IBARW 2!

[oyceter]

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.)

1. 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.



2. Second, I need a Record-Keeper of the Revolution!
   
   You'll be compiling all IBARW posts during the week, like 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.



3. 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?

Comments

I am not <lj user=oyceter> and don't play her on tv, but

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

I think it's a mistake to assume that actors of color are always aware of the messages being received by the audience, especially if the treatment of a single character isn't blatantly racially negative, but it's the shows global treatment of CoCs that is at issue. A lot of actors look at a TV show or movie very much from the viewpoint of their single character, and they may know little or nothing about the larger show, or the created world in which their show is set.

I think the best example of actor monofocus is what happened to Andromeda when Kevin Sorbo started exercising more creative control: in short, the stories completely re-centered around his character and the interesting and complex story continuity and ensuing moral questions were axed a lot.

There's also the X Files episodes written by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. DD's episodes were pretty coherent episodes, but they were only of the humorous quirky type, not the scary horror/thriller type. GA's episode didn't make sense, in terms of the larger universe or her character's progression in the series. It involved Scully getting re-involved in a personal relationship from college after a point where she had relinquished all personal relationships outside the FBI and her family, and it didn't have much in the way of an X factor.

Also, actors do sometimes influence storylines for racial reasons, but the way they influence those storylines may or may not strike other people as constructive. Eriq Lasalle (black man), who was on ER, got the producers to break his character up with the white woman he'd been dating, because he was sick of black characters so often ending up with white ones. That's his perspective because he's working on an ensemble drama — for me, who was watching a lot of buddy shows are smaller cast sf dramas, I found it really frustrating that the only time we'd see incidental, minor character CoCs, it would just so happen to be when a main cast CoC needed a date to the big dance or to be seduced by alien priestesses or what have you.

I do know that some minority actors just don't work as much as their talent would dictate. Angela Bassett (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000291/) should have a longer IMDB entry, for instance. So should Regina King (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005093/).

So, I suspect the answer is yes, to all of the things you asked, depending on the ability of the actor to express what is offensive and the actor's estimate of their influence on the whole of the production and the producer's estimate of the actor's influence.