well behaved women

PSA to Emerging FFXIII Fans: Don't Do Racist Shit! (Fail in comments.)

An Interesting and Heartbreaking Addition to the Debate At Hand: SEXISM!

This is how people run out of spoons, run out of energy to educate people, and it answers the question: why didn't you tell me? These are the reasons we don't tell, don't speak up, pretend we didn't see, and know in our hearts that we can lift teaspoon after teaspoon, and they'll be scooping the water back with their hands where they think we can't see.

Time to discuss racism and humour! aka how about them mildly infamous icons?

Bingo in FF fandom

So after a terrible come-home-crying day, I think, to take my mind off it I'll spend some time with something that gives me enjoyment in my leisure time, [insert fandom for whatever source here]. That'll help me escape the daily grind of the effects of racism. But here's the rub: It's there too. Deliberately or unintentionally, here's yet another place where POC are Othered and excluded. The salt in the wound are the justifications for this hurtful behaviour.

Teaching Diversity With Multimedia (How Some People Try To Distance Themselves From These Images)

Gratitude, which is beautiful and upsetting (to me) all at once.

But this is exactly what people mean when they say “Check your privilege.” They mean it is far more likely this person got it wrong once but right the other 99 times out of 100 than it is that this person is hysterically overreacting to a wholly imagined problem. It means you don’t get to see the problem they’re reacting to, the blatant pattern, in your own daily life—so for you, this one experience feels huge and representative, while for the person who doesn’t share your privilege, it’s a drop in the fucking bucket. And if you can keep that in mind, you can probably reach out and fix things with that person, who is probably entirely reasonable underneath the veneer of defensiveness she’s developed with damned good reason.

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Saturday Night Live keeps minstrelsy alive and well.

Ellen Page and Blake Lively help out.

Previously I didn't have much opinion at all of these actresses. Now I have a low one.

Livejournal removes gender unspecified option.

This was such a scumbag move I was--well, not astounded, this is LJ, but certainly offended. A lot of people, naturally, protested, and we received this bullshit-heavy bit of backpedaling, (especially considering this bit of code) but at least it's not going through any more.

On a lighter note: octopus snatches coconut and runs.

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It’s not a valuable discussion on race until the POC show up

That wish–the wish that this group of mostly white people had not indulged a conversation about race and its effects in America–feels wrong for someone who considers herself an advocate of anti-racism. I feel strongly that people of color should not be the only ones discussing of race, racism and race bias. But can valuable conversations about race happen without us–without our unique points of view as historically marginalized groups? My gut instinct is to say they cannot. But how does that work? White folks, we want you to talk about race, but only if a certain percentage of brown folks are on hand to ensure the conversation doesn’t go sideways.

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Ask Amy tells rape victims they did it to themselves. Any words I would have for this are obscene and full of hate, and I'm trying to cut down on that.

Mike Briggs eloquently debunks the popular arguments supporting piracy one by one.

an NYT article on female desire.

Patrick Stewart on domestic violence. Beautiful.

fiction_theory's lovely post about and containing links concerning the relationships between agents and new writers. Specifically it contains a link to this remark by an agent:

I rejected a manuscript that I had been seriously considering last week because upon a cursory online search, I found a LiveJournal post by the author badmouthing me and several of my colleagues for what she thought were excessive response times. Well, that blog post cost her representation from at least one agent. (OH, and it was a LOCKED LiveJournal post. You do know that Google Reader doesn't respect locked posts, right? Well, you do now.)

I feel like 'mind your damn manners jesus christ' should be sort of an acknowledged constant--ever heard of common courtesy, people? Especially in this type of scenario when you are asking a stranger to take a leap of faith. But entitlement, I have noted, is heavy in many young in America.

Also LOCKED POSTS ARE UNPROTECTED AAAAAAAH **terrified**

ETA: Falconesse with the math behind Harlequin’s vanity press: how many books you’d have to sell to break even, hidden costs, and the like. Recommended reading for anyone who wants to self-publish, vanity publish, or get published.

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Neither Fictional nor Real:

So, Hollywood. Take a power structure of people who are willfully ignorant and unwilling to deal with people as people, as well as making concentrated efforts to keep us from having access to venues to tell our stories.

The argument "it's only fiction" really can only apply if you have context to understand the difference between fiction and reality. And, it's also interesting that we're not allowed to tell EITHER our fictions OR our realities, but that others get the right to do that for us, and seem amazed as if we stepped out of a comic book or something when we demand the right to tell our stories.

And it's always interesting how one group profits in reality for making fantasy about another and that group is never us.

Television Without Pity - But Racism is Dandy!

Not that I ever expected well of a site that Supernatural is heavily connected with, but hey. This is pretty nasty.

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IT'S LIKE A FREAKING TRAIN WRECK. I can't stop opening these posts about Glee. How can people defend this show? Oh wait--ignorance, all the sundry ugly -isms, privilege...

haddayr:

For the record:

1. When an old folks home has a tag sale, they do NOT have a dozen state-of-the-art rigid lightweight wheelchairs in funky colors to get rid of for nothing. The hardware they had in there, even massively used, would have paid for dozens upon dozens upon quadrillions of bus rides. Old people get piece-of-shit rundown folding chairs that are nearly impossible to push on your own.
2. When your sister has Downs? You don't hold her hand as you read her stories in precious, pwecious tears at her pathetic wretched handicapableness. You've known she had Downs your whole life. You're over feeling sorry for her, assuming you ever did, since you're her LITTLE SISTER.
3. When you are in a wheelchair and you find out that your love interest has been FAKING HER STUTTER? You are not angry because she's now "normal" and you are "stuck in this chair for the rest of your life." You are angry because she's been playing at what you actually experience. You are angry because half of the world treats you already as if you're faking it, and she really WAS faking it.
4. Noble and adorable cripples do not clasp their hands and give an "aw, shucks" look when their AB comrades in wheelchairs say: "This is for YOU," and point at them cheesily.
5. Schools that are not fully wheelchair accessible are BREAKING THE LAW. You do not have to give up your bus to pay for handicapped ramps. People do not have to write their own checks. Ramps are not provided out of the goodness of people's hearts. IT. IS. THE. MOTHERFUCKING. LAW.
6. And no one is worried about getting sued if they don't hire disabled people. Disablism in hiring practices is rampant and accepted. Threatening someone with the ACLU is a way to get yourself laughed out of the place, not immediately hired in a horrible economic climate.

This show actually had someone pretend to be disabled to get a job. The sheer breathtaking offensiveness of it is a marvel.

Also? For any idiot who wants to whine 'it's just a High School Musical soap opera TV show, you're taking it too seriously' I'd like to quote balgar

It's quite odd to assume that certain cultural products are beneath analysis. Operas, symphonies, novels in the "literature" section, and subtitled movies more than two hours long do not convey more information or perspective than thirty second commercials, top 40 singles, network television shows, or comic books. I'd say that mass-marketed, "low culture" works are less idiosyncratic in their perspective and are therefore more useful in terms of understanding the society of which they are a product.

So how about all the morons who thought writing about the ~poor hopeless needy~ disabled person without a life was a good idea watch this gorgeous piece of work?



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Aaaaand back to the subject of racist white women, Kirstie Alley trashes any esteem I had for her as a person after her protest of Polanski.

"becuz it is my observation that African Americans are more free and fun and light hearted, as are Italians..."

Oh, christ. Then she goes on to dig herself deeper and deeper. Next she throws a big, public temper tantrum over being called out. Good lord, what a child. What a sad, arrogant, petulant little child.


And to cap things off as completely depressing, here's this: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Inspires The Murder Of Children

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Announcement: I have no idea how I am going to survive Multi-Cultural class this quarter even remotely sane.

The teacher is great. The class would be agonizing instead of infuriating if he wasn't, and after having a long talk with him it's actually not as stressful and upsetting for me anymore. But oh my god, the students...

Today a woman tried to tell me that by dressing scantily, women were 'asking for it.' And then defended the stance at length, one of her arguments being 'it's like putting a steak in front of a dog.' Then right after class, my two table mates (both female) condescendingly did their best to put me in my place. I was ready to spit nails.

People are so goddamn determined to IGNORE the male in this scenario. THIS IS NOT ABOUT A WOMAN'S MANNER OF DRESS. This is about one sentient, conscious, thinking being making the deliberate conscious choice to assault, violate and brutally harm, mentally or physically or both, another sentient, conscious, thinking being.

In other words: STFU. I'm not buying your piping-hot misogyny. Even Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler couldn't sell it.

They also tried to say the women 'weren't respecting themselves.' I wish I'd thought to say at the time; 'no, you aren't respecting them, or yourself, by trying to make excuses for rapists. Get the hell out of my gender and planet.'

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Oh good god.

The Demise of Off Our Backs

An examination--brief--of classism and racism--extensive--within a 'radical' feminist organization. The racism is awe inspiring to behold, fountaining up in a mess of hot, frothing entitlement, malice and prejudice.

Basically, a WOC calls the racist white women on their racism, and one explodes in messy rage, spiteful, appalling and horrifically racist and sexist language, and apparently is now seeking to bring charges against her. (Excerpts in the first link.)

I'm ashamed to know they call themselves feminists.

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People are so astonishingly loath to admit their own culpability, even in an environment as constructive and undemanding as a classroom. (I'm sure I've suffered a kind of that reluctance in the past.) Are they simply so attached to their lofty perception of themselves as just and correct? The sheer ridiculous effrontery of a privileged person informing the oppressed that they are being 'over sensitive' if they note prejudice is almost hard to grasp. I'm left floundering as to how to speak to these people.

Can you really argue with someone who doesn't recognize logic?

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Marjorie M. Liu on Roman Polanski: Forgive me (again) while I take a moment…

I've posted a barrage of posts on this issue, but this one was especially appreciated by me. Because people are actually saying, 'we shouldn't charge him because the victim has forgiven him!' Disregarding the fact that maybe she just doesn't want to give him an opportunity to make her life hellish all over again. And I would like this to be trumpeted from the rooftops:

Roman Polanski raped a child. Not if, maybe, or possibly—he did it. He did it, he did it, he did it. And then, like the coward son of a bitch he is, he fled the authorities.

Now, most people would say, “Wow, that’s horrific and unspeakable, and he should be punished for his crime. Not just because he hurt a young girl, but because he might do it again.“

Carolyn Jewel: Maybe you'll want to skip this post. Or not. Your Choice

I really thought we'd moved past the days when we blamed women for the violence committed against them. I really did. I didn't think anyone in America today could stand up and blame a 13 year old girl for the actions of a 43 year old man who gave her alcohol and drugs before he got around to having sex with her -- because, damn, she kept saying no!

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Little House on the Prairie: An in-depth, concise summary of all the many reasons that book should never be given to children.

I never read it. And boy, after reading this? I'm glad I never read it. Jesus. I'm pretty offended that it's still on the shelves in its untouched format.

I would not want my child to read Little House on the Prairie. I would shield him from the slights she slings upon his ancestors. They appear in her book only as beggars and thieves, and she adds injury to insult by comparing the Osages—who turned Thomas Jefferson’s head with their dignity and grace—to reptiles, to garbage or scum (depending on the definition of the word she actually uses). Mrs. Wilder assigns them descriptive adjectives that connote barbarism, brutality, and bloodthirstiness, and makes much ado about their odor. But she makes light of their obvious plight: In one passage, she describes almost mockingly the skeletal figures of two Osages who are fed cornbread by Ma, the eating noises they make and the pitiful sight of them stooping to eat specks of food they spot on the floor.

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The Dos and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally (Broader than Lambda, and more important than I can stress.)

fiction_theory: That's the problem with slacktivism, with the idea that you can sit back, make some nice nifty posts, put up a banner or two on your social networking pages, and suddenly you're as invested in the struggle as someone who lives it every day.

That's the difference between real allies and faux-allies. Real allies want justice. Faux-allies want cookies and fringe benefits and nifty buttons. They want quick, cheap rewards. Thus, faux allies get upset when they're told that the cookies are reserved for those who have gone hungry for decades, not for those who haven't missed a meal in their lives. Real allies just want to see people get fed so nobody goes hungry again.

kaigou: In which the dog invents a new term

Pop quiz! Name the moron who made this statement!

“I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan.”

If you answered "Jackson Rathbone," you get a cookie! And thus, I hereby propose:

rathbone /ˈræθboʊn/ [rath-bohn] v.
1. To appropriate or fake membership in a minority group, based on a belief that such appropriation requires little effort to be sufficiently convincing: She thinks hair dye's all it takes to rathbone it.
2. To hoodwink, or be hoodwinked by, faked membership in a minority group: He totally rathboned the casting director.

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lanning: A helpful diagram on the Lambda matter! Warning: do not follow link provided in post. Chock full of entitlement and homophobic BS. I wanted to vomit when they started mocking the LBGIT community for wanting a "safe place."

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A chilling list of celebrities with daughters that are supporting a child rapist.

Not to mention:

loligo:

If by "no hint of a repetition" you mean, "fled to Paris and starting screwing 15 year-old Nastassja Kinski," who has said in interviews since then that she was sexually exploited by people in the film industry as a teen and had no adults looking out for her -- so it doesn't sound like she looks back on the "relationship" fondly.

He has enough of a history that no sane parent would ever let him babysit, shall we say.

sheafrotherdon: A helpful diagram

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you think Roman Polanski should not face the consequences of his own actions. (Unless, of course, you're someone who believes living in France for thirty years is akin to weathering a jail sentence, in which case I don't even know what to tell you, Jed.)

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you suggest that society has no business punishing their attackers.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you suggest that a person's wealth or job should mitigate the fact that they're a rapist.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if, when those victims and survivors tell you that there is no way on earth a convicted rapist should be allowed to live his life consequence-free, you tell them they're not considering all points of view.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you do not acknowledge that they have a very particular, lived experience of what it is to live within a culture that implicitly and explicitly makes rape possible, and that it is a very different experience from that of someone who has not been assaulted.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you do not imagine that right now someone is being told "Roman Polanski can get away with it - what makes you think I can't?"

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you don't listen to them, especially because they have no obligation to educate you about what you don't seem to understand.

You are actively contributing to the silencing of victims and survivors if you do any of the above. So here's the bottom line - don't do it.

From here, a small collection of links that includes a list of artists that aren't supporting the rape of a child. Neil Gaiman! Hart Hanson! Luc Besson! **clings desperately**

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sparkindarkness: "...the Lambda awards - for GBLT authors to present their work and have it celebrated in a place where straightness is not the norm, where GBLT people are not ‘other’ and something we can be part of without the constant poking and needling that the world loves to throw"

The rules were recently clarified to add that only the GBLT authors are allowed to enter. A bunch of straight people apparently think this is offensive.

The landscape of queer fiction has changed dramatically with the rise of original slash, much of which (like slash) is written by straight women. A minority space is being taken over by a majority. It is not discriminatory to take steps to change that.

I especially love the first comment: "[A]nyone who wins this year can be snug in the fact that they had no competition". Because no queer people write books about queer people! And they certainly couldn't be good books. (Not as good as those slash romances, that's for sure!)

They go on and on about how horrible it is, so discriminatory towards straight people! Look, I'm pretty sure there are other awards that are focused on minorities representing their experience. It's nothing new, and it's not discrimination.

lambda, literature, voices, and also, I live in the taj mahal. REALLY, REALLY WORTH READING. TO THE END.

Author X writes a story about dealing with drug addiction, a life gone horribly wrong, the horrors of jail, and thousands of people read it, are moved by it, declare they can relate to it -- and then we find out James Frey is a big fat liar. If Narcotics Anonymous gave out annual literary awards for memoirs of dealing with and healing from drug use, I'd say they're completely in their rights if they took back any award they gave Frey. False memoirs make for the easiest example, here, because it's pretty cut-and-dried: the author sold the work based on credibility of being A, the author is not actually A, therefore the work loses credibility and validity. Plus, the work loses rights to inclusion in any minority other than, perhaps, "white kid tries to capitalize upon minority group".

But when it comes to literature, the group's literature, the purpose of declaring "women's literature" or "gay literature" or "black literature" goes deeper: it's an affirmation of the community, and inclusion on false grounds is therefore an even deeper betrayal. The group's literature is something distinct, a self-defining point outside of (or in spite of) the all-powerful scope of the mainstream heteronormative [white, Christian, male] culture.

Lambda Awards - disagree if you must, but put the privilege and homophobia away

LLF made their awards for GBLT authors only. They did this because GBLT people are a marginalised group. GBLT people face discrimination, silencing and prejudice with depressing frequency. We are also frequently turned into fetishes or gross parodies - or rendered completely invisible.

In a perfect world, this wouldn’t be necessary. In a perfect world GBLT authors would have exactly the same chance in all things as straight, cis people would. This is not a perfect world. It is not a perfect world for us and many other marginalised bodies. This is why safe spaces were created. This is why we have places where we can be without having to hide, without having to apologise, without having to adapt - and where we are not the minority, where we are not other.

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