tablesaw | Theory, Politics, Addiction, and Loss.

Theory, Politics, Addiction, and Loss.

In a discussion with

tahnan in the comments to my post on language and cultural appropriation (in addition to some guestions about language and linguistics), I added some clarifications that I think probably deserved to be in the main entry. So I'm adding them here.

The next question may be, "And now what?"
I've written a few different things to answer this that have been lost on different computers. Had I not been falling asleep on Sunday, I would have continued the essay with a bit about politics. Because the problems that I'm focusing on and that are being focused on in the failboat debacles involve both society-wide systematic oppression and the denial of that oppression.

Recently I listened to a story on PodCastle by Peter S. Beagle called "Gordon, the Self-Made Cat." It made me feel bored and annoyed, instead of amused or interested or intrigued. I believe this is because, to build the meanings and reactions intended by the author, the reader needs to have a certainly amount of love for the cuteness of cats or the antics of cats. I really have neither of these things.

So is that a "problem"? Well, Beagle may have intended for his story to be "universal" (among English readers/listeners), and now I'm telling him that it's not. But there isn't systemic, societal, institutionalized oppression against people who don't think that cats are as cute as everyone else does. And most writers in Beagle's position would probably accept and take responsibility for the fact that the story excludes parts of its potential audience. In a sense, most genre writers do this in that their writing caters to a specific audience of readers who have already read and have read within the genre. The attitude is "You can't please everybody."

The toolmakers paradigm does require a certain amount of "you can't please everybody" thinking when it comes to published work. The communication is static and directed at a wide audience, so the writer can't clarify himself with every reader individually. So a certain amount of failure by exclusion is accepted by the writer (especially writers working within a "genre"). But if a writer doesn't accept that this is happening, their communication can suffer (as currently the case with tnh and the "this is not at all a threat" argument). And when the exclusion falls along patterns of oppression that exists across society, then the writer becomes an active part of that oppression.

Because issues like the cat-antic exclusion are not politicized, it's easy for a writer to accept these exclusions and even to, in a sense, retroactively intend to do so. This fits the interpretation back into the conduit metaphor; if a reader reports a problem that the writer did not intend but that is acceptable to the writer, the writer can admit to having put it in the text when writing (though perhaps not fully consciously). But when the issue is politicized, like racism, sexism, etc., the writer resists doing so and denies responsibility for what is made of their writing.

If all the writers involved shifted gears and said, "Well, yes, I take responsibility for excluding non-white readers, but I'm not going to change, even though I could; you can't please everybody, and I'm just never going to care about pleasing readers who aren't white," there would still (hopefully obviously) be a major problem. But it would be different from the one we are currently witnessing. Instead, writers are, on the surface, professing a commitment to anti-racism which would mandate changing their attitudes and their writing, but they avoid doing so by either arguing that they cannot/need not/should not take responsibility for the exclusion reported by nonwhite readers or arguing that it is impossible for them to make any changes to themselves or their writing that would fix it. In some cases, both.

The toolmakers paradigm demands that a writer be responsible for all failures of communication, no matter how wide the audience; and real-world politics demonstrate where those failures or systemic and problematic. The toolmakers paradigm also demonstrates that the way to effectively change the situation is to account for the culture and context across the systemic divide.

I've also been thinking very particularly about this line:

If all the writers involved shifted gears and said, "Well, yes, I take responsibility for excluding non-white readers, but I'm not going to change, even though I could; you can't please everybody, and I'm just never going to care about pleasing readers who aren't white," there would still (hopefully obviously) be a major problem. But it would be different from the one we are currently witnessing.

I may have spoken too soon about that, because there are writers who are emerging from these discussions bearing (or perhaps merely threatening to bear) this very attitude. As an example, one SFF writer,

davidlevine, has written "My only statement on the cultural appropriation imbroglio," which concludes:

I may or may not continue work on this story [that features a black character as one of its protagonists]. Haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll write something safer, something where all the characters are white, or aliens or cartoon characters or disembodied spirits, and I don't have to deal with issues of race and culture. I'll spend my writing time and energy on other issues instead.

This statement is addressed to those on the "anti-racist" side of the debate who have vehemently accused certain white writers and editors of racism or cultural insensitivity:

Is this what you wanted?

The answer is No, when readers asked writers to acknowledge the racism in their work by offering examples of how that racism has harmed them in reading, they did not want those writers to turn around and adopt a bald-faced policy of racism to guide their future work.

I do find it hard to understand how a person, confronted with a chorus of voices angry about racism, could construct the meaning that the chorus desires more racism. Perhaps a clue is in the idea that writing a story "where all the characters are white" means not having to "deal with issues of race and culture," as though white people have no race or culture, or "issues" or problems only arise when the race or culture isn't white. Perhaps Levine and others are confused because the options that they feel are available are criticized as equally racist, and because they don't comprehend the other options offered.

I start to think that a mind can become addicted to the benefits of white privilege just as it could to any chemical. And in turn, I think that the mind can build up the same protections to prevent the source of the addiction from being removed. Denial, hostility, even a sort of phantom pain, the palpable discomfort felt when the discussion turns to race—the brain throws all that and more in the path of an addict to prevent them from even thinking about their addiction. And they work so subtly, so insidiously, that time and time again, predictably across addicts from all walks of life, the addict concludes, after almost any evidence, that really, all things considered, being totally rational and objective, I truly don't have a problem, everything's fine, and nothing needs to change.

It takes something massive for that mindset to be replaced. It could be an addict realizing that they are at "rock bottom," that things have gotten so bad that there is finally no choice but to overcome the blocks and examine their problems. But the nature of racism and privilige is that, unlike addictive chemicals, privilege There will never be a day when a dour face in a white coat tells you that you're dying of cancer contracted by benefitting from oppression without attempting to end it.

It could also be an intervention, when a group of people get together and tell a person they care for how the addiction has harmed them. To confront the addict with the results of their actions that don't affect them directly. And the intent is not to effect an instantaneous, miraculous, total change, but simply to get you to admit that there is a problem. You have a problem. If you see it, we can fix it, but you have to see it.

But interventions are no guarantee. Sometimes loved ones scream and yell, and they accuse their friends and family of conspiracy, and they deny the stories of pain, and they leave alone, and they find relief, for themselves, alone.

I don't know where to go with this metaphor. My family has lost people because we couldn't find the right way to communicate and break through to loved ones with addictions. But it needs to be done, for all our sakes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Perhaps Levine and others are confused because the options that they feel are available are criticized as equally racist, and because they don't comprehend the other options offered.

I've been thinking about this, because I think this is something that is very clearly happening, and I'm not sure how to counter it. Many authors seem to be saying, "Hey, my colleague $AUTHOR doesn't write characters of color at all, and he gets left alone. Why shouldn't I do like he does?"

The metaphors I keep coming up with involve calluses or Plato's cave, which gets at the necessity to expose oneself to a painful adjustment and possible pain afterwards in order to expand one's perceptions, but that doesn't pull in the damage done to others by people blinding themselves to privilege.

I do find it hard to understand how a person, confronted with a chorus of voices angry about racism, could construct the meaning that the chorus desires more racism.

Apropos of the problems of communication: I did not read David Levine's post to mean that at all. What I read was one individual saying, I've been working on this story, and I think/thought it was a step in the right direction both for me and for my genre (by including rather than excluding), and I'm trying really hard to do it right -- but man, this entire blowup has made me so afraid of Doing It Wrong that it makes part of me want to retreat back to what's "safe," only writing about white people, so that at least I won't be pilloried for writing a black character inappropriately.

I'm not Mr. Levine, obviously, but I don't think he believes the chorus wants more racism. I think he's saying that their efforts are in some respects counterproductive: that they've intimidated some people, him included, in the direction of the racism of exclusion, for fear of committing the racism of misinterpretation. "Is this what you wanted?" is a question for rhetorical effect, to point out the fact that it probably isn't.

In one respect you're right about the fallacy of "white" = "no race or culture," but you also have to grant that there's been a lot less heat around, say, the representation of French characters, than there has around the representation of African-American characters. Regardless of the issues in the story (for the characters), it's much less likely to become an issue outside the story (for the readers).

rydra_wong said it first, somewhere, but: Mr. Levine is not paying attention. No one is getting jumped on for the books they have written. The problematic racial elements of Ms. Bear's book were critiqued by two people, one of whom explicitly said that she enjoyed the book anyway.

The reason people are getting jumped on is because of the dumbass stuff they have said on LJ.

If he really wanted to avoid criticism, it seems that a better plan would have been to make sure his book was good and avoid blogging! I can certainly tell you that it is his blogging, not his books, which is resulting in his being laughed at all over LJ now.

Let me quote from him again -- sorry for the length:

Your reactions to the written works and Internet posts of my friends who are also trying to do the same have made me question even the attempt. The height and breadth of the heap of spleen that I have seen dumped upon my friends is more than just "lumps" -- it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. This slapfight, dogpile, shitstorm, whatever you want to call it, has been so severe that I am wondering if I should even try. I've seen those who try, in all good faith, have their heads torn off and thrown back at them, and when they react to this abuse as any normal person would, they are accused of being whiny and oversensitive.

Now, I haven't followed every nook and cranny of this discussion -- at this point, I think that would be a full-time job -- so I can't be sure I've seen the same things he has (and I probably haven't, since I've tried to stay away from the most explosive loci). But I presume, based on his phrasing, that "those who try, in all good faith," extends not just to the writers of books but also to the writers of Internet posts.

Given the situation he describes, I can draw one of two conclusions: either all of the "lumps" have been completely justified, such that anyone who objects to them is indeed "whiny and oversensitive," or some of the "lumps" have been counterproductively negative, discouraging those who are trying to be part of the solution. (That "some" may be anything from a tiny percentage to a fair bit; who can tell.)

The former strikes me as falling into the fallacy of assuming everyone on the "unprivileged" side of the debate has been correct in everything they've said -- that they've never descended to nastiness of the sort Mr. Levine describes, or if they have, it's always been justified by someone else's behavior. (And that's pretending there's only two sides to the debate anyway, "privileged" and "unprivileged." Which is bogus.) So I expect there are some people who, in the heat of the moment and driven by whatever personal factors, have said things that cross the line and become destructive, even to the cause they're trying to champion. In other words, what's being described here.

If he really wanted to avoid criticism, it seems that a better plan would have been to make sure his book was good and avoid blogging!

You say "make sure his book was good" as if it's a simple matter of making a choice, but this debate has resoundingly proved that it's anything but that easy. And "avoid blogging" just shuts down dialogue on the matter -- sweeping things back under the rug, where nothing gets done about them.

I'll be frank: I've seen a few rounds of this debate before, but the violence of this iteration has not only made me doubt and second-guess every attempt I've made to write a minority character in my own fiction, it's made me reluctant to even blog about my thoughts, for fear the next explosion will be on my own LJ -- and that, in running around trying to respond to everyone's comments, I'll proofread something I've typed only twice instead of four times and so accidentally let through a phrasing that implies something I didn't mean. In other words, fear has driven me to shut my mouth, rather than attempt dialogue with other people. (And typing that, I wonder if someone's going to come along and tell me I should shut up rather than make comments like this one -- which tells you how hostile I perceive the situation to be at this point.)

I don't think scaring people into silence is a good result for anybody on any side of this debate.

I wish this had been an explosion of the type that sent dozens or hundreds of writers away feeling inspired to do better. But I've been seeing, again and again, the implication of the reverse: that it has discouraged people and convinced them they can never get it right, and that it's safer and less offensive to just not try. Is this what anybody wanted? I doubt it.

Ah yes, because being criticized is just like having your head torn off and handed back to you (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/05/23/q-since-when-is-being-criticized-like-having-your-limbs-blown-off-by-a-landmine-a-since-that-criticism-came-from-someone-with-less-privilege-than-you/).

Seriously, that guy's response looks like he wrote it with tabs open for all the various excellent "how to suppress discussions of racism" blog entries I have tagged, and used them as an outline.

has not only made me doubt and second-guess every attempt I've made to write a minority character in my own fiction

Good. You should live with those doubts. They're one of the best tools you have as an author for checking your privilege and keeping you honest.

And as far as your fear? The ability to choose to remain silent on the topic of race because it's too hard to confront your fear of being called out is white privilge at its best. Don't lay that at the feet of POC and their allies to solve. That is not their problem; that is YOUR problem.

it has discouraged people and convinced them they can never get it right, and that it's safer and less offensive to just not try.

Yeah, seriously, won't somebody think of the white people?

Ah yes, because being criticized is just like having your head torn off and handed back to you.

That isn't what I said. Since I haven't read all the things he's read, I can't say whether individual pieces of it should be described as "criticism" or "having your head torn off and handed back to you." What I did say is that I'm not going to make a blanket assumption that every single critical comment made has been fair and justified, any more than I'm going to make the blanket assumption that every single one has been unfair and cruel. People being people, and the spread of this debate being what it is, the odds approach 100% that people on both (or all) sides have said things that have made the divisiveness worse instead of better.

Good. You should live with those doubts. They're one of the best tools you have as an author for checking your privilege and keeping you honest.

Doubting and second-guessing how I'm doing it, yes, absolutely. But doubting and second-guessing whether I should even try? That's where I feel it stops being useful (to anybody) and starts being detrimental.

That is not their problem; that is YOUR problem.

One of the problems of having this debate online is that it spreads like kudzu and ropes in all kinds of people who don't know each other from Adam. I don't think you and I have ever encountered each other in a comment thread before, at least not that I can remember, so if I say "I'm working on my problems" you either have to take me at my word, or judge me by the few pieces of evidence you've seen, which would (from the sound of it) lead you to believe I'm thoroughly buried in my white privilege. That lack of context is almost certainly contributing to the kinds of communication problems

tablesaw started out by describing.

But, with that danger in mind, my two thoughts are:

1) I'm working on my problems.

2) Saying "that's your problem, not mine," carries an overtone of opposition that I wish didn't permeate so much of this debate. I'd rather it were cooperative. NOT in the sense of putting the burden on [whichever group] to educate the [white people or other privileged group], who don't have to put out a lick of effort, but in the sense of not framing it as "Us vs. Them" (whichever side is "us" for the speaker).

You're right that choosing to remain silent (not write PoCs) is white privilege. But if the effect of the debate is to drive people who were trying to correct that flaw in themselves back in the direction they came from, I don't think that's "won't somebody think of the white people?," because if we're talking white privilege, what does it matter? It doesn't hurt us to stay silent! But it hurts the genre, and the community, and it undoes some of the progress toward inclusiveness and understanding.

And that's something I care about a great deal.

2) Saying "that's your problem, not mine," carries an overtone of opposition that I wish didn't permeate so much of this debate. I'd rather it were cooperative. NOT in the sense of putting the burden on [whichever group] to educate the [white people or other privileged group], who don't have to put out a lick of effort, but in the sense of not framing it as "Us vs. Them" (whichever side is "us" for the speaker).

I just want to offer a thought at this point.

I think in some cases, cooperative action isn't possible until the parties involved have sat in rooms *away* from each other and hashed some things out and then come back together into another room with some agreed upon rules of how the discussion will flow.

That's what a lot of organizations do with anti-racism training: whites go into one room, PoC into another with a place to come together at the end. There's other stuff to get through within your home group (as it were) before you can even think about tackling the bigger problem.

And unfortunately, too many recent efforts to say, "this is how you might go about correcting the problem," turns into hand holding and a need for approval before the work is ever really engaged. The burden keeps falling backward on to PoC as opposed to white authors holding *each other* accountable.

I will focus solely on this:

1) I'm working on my problems.

My understanding, in this context, is that "my problems" means "my problems with racism," and perhaps a number of other "isms."

In the short arguments written by you and written by

davidlevine and incorporated by you, you have betrayed a number of implicit assumptions that signal to people of color, and to white people who have done some measure of work against racism, that you have done little, if any, constructive work to understand what racism is and how it works. These assumptions are often difficult to discern, but they become starkly visible when you attempt to speak directly on the subject of race and racism. This is why, as

vito_excalibur suggests, there has been more outrage about the writers cluelessly blogging about racism, than about those writers' books.

For example, the I Can Fix Racism booklet includes the line:

Resist feelings of hopelessness and self pity. Do not invent white suffering. Lose the drama.

This advice is in the first paragraph of the first step of the handbook. So when you try to turn the focus of the argument to the emotional suffering of white writers and to the hopelessness felt by white writers of being able to speak about race, I and others can see that the work that you have done is extremely minimal. You are falling into a fairly basic pitfall of discussions of racism, without any attempts to properly frame or neutralize the problem.

Because the level of work needed to reach past this discussion is basic, and the amount of distraction that can be caused by the strain of argument is great (that distraction having been experienced in previous fruitless conversations), the people responding to you are unwilling to engage in that issue, and instead are directing you back to the work that would largely obviate the discussions.

It is partly this discrepancy between work transparently left undone and claims of commitment and of work against racism that is sparking outrage. When that discrepancy is coupled with a tone that signals aggression, or contempt, or self-satisfaction, or a number of other things, the impression given off by the writer can cross the line from one of cluelessness to one of disingenuousness.

So before you discover that you're over that line, let me say that if you believe that you have done work on your problems with racism, then I, in turn, believe one of these two options to be the case.

You are following a correct path, but the work you have done is, as yet, so minimal that you are not yet able to effectively frame the issues of racism you want to discuss.
You are following a false path, for whatever reason, and the work you that you believe that you are doing is fruitless, perhaps because your efforts are not properly directed, or perhaps because you have not yet cleared away enough of your base assumptions to begin building a strong foundation.

In either case, you need to calm down and head back to work on your own. If it's case 1, then you simply need to be more patient in listening and considering the other side. If it's case 2 (which I suspect is more likely), then you need to take some time to start over from scratch and rebuild from first principles. If you have done positive work, you needn't worry about it being lost. It will come back into place once you've rebuilt enough to accommodate it in a sounder frame, and it will probably make more sense to boot.

In any case, as others have said, there is still some more work you have to do to on your own before you can start framing the discussion on your own. I recommend Ayo's guidebook again to help you.

(And as a moderating note to all, at this point, more attempts to discuss some of the issues I've cited above—such as "white suffering"—may be met with thread freezing. Be warned.)

Since I haven't read all the things he's read, I can't say whether individual pieces of it should be described as "criticism" or "having your head torn off and handed back to you."

It's OK: you don't have to read every single thing someone else has had written to/about them in order to conclude that being disagreed with or criticized for your privilege is in *no way* like experiencing actual violence or oppression.

Did you read the essay I linked to that talks about why this kind of "critique = violence" language is absurd?

Doubting and second-guessing how I'm doing it, yes, absolutely. But doubting and second-guessing whether I should even try? That's where I feel it stops being useful (to anybody) and starts being detrimental.

Well, if you define "anybody" as "you," or maybe "white people."

White writers hesitating and doubting whether they should write about people of color and marginalized experiences and cultural symbols, rather than doing so unhesitatingly, brashly, and badly in a way that further deepens the alienation of readers of color and the stereotypes held by white readers is absolutely a benefit to people of color.

As for your problems and your work on them, I wouldn't presume to speculate since you're right, I don't know you. However, turning posts about cultural appropriation and ways in which the words and actions of white authors can harm people of color into "this is really HARD for white people" 1) suggests to me something about where you personally (and the people with whom you seem to be sympathizing) are in that work, and 2) opens the topic of you and your work or lack thereof up for comment.

If you're going to argue that talking about white privilege hurts "the genre" and "the community," and "progress toward inclusiveness and understanding," I am just going to go over here and sing kumbaya with Teresa Neilsen-Hayden's' "nithing," "stupid" trivially-preoccupied naysayers because I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.

I've lost one draft of this post already. There's a lot that needs a response in your comment, but so much that it's hard to keep a response coherent. I ask that you not consider a lack of a direct response on a point to be my acceptance of it.

You say "make sure his book was good" as if it's a simple matter of making a choice, but this debate has resoundingly proved that it's anything but that easy.

There is some confusion between perspectives on what is "easy." Anti-racist activists say that it is easy because it can be accomplished through very simple steps, most of which should be obvious after a small bit of research or thought. It is not easy because it does require a white person to expend time and effort on their own and to move out of their safety zone in order to make progress. But as I and several commenters to the post have noted, these risks are a fundamental part of fighting oppression (and, not coincidentally, are a part of the lives of the oppressed). If you are conditioning your participation in the fight against oppression on remaining safe and having things made "easy" in that latter sense, then you are admitting that, at heart, you are not willing to fight oppression.

A fantastic summary of the simple steps you can take is found in the guide by Damali Ayo at Fix Racism. The five-step program for white people is:

Admit It.
Listen.
Educate Yourself.
Broaden Your Experience.
Take Action.

Note that only steps 4 and 5 are public acts. Also note that readers are cautioned not to start on step 4 before completing steps 1-3.

As

elusis says, the doubts that you have are natural and helpful, but the fears you have ultimately destructive. If you feel like you don't know enough about racism to speak, you probably don't. But projecting your doubts onto the people who might be hurt by the mistakes you make after failing to learn more is a smokescreen that prevents you from ever learning more.

In the very first paragraph of step 1 is the advice:

Resist feelings of hopelessness and self pity. Do not invent white suffering. Lose the drama.

It really is easy to do these things, or to start doing these things. If you're not willing, what are you willing to do?

Since this is your journal, you've probably gotten a notification of my comment to

elusis above, which includes most of what I would say to you here.

On the topic of "easy," though -- I'm thinking back to your own points in the previous post, though, about communication. A writer can go through steps 1 through 4, but when it comes to taking action -- to writing -- is it easy to get it right, to make the book good? Not necessarily. I've had any number of arguments with friends over whether a really problematic issue in a book was put there by an author who knew it was problematic and meant to question it, or unconsciously replicated by somebody who had no idea there was any problem at all. If communication were a conduit, it would be easy. But what I loved about your previous post was the explication of why effectively communicating what's in your head to somebody else's head is a process fraught with peril.

Writing a text with a problematized issue (much like writing a text with irony) is extremely difficult in reality, much more so than the conduit metaphor would indicate. In the conduit metaphor, all one has to do is add in an opposite intention to any text and send it out, magically more interesting. In reality, merely adding intent accomplishes nothing (which helps to explain why "ironic" T shirts are so very annoying). Instead, under the toolmakers paradigm, the writer needs to fashion the text so that the reader creates a meaning that is self-contradictory, or perhaps multiple meanings that are mutually exclusive. The metaphor has not been reliably extended for this; it may be the equivalent of sending blueprints to build an edifice out of an Escher etching. Regardless, it is incredibly difficult under the best of circumstances.

Which is why, when you use problematizing racial issues as an example of what would be made "easy" by doing basic ant-racist work, you are setting your sights far, far too high. The standard we are looking at is not whether or not you will be able to revolutionize racist thinking with the stroke of your pen. The goal of this is to be able to write stories that will make readers of color feel welcome and included, instead of, say, making them feel so disgusted that they stop reading the book and hurl it across the room.

Steps 1-4 will give you, among other things, the knowledge of basic pitfalls when talking about racism, a groundwork in theory to predict problems, a set of knowledge that comes from outside the white perspective, and a group of friends and colleagues whom you trust and who trust you, and on whom you can rely for guidance away from doing stupid things you haven't noticed. With all of that, it will be easier to talk about and write about race and racism (at least, it won't be drastically more fraught with peril than any communication would be.)

After that, who can say what you will be capable of? But it's too soon in the process to be making plans now.

Regardless of the issues in the story (for the characters), it's much less likely to become an issue outside the story (for the readers).

This is an incorrect assumption, one that several readers in this discussion have also attempted to correct. The essay that comes to mind first on the subject of the damage effected on readers of exclusionarily white stories (and of a fandom that accepts such a situation as the norm) is "Shame" by Pam Noles. The perceived "safety" of the status quo in this case extends only to white writers and white readers.

"Is this what you wanted?" is a question for rhetorical effect, to point out the fact that it probably isn't.

The question, while rhetorical, does signal to the reader what Levine currently assumes about the mindset of those he disagrees with. If he recognizes a contradiction in the meanings he has built, Levine appears unwilling to take any steps of education or understanding to move himself beyond this seeming contradiction. Instead, he seems to take the contradiction itself as the extent of possible meaning. Like the hypnotized toolmakers of Reddy's essay (see previous post), Levine—unaware that the meanings he has constructed are partially his own, using instructions from a wholly different environment—assumes that the people communicating with him have "either become hostile or else gone berserk." Levine's "rhetorical effect" is to signal this conclusion to the people communicating with him. Signaling to others that, because you don't understand them, you assume they are crazy or attacking you (or both) is a way to close discussion, not open it. This leads naturally to the response by many, telling Levine, "If the only meaning you can draw from our words about racism is that you can do nothing but be more racist, then all we can tell you in response is to stay out of our way while we do the work ourselves."

If Levine had recognized a contradiction and been interested in its source, he could have simply asked, "I must have missed something, what is it?"

they've intimidated some people, him included, in the direction of the racism of exclusion, for fear of committing the racism of misinterpretation.

It's been said many times before, and I am simply saying it again. If you can't even risk the possibility of maybe getting told off at a science-fiction convention for the sake of ending oppression, then how committed to the cause of ending oppression can you be? It is this mindset, expressed repeatedly and without introspection, that leads many anti-racist activists to believe that a person does not want to change, or is unwilling to change except under terms that cater to them in ways that undermine the ultimate change being sought.

karnythia's response to the same post sounds like she'd be OK with insularisation.

I only came across this whole imbroglio last night thanks to your previous long post (or rather, I only then put together the scattered posts on the topic I've seen into the greater framework I had not been aware of) and have been catching up with little time to process or react. Thought provoking. I hope you don't mind a belated comment or two when I get the chance to really read it through.

My impression is that

karnythia's response is to the "new problem"—a response not to what people "wanted" of various writers at the initiation of these debates, but to what people want now, specifically of Levine after his post. She writes:

So if your response to "You are telling our stories wrong and you are not honoring our culture" is to say "Waaaah, you're mean I'm taking my toys and going home" then don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.

I think that agrees with me that it's not what anyone wanted people to think. She merely takes it a step further to say, "But if you do think that, then . . ."

And belated comments are always welcome, of course.

Hey, I'm enjoying these posts, but could I get you to lj-cut them? They're seriously dominating my friends page, and I'd like to come back and read them separately.

I'm a bit conflicted about this. I feel strongly enough about the entirety of these posts that I don't feel comfortable hiding away any portion behind a link. But I realize that the posts have gotten very long; I've tried to be as good as possible about adding section breaks for that reason.

I think my best recommendation is for you to temporarily defriend this journal. I know it's possible to rejigger the default friends view, but I know that I, personally, prefer not to bother if things are only going to last for a little while and then go back to normal. (I often do this if there's broken html or awkward large pictures.) After a few days or hours (depending on how quickly your friends page moves) the large posts should be far enough back that you can add the journal without any other problem. And the journal (including locked posts you have access to) will be available on your own terms.

There are no other implications, unless you intend to do a lot of friends-locked writing in the meanwhile.

If all the writers involved shifted gears and said, "Well, yes, I take responsibility for excluding non-white readers, but I'm not going to change, even though I could; you can't please everybody, and I'm just never going to care about pleasing readers who aren't white," there would still (hopefully obviously) be a major problem.

Tony, I see an implication in your argument that you may or may not intend. Is it then unacceptable for a writer to write for a white audience? Whether we're talking about the writer's entire body of work or just one novel or short story, it seems to me that the writer should be able to choose their intended audience — especially considering the number of artists who claim that the work comes to them and not the other way around.

Well then be honest about it. "I'm writing for a white audience and I don't care about any other readers," rather than "WHAT I AM A GOOD ANTI-RACIST PERSON AND YOU ARE WRONG FOR SUGGESTIONG OTHERWISE!!!LEVENTY!"

There's a reason that some African-Americans say they prefer life in the South to the North, where people will just give up their racism to your face rather than pretending they're progressive and then doing the Same Old Shit behind your back.

And if the author is honest about it, what, it makes her an honest racist?

Yes.

In general, if there's an implication that you think I may not have intended, you're not bringing it to light well enough for me to see it.

Other things: choosing an intended audience and excluding a particular audience are very different things.

The word "problematic" is generally used to describe a range of issues that fall short of entirely "unacceptable," while still presenting, well, problems.

If you are talking about artists who claim that a work "comes to them" and that they have no control over their own output, then they are at a level of denial about their work in general that is far greater than this discussion is addressing.

Other things: choosing an intended audience and excluding a particular audience are very different things.
I don't see how you do one without the other.

If you are talking about artists who claim that a work "comes to them" and that they have no control over their own output, then they are at a level of denial about their work in general that is far greater than this discussion is addressing.
Well, yes, I was just trying to be polite and include the artists who believe this sort of thing. ;)

To put a finer point on it: if I wanted to write a novel for white america, if I wanted to target an audience that lives in quiet little suburbs in the Midwest, if I wanted to write about the conflicts and travails that occur in white neighborhoods (whatever those might be), am I being racist doing so? Can white people talk to white people without it being racist?

Can white people talk to white people without it being racist?

White people can talk to white people without excluding people of color. It's happening in several places among these posts.

On the other hand, when white people talk to white people, the power imbalance, along with the assumption of whiteness as a default or universal experience deeply ingrains and conceals racism and oppression.

Let's imagine this novel focusing on a white, middle-class American family. The mother looks at her children and their friends playing "Cowboys and Indians."

Now, among white culture, "Cowboys and Indians" is often seen as a harmless game that is in many ways considered essential to white culture, based on American history. As a white person writing to white people about white culture, you could use that imagery to communicate that, and be understood.

But the version of American history the game is based on is a deeply distorted view perpetrated by white Americans to justify and disguise the violent exclusion of people of color for an extended bloody period, and the children's game is a way of entrenching that distortion in white culture from a young age. Portraying this oppressive and racist aspect of white culture as normal and heart-warming is going to have a very different effect on a reader who is not white, and who has a history with the oppression entailed by the game.

So what do you do?

If you say that your audience is white readers and that you're excluding readers of color, then you needn't do anything. You can limit your writing to what people entrenched in white culture will understand, even if those things are harmful. If a reader of color happens to pick up the book, they'll likely become angry or disgusted, but you've already decided not to care. And in the process, you have helped to entrench that racist frame of history even further among your white readers.

On the other hand, you might say that you are a white person writing about white culture in a way that you feel will be primarily interesting to white readers, but that will not exclude readers of color. If you're writing with the idea that a member of the Cherokee nation may decide to read it, and that you don't want them to throw your book across the room, you have a different obligation to your readers. By making a change, you enlarge your potential readership, you don't add to the racism-related stress that people of color are made to deal with, and you've also avoided making your white-to-white communication more racist.

(This is a simplistic version, because it's entirely hypothetical, and I don't want to expound on lots of alternate possibilities.)

Of course, as a white person writing on the subject of white culture in a way that you feel will be primarily interesting to white people, you'll experience the benefits of white privilege in being able to get your voice heard and considered important, and in getting your book published in the mainstream industry, which helps to perpetuate an oppressive system, but that's really a different conversation.

Other problems? As always. But I really do need some sleep right now.

when readers asked writers to acknowledge the racism in their work by offering examples of how that racism has harmed them in reading, they did not want those writers to turn around and adopt a bald-faced policy of racism to guide their future work.

That literally made me laugh out loud.

Thank you for these posts.

No, when readers asked writers to acknowledge the racism in their work by offering examples of how that racism has harmed them in reading, they did not want those writers to turn around and adopt a bald-faced policy of racism to guide their future work.

That is the most concise and elegant explication of this I have seen. Bravo!

Hey--I haven't been commenting, but thank you very much for these posts. I really appreciate the theoretical perspective you shine on the whole thing, and it's given me a lot to think about. (I mean, not that this is all about me, but I figure if I can Learn, I can try to Do Better.)

Thanks for your comments. I know that your comments in that long-ago post in the first(ish?) Cultural Appropriation thing had a great influence on my thinking.

Also, after reading a lot of the posts on this go-round, I am fairly certain that, in actuality, this is all about Teriel Medina of Thermopolis, WY. Everybody else just has to accept that it is not all about them.

This is an excellent post, and I apologize for coming to it so late with a question, but: it looks like in this paragraph you may have deleted or something and a sentence got cut off? In the fourth-from-the-end:

But the nature of racism and privilige is that, unlike addictive chemicals, privilege There will never be a day when a dour face in a white coat tells you that you're dying of cancer contracted by benefitting from oppression without attempting to end it.

Again, though, I found this post really thought-provoking. Thanks. (Here via rydra_wong, though late because I got distracted from RaceFail '09 by personal-level fail. Woo.)

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Theory, Politics, Addiction, and Loss.

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