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IBARW 2!
Guess what? It's almost time for Intl. Blog Against Racism Week again!
Yes, I am making this a yearly thing.
Since it started around mid-July last year, I want to keep it around the same time. But since my birthday is in late July, and I am entirely selfish and really don't want to be dealing with potential race-related stupidity around my birthday, I am making the first full week of August officially the week of IBARW.
So that's August 6 to August 12!
This year, I want to a) read through all of last year's entries and pick my favs, b) blog more about POC reactions to racism (internalized, denial, acknowledgment, anger, etc.) without having it turn into "But POC are racist too OMG WOE!", c) actually do something about the "international" part, and d) continue to post about it the rest of the year too.
What Can I Do?
Well! I'm glad you asked! (or, uh, didn't, but whatever, I'll pretend that people did.)
And while I'm asking for things, I so want an Anti-Racism 101 blog a la Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog. I would very much contribute and possibly even be able to create the blog, but I don't think I have the time to post to it often. Maybe I will think about just compiling links and whatnot for the FAQs section or something. Hrm...
Thoughts? Questions? Bueller?
Yes, I am making this a yearly thing.
Since it started around mid-July last year, I want to keep it around the same time. But since my birthday is in late July, and I am entirely selfish and really don't want to be dealing with potential race-related stupidity around my birthday, I am making the first full week of August officially the week of IBARW.
So that's August 6 to August 12!
This year, I want to a) read through all of last year's entries and pick my favs, b) blog more about POC reactions to racism (internalized, denial, acknowledgment, anger, etc.) without having it turn into "But POC are racist too OMG WOE!", c) actually do something about the "international" part, and d) continue to post about it the rest of the year too.
What Can I Do?
Well! I'm glad you asked! (or, uh, didn't, but whatever, I'll pretend that people did.)
- First, I'd love volunteers to be Icon-Makers of the Revolution!
I made some icons last year, which are still up for grabs, and I will make more this year. But I am singularly uncreative and am running out of icon ideas, and my icon skills are passable but really not the best. Also, for people who want customized personal icons or whatnot, it'd be nice to have more icon-makers to go to. - Second, I need a Record-Keeper of the Revolution!
You'll be compiling all IBARW posts during the week, like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
rilina did last year in the handy link compilation. I think mostly people comment with a link to theirs, so you don't have to search all over the internet to find things. The link compilation will include all posts for IBARW, including sporktastic ones, though I encourage people to create their own recommended posts lists too!- Alternately... since IBARW generated over 200 posts last year, I think it'd also be cool if there were a Programmer of the Revolution who wrote up a link-compiling program that would have people input the link, title, poster, time posted, and summary of their posts and spit out a handy-dandy list. I think I do have webspace for something like this, although I'd need to re-investigate, as I have completely forgotten what I can do with it.
- Thirdly, post!! If you're a white person and don't want to take attention away from POC bloggers, I respect that a lot. But if you still want to contribute without taking attention away, you can also post links to posts POC have made as well, or drive traffic, or search for IBARW links that people may have missed.
And while I'm asking for things, I so want an Anti-Racism 101 blog a la Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog. I would very much contribute and possibly even be able to create the blog, but I don't think I have the time to post to it often. Maybe I will think about just compiling links and whatnot for the FAQs section or something. Hrm...
Thoughts? Questions? Bueller?
(frozen comment) no subject
Well, I would go even further than that, because I am guessing that communities in which everyone is the same race/nationality exist because of racism, be it gentrification or white flight or whatnot. So saying that racism doesn't exist while living in a community that is most likely a direct product of racism is rather specious to me. It's sort of like saying that there is no racism or sexism in Hollywood because all the movies are about white men.
Also, I am betting that the people saying that there is no racism where they live interact with POC on a fairly daily basis, be it on public transportation or at work or whatnot. Which is why I roll my eyes every time I hear the "but the place I live is so not racist that we don't think about race at all!" thing.
Re: Brits and Americans... I'd say from what I've seen of American society that many Americans think it's horrifically rude to talk about race at all, which is why you get so many arguments about "colorblindness" being the best route and so many people telling others that they are racist for even bringing up racism. It's a very insidious form of aversive racism.
The less polite people simply make snide racist jokes and moan and groan about the PC police.
Also, I think the circles in LJ that I tend to frequent talk and think about race a LOT more than general society. And that's mostly speaking of my flist and the bloggers I regularly read; I got the impression from the SGA debates and the PotC debates that most of fandom doesn't want to think about race at all and will in fact vehemently deny any conversations about racism and attempt to shut down the conversations in any way possible.
(frozen comment) no subject
This is all from quick Googling, so I'm probably missing a ton of the shades of grey, but by and large, I don't think people can just say that the UK has fewer POC and therefore less racism, as racism seems to have played a large part in the number of POC in the country in the first place. It also looks like immigration is a big issue, unsurprisingly with a focus on the immigration of POC.
ut in summary, by saying that 'gentrification or white flight or whatnot' is a manifestation of racism, you are making assumptions about how ethnic minority communities have formed, as well as assumptions about what a society should be 'trying' to achieve, neither of which can necessarily be applied to Britain with its different history and social structure.
Well, I did some more Googling, and it looks like POC in the UK have higher unemployment rates, are much more likely to live in low-income households, and are at considerable more risk of being the victim of a racially motivated incident. Again, these are the basics and not shades of grey, but given that there do seem to be class divides on racial lines, I don't think it's stretching too far to say that housing patterns and the racial composition of neighborhoods are influenced by racism.
I'm not saying that POC, particularly immigrant POC, don't try to form their own communities, I think the reasons for doing so is far more complicated than simple self-perpetuation. Just from a brief glance, it looks like issues of class are involved, and just from statistics, I am guessing that POC in the UK may not feel that comfortable in the society, which also leads to self-segregation.
I am clearly not an expert, but the conflicting things that I hear on LJ from white people in the UK and POC in the UK make me skeptical when white people in the UK dismiss racism as a motive or a reason for racial divides, because it's much easier for white people to overlook racism.
(frozen comment) no subject
Pretty much as the institutional oppression of people based on race.
So it is either a situation where you have to take a back seat until another Brit comes along or you can try to argue your points from your position of disadvantage.
My problem with this is that by and large, I find myself arguing these points with white British people. Which brings me to:
Who is in a better position to judge the prevalence of discrimination - the people feeling its effects or the people controlling the effects? Personally I firmly believe you have to take testimony from both sides of the equation or any conclusion is meaningless.
I believe in taking testimony from both sides, but I also believe that those who have privilege generally really suck at noticing that they have privilege, whereas those who don't are extremely aware of the effects of discrimination. Which is why I have been arguing about this; I don't think I know the country better than you, but just from general feedback from British fans of color, I suspect that, much like most places, the view of the effects of racism are very, very different depending on how much privilege someone has.
Also, I'm rather tired and would really rather not argue/discuss, so I probably won't be responding any further.
(frozen comment) no subject
I vehemently disagree with this, and I think the comparison of oppressions is at best pointless and usually a way to obscure whatever oppression people are talking about. And when I am talking about racism, I am talking about institutional racism.
(frozen comment) no subject
I suspect that our meters for discussion of race may vary or we aren't in very similar circles. I found in my four years on LJ that race was almost never touched upon, or if it was, it would lead to a giant wankfest, a la SGA. Sometimes people would critique shows on race, but the comments would get increasingly virulent. And I think this is where experiences differ; ever since I have been on LJ, I have been painfully aware that the main fannish world is extremely white and extremely uncomfortable with being called out on that fact. This is, of course, not noting groups like
Well, it is always hard to quantify non-participation and even harder to find out the reasons for it. My general impression is that fandom as a whole hates wank and will avoid wider meta issues because they are perceived as leading to wank. (They may have a point about that last one.)
To be honest, I think fandom avoids race in a way that cannot be explained by the desire to avoid wank. I think the desire to avoid heated topics is a part of it, but after having seen multiple conversations being drowned out by protests of "We are colorblind!" or "Why must you talk about race?" I find it hard to believe that it's just the desire to avoid wank-potential. Of course, there's the fact that fans see race as a wanky issue to begin with, which I would argue is because the climate is very unfriendly to those trying to seriously and continually discuss race. Also, fans generally don't seem to have much of a problem looking closely at slash or LJ social dynamics.
As regards active attempts to shut conversations down, I didn't see any of that myself in the SGA debates, although I have seen a lot of people say it happened so I assume that was mostly in the SGA-specific discussions, which I never saw. In the wider meta discussions I never saw anyone who was clearly attempting to shut the conversation down except for when tempers had already got really heated.
By "shutting down," I generally mean the trend of being shouted down for being racist whenever someone mentions that a show's racial politics are dodgy, the immediate attempts to direct the conversation to whiteness, the attempts to not look at white oppression of POC but to rather focus on red herring topics like "reverse racism" and "But POC are racist too!" I don't think everyone does it consciously; I in fact think many people have such a knee-jerk reaction that they do it subconsciously. I think fandom as a whole is extremely uncomfortable acknowledging white privilege and as such will go to great extremes to avoid it in conversation. Of course, I don't think everyone in fandom is like that, and I do think things have changed in the last year (when I started noticing), but there is still a long, long way to go.
(frozen comment) no subject
Wow, I totally disagree. I've found that bias can be perpetuated even when no one involved intends it.
For instance, here in Seattle the community colleges (2-year degree) have a much higher percentage of people of color than the universities (4-year degree). The tuition per quarter for the two-year schools is roughly half that of the four-year schools, and many of the people I've talked to at those schools say that they aren't able to afford university. (There are often financial aid options they're unaware of, but I'll ignore the extent to which that might be affected by race for now.) Because students at the community colleges often have very little money, more of them tend to work than university students, and they tend to work longer hours. The grade average is lower, leading to fewer scholarships being open to them, and I believe that in many cases the difference in grades is due to spending more time at work. The best part? The community college I attended was not permitted student loans by the US government, because in the past those loans had been a bad risk -- current students suffered because of past economic problems in their community. So these students start with less money, they remain poorer during school, and they're less likely to be able to get a degree that will earn them a higher salary later.
Barring grand conspiracy theories, I'm pretty sure that no one in my fairly liberal city has set out to disadvantage students of lower socioeconomic class. All of these steps make sense if one assumes a level playing field to start with. It's the existing inequity that leads to more inequity, and it can do that even if everyone has only good intentions. My example isn't centered on race, though I certainly saw a lot more POC at the community college than I have at the university, but similar mechanisms can work to restrict the options available for people based on their race even if there's no overt bashing involved.
(frozen comment) no subject
Am too tired to write more, so just... word.