, and that the specific problem is being addressed. Just a totally blanket "I have done my part to make this discussion a clusterfuck, and I am sorry" doesn't really....help. That's like, I guess, "I am sorry your foot got stepped on" or, worse, "I am sorry I did my part to ensure your foot got stepped on." Not good.

But the other thing is, vito_excalibur was telling me in a thread on my LJ how when the whole Backup Project really took off in her LJ, it was finals week, but she sucked it up and moderated it because she didn't want the idea to get bogged down in endless discussions of what rape/harrassment was/wasn't, and she didn't want people to go away more disillusioned and sad and feeling hopeless than when they went in. LJ really has this weird liminality; when you post something in your blog, it's your space, and other people come and comment on it, but at the same time, unless it's flocked or even private, it's also the space of the people who come to write -- and read -- in your space as well. So I think even just a simple "I'm sorry I let some of that be said in my space, I should have been more vigilant" might really help. I don't know.

Also (I just woke up a couple hours ago) we now have FLOUNCE-AND-DELETE from pnh, medievalist and I'm afraid to check Shetterly's blog because MY EYES, THE LAST TIME I DID THAT.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

I do think Avalon's Willow deserves an apology, from both [info]matociquala and [info]truepenny, too -- Bear not so much for anything she said, I don't think, altho I do think [info]truepenny should apologize specifically for the stuff she said about "short-circuiting" and so on, which was awful; not that it's really at all the same thing, but when I was in marital counseling, one thing we learned was that an apology helps the most if it's really specific. That helps the injured person feel visible, like their problems are real and matter, and that the specific problem is being addressed. Just a totally blanket "I have done my part to make this discussion a clusterfuck, and I am sorry" doesn't really....help. That's like, I guess, "I am sorry your foot got stepped on" or, worse, "I am sorry I did my part to ensure your foot got stepped on." Not good.

FYI, that apology will happen 2 weeks after never. Pretty awesome eh?
http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1549883.html?thread=31143995#t31143995
http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1551472.html

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

It's OH JOHN RINGO NO x 50 billion!

It's not all about me = It's all about my unique history of trauma and my sensitive writing that will save the world in my unique White 1/4-Cherokee-Princess-and-3/4-small-village-on-the-border-of-5 -Eastern-European-nations Grrl way, so stop getting in my face with your bleeding all over the floor!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

So I think even just a simple "I'm sorry I let some of that be said in my space, I should have been more vigilant" might really help.

And that's it. It really is pretty simple. It doesn't require taking a fucking trip to Mordor. It just involves caring about people who are outside your immediate circle of friends and needs in a concrete way.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

*uses hilariously inappropriate icon*

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Heeeee! It fits. I miss having an army of icons so much, but I still don't want to give LJ more money. They haven't pissed me off in a while though--I may weaken.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

You know, that even shocked *me*.

this clusterfuck is why communities like sex_and_race have ironfisted moderation.

how can someone like that be trusted with poc stories?

and that whole thing of 'well what are *you* doing to make things better (because if i cant see it it probably isnt happening)' makes me want to laugh. well actually no, i did laugh.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Given this crew's makeup, I'm betting that a whole lot of white people will be writing about diversity because none of the would want to be reverse-prejudiced!

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

You're supposed to be enjoying ribs in bourbon and staying out of this mess for the evening!

It's the dangling of her connections that makes it even more horrific to me, such a blatant declaration of, "I can consume you--but ahhhhh you looked at me funny you're victimizing me!" sayeth the wolf. It's just damn evil.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

the ribs have to be marinated over nite. not to worry, i'll post graphic details. and i'm going to poach some wine marinated salmon in a few minutes...

yeah. did you read yeloson's piece about why he didnt want to make the remyth project into a big community?

Power is being able to choose your audiences, choose who you bless with your words.

http://yeloson.livejournal.com/533157.html

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I always marinate over a night or two when I make ribs--honey, fresh garlic and ginger, and lots of wine of whatever kind is handy tending to be the main things poured over them. I should make some dinner.

I didn't see that entry, just the main entry with the links, and the ones I've been seeing on my flist, so thank you--just read it. Should I not be passing on the link to that entry, do you think? I'm not completely sure even reading that entry--I don't want to trespass. Maybe I ought to ask him.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

No, i think its ok to link since its public.

this recipe calls for a specific marinade for the ribs,so i'll do it that way. I was thinking about just throwing everything in the crock pot and hoping for the best overnight but i'll do it their way this one time.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thanks--I went and asked him to be sure.

I'm sure it will come out yummy.

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

That's so Miss Millie.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

The character from The Color Purple? Yeah. "Ok, so there's a brick on your leg--that I dropped there *giggle*--help me pick out the color for the drapes now . . . and please stop bleeding on the rug--that will never come out!"

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one.