(no subject)
Mar. 7th, 2005 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oIf you're ever in LA, *don't* stay at the LAX Travelodge. Just ... don't.
So, in a belated response to a post in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
witchqueen's LJ, I wrote this very long and rambling comment about race and fanfiction. I have like five different points I want to make, which is why I thought maybe I should post it here.
So, first, an observation: white people *freak out* about this kind of thing because "racism" is such a very very strong word -- it immediately calls to mind the scary men in white hoods. And so when the subject of racial bias comes up, a lot of white people get so defensive right off the bat that it's impossible to have a reasonable conversation. Which sucks, because it's a conversation which a) has the potential to be very constructive and b) I personally find really interesting.
Which leads to my second point: I wish we could redefine the term racism so that it's understood to refer not only to the redneck who uses the n-word and, I don't know, trains his dogs to attack black people or something equally horrifying, which I have no doubt 99.9 percent of fans would condemn, but *also* to unconscious, unintentional, *systemic* bias. Maybe then people (especially white ones) could talk about racial bias without immediately going into this defensive guilt thing.
Third, it's definitely true that characters of color (hereafter referred to as CoC) are underrepresented on television, and it could well be true that CoC are underwritten in canon and therefore less interesting to fans who write, but it's also true that most (American) fen are part of the dominant white culture and immersed in that culture's systemic bias, so it would not surprise me if CoC are likewise underrepresented in fanfic -- not so much *because* CoC are underwritten in canon, as for the *same reasons* CoC are underwritten in canon.
To elaborate on what I mean by a systemic bias, there was an article in the Washington Post magazine a month or so ago about a so-called bias test -- it's administered on the computer where you see photos of people of different ethnicities, paired with words, and you have to hit different keys on the keyboard depending on the combinations of words and faces, and the gist is that most Americans have a measurable difficulty associating a positive word with a person of color (or, as another example, associating science-connoted words with women; it can measure all kinds of bias, not just racial). This difficulty can be measured not only in white test takers, but in people of color -- it's not a conscious thing, it's something that's in our culture and buried really deeply in our psyches.
But, point #4: deeply buried unconscious bias notwithstanding, it's just *lame* to throw up one's hands and say "I'm not racist, I'm just not turned on by [Pete/Forrest/whoever]." Because while your first reaction may be a gut thing that you can't help, people can examine their reactions and pick apart the assumptions they bring to the table and unlearn their own biases. Really, they *can*. I'm not saying you can snap your fingers and click your heels three times and all of a sudden go weak in the knees for [Pete/Forrest/whoever], but you can look at what turns you on, and if it's NEVER a CoC, then you can look at your own assumptions about CoC, and people of color in general, and see if there's something going on below the surface, and really hold yourself accountable.
If you think that sounds pie-in-the-sky, or like I'm wallowing in liberal guilt, or whatever, here's the coolest part of the Post article: the biases documented by the test can be unlearned, and it's not even hard. If you take the test, then read a pamphlet about African-American contributions to U.S. history, then take the test again, you display less bias. One of the scientists who developed the test was so struck by this she has postcards of notable African-American women taped up around her cubicle.
Because, my fifth and final point: I have no doubt that every individual writer toiling at her computer is a stand-up person who is genuinely squeeing over some white guy and just not feeling anything for the CoC, but even so, if (and it's an if, because I haven't gone through the fic or the fandoms and done any kind of tabulation) it turns out CoC are less well represented in fic than in canon, that right there, all by itself, IS evidence of an underlying bias. And if we really want to be able to say fandom isn't biased, we can't just rely on the fact that we all have good intentions, we have to do the work.
(Says the fan who doesn't write any fic about anybody, of any color.)
Also, Deadwood is back! About which more later, maybe.
So, in a belated response to a post in
witchqueen's LJ, I wrote this very long and rambling comment about race and fanfiction. I have like five different points I want to make, which is why I thought maybe I should post it here.So, first, an observation: white people *freak out* about this kind of thing because "racism" is such a very very strong word -- it immediately calls to mind the scary men in white hoods. And so when the subject of racial bias comes up, a lot of white people get so defensive right off the bat that it's impossible to have a reasonable conversation. Which sucks, because it's a conversation which a) has the potential to be very constructive and b) I personally find really interesting.
Which leads to my second point: I wish we could redefine the term racism so that it's understood to refer not only to the redneck who uses the n-word and, I don't know, trains his dogs to attack black people or something equally horrifying, which I have no doubt 99.9 percent of fans would condemn, but *also* to unconscious, unintentional, *systemic* bias. Maybe then people (especially white ones) could talk about racial bias without immediately going into this defensive guilt thing.
Third, it's definitely true that characters of color (hereafter referred to as CoC) are underrepresented on television, and it could well be true that CoC are underwritten in canon and therefore less interesting to fans who write, but it's also true that most (American) fen are part of the dominant white culture and immersed in that culture's systemic bias, so it would not surprise me if CoC are likewise underrepresented in fanfic -- not so much *because* CoC are underwritten in canon, as for the *same reasons* CoC are underwritten in canon.
To elaborate on what I mean by a systemic bias, there was an article in the Washington Post magazine a month or so ago about a so-called bias test -- it's administered on the computer where you see photos of people of different ethnicities, paired with words, and you have to hit different keys on the keyboard depending on the combinations of words and faces, and the gist is that most Americans have a measurable difficulty associating a positive word with a person of color (or, as another example, associating science-connoted words with women; it can measure all kinds of bias, not just racial). This difficulty can be measured not only in white test takers, but in people of color -- it's not a conscious thing, it's something that's in our culture and buried really deeply in our psyches.
But, point #4: deeply buried unconscious bias notwithstanding, it's just *lame* to throw up one's hands and say "I'm not racist, I'm just not turned on by [Pete/Forrest/whoever]." Because while your first reaction may be a gut thing that you can't help, people can examine their reactions and pick apart the assumptions they bring to the table and unlearn their own biases. Really, they *can*. I'm not saying you can snap your fingers and click your heels three times and all of a sudden go weak in the knees for [Pete/Forrest/whoever], but you can look at what turns you on, and if it's NEVER a CoC, then you can look at your own assumptions about CoC, and people of color in general, and see if there's something going on below the surface, and really hold yourself accountable.
If you think that sounds pie-in-the-sky, or like I'm wallowing in liberal guilt, or whatever, here's the coolest part of the Post article: the biases documented by the test can be unlearned, and it's not even hard. If you take the test, then read a pamphlet about African-American contributions to U.S. history, then take the test again, you display less bias. One of the scientists who developed the test was so struck by this she has postcards of notable African-American women taped up around her cubicle.
Because, my fifth and final point: I have no doubt that every individual writer toiling at her computer is a stand-up person who is genuinely squeeing over some white guy and just not feeling anything for the CoC, but even so, if (and it's an if, because I haven't gone through the fic or the fandoms and done any kind of tabulation) it turns out CoC are less well represented in fic than in canon, that right there, all by itself, IS evidence of an underlying bias. And if we really want to be able to say fandom isn't biased, we can't just rely on the fact that we all have good intentions, we have to do the work.
(Says the fan who doesn't write any fic about anybody, of any color.)
Also, Deadwood is back! About which more later, maybe.