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bossymarmalade) wrote2009-01-18 10:46 am
bossymarmalade) wrote2009-01-18 10:46 am
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Okay. I haven't posted anything about the cultural appropriation conversation that's been going on for the better part of the week (or does it just *feel* that long?), because I don't read Elizabeth Bear or Emma Bull and had nothing specific to their writing to contribute.
But now it has reached the point where people are making posts claiming that the PoC who have objected to being reduced to "write everybody as though they were white on the inside!", who have objected to dismissal as being "unable to critically analyze literature in the proper university-trained manner", who have objected to the old, tired trope of "if you don't like how white people write you, why don't you just write yourselves?" were being ABUSIVE for challenging those statements. In a "tone" that isn't completely detached, unemotional, and coldly academic.
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medievalist in particular likes to call the PoC involvement in the conversation "manipulative", "insincere", "overtly gendered", and "misogynistic".
Apart from the blatant, mind-boggling way in which an issue that supposedly began with an interest in respecting the Other has suddenly and aggressively become yet again All About the Hurt Feelings of White People, I am astounded that so many people wanking about their precious academic credentials are completely ignorant of how goddamn OFTEN PoC have seen these same generalized dismissals. Too emotional, too loud, too angry, too uneducated, TOO FUCKING COLOURED.
Let me tell you something: I am perfectly capable of using academic language. Many of us are. But after all of the articles and research and polemic that I've been inundated with over the course of my schooling -- and no, I'm not a career academic, and my family hasn't propped up the hallowed halls of post-secondary schooling since time immemorial -- don't you think I know EXACTLY what academia thinks of the voices of PoC? Don't you think I've read enough studies from the pens of white people about their ideas of people of colour? I am IN a department that touts itself as supporting anti-racist feminist work, and yet EVERY DAY I engage in classwork I simultaneously engage with all of the iron-clad ingrained racism of the institution of higher education.
So don't tell me, from your white, privileged high horse, that academia is some pure value-neutral reasonable and logical perspective from which to examine my suffering. Don't act as though we don't know what abuse is, and we need your handed-down-from-heaven white-defined knowledge to understand OUR OWN EXPERIENCE.
Most of all, don't fucking pretend you give a good goddamn about anything other than covering your own ass if the VERY MOMENT a person of colour challenges your self-congratulatory public onanism, you find every method you can to invalidate their critique and surround yourself with allies who assure you that you are, indeed, the Victim In All This Silly Race Stuff and Why Can't Those Darkies See It's For Their Own Good?
I'm angry, but I used this icon instead of one of my angry ones because more than anything, I'm devastated that these people have found such a singularly vicious way to cut down my opinions. I'm not smart enough to understand why their writing isn't really racist. I am, in fact, abusive for arguing with them. I just ... I feel blindsided. Help me here, please; I can't believe how much this hurts.
But now it has reached the point where people are making posts claiming that the PoC who have objected to being reduced to "write everybody as though they were white on the inside!", who have objected to dismissal as being "unable to critically analyze literature in the proper university-trained manner", who have objected to the old, tired trope of "if you don't like how white people write you, why don't you just write yourselves?" were being ABUSIVE for challenging those statements. In a "tone" that isn't completely detached, unemotional, and coldly academic.
medievalist in particular likes to call the PoC involvement in the conversation "manipulative", "insincere", "overtly gendered", and "misogynistic". Apart from the blatant, mind-boggling way in which an issue that supposedly began with an interest in respecting the Other has suddenly and aggressively become yet again All About the Hurt Feelings of White People, I am astounded that so many people wanking about their precious academic credentials are completely ignorant of how goddamn OFTEN PoC have seen these same generalized dismissals. Too emotional, too loud, too angry, too uneducated, TOO FUCKING COLOURED.
Let me tell you something: I am perfectly capable of using academic language. Many of us are. But after all of the articles and research and polemic that I've been inundated with over the course of my schooling -- and no, I'm not a career academic, and my family hasn't propped up the hallowed halls of post-secondary schooling since time immemorial -- don't you think I know EXACTLY what academia thinks of the voices of PoC? Don't you think I've read enough studies from the pens of white people about their ideas of people of colour? I am IN a department that touts itself as supporting anti-racist feminist work, and yet EVERY DAY I engage in classwork I simultaneously engage with all of the iron-clad ingrained racism of the institution of higher education.
So don't tell me, from your white, privileged high horse, that academia is some pure value-neutral reasonable and logical perspective from which to examine my suffering. Don't act as though we don't know what abuse is, and we need your handed-down-from-heaven white-defined knowledge to understand OUR OWN EXPERIENCE.
Most of all, don't fucking pretend you give a good goddamn about anything other than covering your own ass if the VERY MOMENT a person of colour challenges your self-congratulatory public onanism, you find every method you can to invalidate their critique and surround yourself with allies who assure you that you are, indeed, the Victim In All This Silly Race Stuff and Why Can't Those Darkies See It's For Their Own Good?
I'm angry, but I used this icon instead of one of my angry ones because more than anything, I'm devastated that these people have found such a singularly vicious way to cut down my opinions. I'm not smart enough to understand why their writing isn't really racist. I am, in fact, abusive for arguing with them. I just ... I feel blindsided. Help me here, please; I can't believe how much this hurts.
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I went there (http://mac-stone.livejournal.com/22617.html?thread=143193#t143193).
And in fact, I'm gonnan go copy the post and repost here because I'm betting I'll be banned and maybe comment deleted fairly soon!
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I wish I could help: I don't know you quite well enough to offer hugs, but I would like to. Speaking of blatant verbal attempts to manipulate people, Mac went there--and now wants to blame all of fandom for abusing him.
All I can say is, I will keep trying as a white academic and I hope a white ally to point out the absolute hypocrisy, lack of emotional OR intellectual intelligence in such rhetoric, and to continue to try to call them out.
Blessed Be.
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