Where is your line? (HP wankery)

[oyceter]

I am using "wankery" specifically to refer to the DD mods and those who are defending them.

Coming in a little late, given that they finally apologized and retracted the tag, but I am feeling a desperate need to blow off steam.


A few more squares people have hit for White Liberal Bingo (caution, do not read if you want to keep your blood pressure down):

ETA4: 1. "I won't concede to being called a racist, whose use of a word is the same as calling people the 'n' word, because it's not true." here (misquoted, my apologies)

The new 1. "To my mind, calling someone a racist is a huge deal, a very, very serious insult. It is one of the biggest possible attacks on a person's integrity. It is equivalent to calling a black person the N-word - not in terms of function, but in terms of affective connotation, pure strength of insult." here

2. "And, whilst one is properly cognisant, in a thoroughly Hufflepuffian way, of other's cultural sensitivities, it really is a bit much to be told something is inexorably racist when it isn't used that way in oooh possibly the majority of the world." here

3. "But younger generations, 40 or less, I see it more as a battle of classism rising in America [...] So, for younger generations, I really do think holding grievances is a form of racism, and it results in angry, angry, ANGRY people. People become disproportionally angry to the amount of racism they ACTUALLY encounter." here

I haven't got a link to the ones saying 4. "The mods meant no harm! They had good intentions, and therefore they are not being racist!" or the ones saying, 5. "witchqueen's tone was too aggressive; who can fault the mods for acting as they did." Dig around in her comments and I'm sure you'll find both. If not, just surf around a little.

ETA: all the links to above posts were public at the time I wrote this, which is how I got the quotes.

I seriously doubt anyone needs my reply to these, but I am still so pissed off that I am throwing them in as a bonus!

So:

1. No. Calling someone "racist" is not the same as calling someone "nigger." In fact, it is so far from that that conflating the two is insulting. For one, calling someone "racist" has never been used as a means to enforce centuries of racial oppression; it has not been used as a derogatory term in hundreds of thousands of lynchings, rapes, and beatings; it has not been used to legally deny the personhood of an entire group of people. Maybe you might think it is the same because it causes you to feel defensive. But in the long run? Your defensiveness is not the same as institutional racism. (ETA3: My apologies, I read the original quote wrong.)

2. First, as coffeeandink notes, this is not true. Second, what kind of a response is that? If I accidentally use a word that is offensive and has been used in racist laws in another country, and if someone in that country tells me the word is offensive, please switch to a neutral one, my response should never be: "Well, it's not offensive where I am! Neener!" Even if I feel strongly that I have to use the word, like if there is no good substitute and people in my country will associate it with something entirely different, if I am using it in a way that anyone from that country could see it, my response would be to add a footnote noting that the term is offensive and that it should generally not be used, but that I am using it in "xxx" way. And given that we are in the internet age, I would damn well footnote it. Also, this completely discounts that a neutral word exists and that zvi suggested it.

3. This one goes even further up the comment stream, but I highlighted this because WOW! WTF?! Also, check out the response. "People were being killed on a regular basis, not let into the majority of public facilities- now people are called names. [...] but you have to let it go- say DAMN that was offensive and go on." Where have I heard that one before? I'm TOO ANGRY?! What she's basically saying is: calling people racial slurs or contributing to a racist environment is such a non-offense that you should immediately forgive and forget and never try to address the wrong. "THAT's it? Some names? [...] People are constantly disparaged- pick any person, and you can say something about them." is the question. It is never just some names. It is never "everyone is constantly disparaged." Because while everyone might be disparaged, the implicit power involved in oppression means that when the dominant group disparages the minority group, it is ten times more serious. And when you let people know that it is ok to keep doing that, when you come down on those who are protesting instead of those who are causing hurt, you are basically stating that your community values that peace over standing up to racism.

Also, anyone who tells me to stop being angry because I was not killed or my life was not threatened FAILS AT LIFE, particularly when they are telling me how to fight racism and lecturing me on the Asian-American community while also saying how the use of racially offensive words is ok.

4. After a while, all the good intentions in the world don't mean anything. For me, and for a lot of people, that moment is when someone is told that they are hurting someone, and instead of apologizing and trying to stop, they instead attempt to justify their right to hurt other people. At that moment, they are no longer well meaning; they have no good intentions. They are deliberately embarking on a course that they know is offensive, and as far as I can tell, that is entirely outside of the realm of "good intentions" and "well meaning."

5. As for this, I ditto annavtree and ficbyzee. And I add that zvi's letters were amazingly restrained, and that she is being more polite even now.

That aside, the real post I wanted to make was: Where is your line?

One of the things that was maddening about the DD mods' response was that they had had a discussion with the entire comm about it, and their decision to ignore witchqueen's request was backed by the comm. Furthermore, when this got out, you had people using all the above arguments in an attempt to say that the mods, the comm, and the mods' decision was not racist.

So I ask people, particularly those who stayed in the comm through all this, the people who joined the comm during this, and the people who defended it: where is your line when it comes to racism? And I am not asking this as a rhetorical question.

But seriously. When do you decide that you will not be complicit? And yes, by standing by and letting it happen, by actively supporting it in comments and posts, you are complicit. At what point do you start to feel hypocritical by saying you're not a racist when you let racial epithets slide by, when you excuse people for being well meaning, when the only time you speak up is to defend white privilege and argue with POC and allies, or when you ignore what POC and their allies are saying? When do you take a stand?

Are you only taking a stand when you have nothing to lose, personally? Will you do it with strangers, but not your friends? Will you sigh at the occasional newspaper report of a hate crime and then go back to ignoring it when it is right in your internet backyard? When does it become as much a part in your life as it is in mine?

This is in part an accusation; I have been sickened by how willingly people jumped to defend the DD mods given all the evidence at hand. This is also an exploration: I have my own lines. I will not, for example, argue racism or sexism or homophobism with my parents and the older generation of my family, not after so many failed attempts before. And every day I make the choice to continue to partake or not in media that ignores people like me or uses them only as stereotypical supporting characters. More often than not, I choose to partake because I still would like to be able to communicate with fandom at large.

But this is a choice. And while making this choice, I also choose to critique what I watch and what I read because even as I derive pleasure from reading and watching things, because without doing that, I feel like I am uncritically consuming and potentially implicitly supporting them.

Please note I am not saying that everyone has to do this. Sometimes I choose not to read about what's going in the anti-racist blogosphere because I cannot take being this angry all the time. I think allies and fen of color desperately need breaks from fighting this all the time. But the thing is, I am not seeing people consciously choosing to not engage so they can conserve energy for later. I am seeing people blindly react to something of theirs being taken away (the right to use racist words as long as no one means it, or no one knows).

Furthermore, I've seen the argument that the mods and the comm is not racist several times. To which I ask again: where is your line? If someone is using a racist term, ignoring POC and anti-racist allies, further claiming that they are enitrely justified, then continues to use the term, and that is not racist, then I ask, what is? And will you actually do something when it is? Or will you just sit by and say that the nooses on the tree were just a joke, and really it was the black kids' fault for sitting there anyway? Because no matter what the offense is, no matter how serious it is, I have seen people pass it off as a joke, pass it off as "Oh, they didn't mean it," pass it off as "You are too sensitive. You should forgive and forget."

I fully understand the need for discourse and how saying someone's actions are racist can be a way to make them listen more than saying they're a racist. But when people end up supporting racist actions and behaviors, condoning them behind the scenes, or actively work to uphold them, yes, they are racists. They are upholding the racial social order which keeps white people at the top; they are enforcing their own privilege.

ETA2: Also, I totally forgot because I was so mad! I wanted to thank my flist, people commenting here, and my friendsof-list for being sane and calling the DD mods and others on their stupidity and their racist behavior. You guys are awesome.

Comments

[silveraspen]

... what? I missed that.

That is beyond infuriating. As is much, if not all, of this entire debacle.