Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
such_heights) wrote2010-06-16 07:44 pm
such_heights) wrote2010-06-16 07:44 pm
Activism, solidarity, and My Stuff
This is related to but not directly about recent fandom conversations about a racist AU and problematic approaches to hurt/comfort fic.
And, as always when particular conversations come up in fandom, the same few reactions start to appear. 'Mob mentality', 'K, bored now', etc. Which has been addressed far more eloquently than I could hope for by ephemere. I also like what furiosity had to say. The following is based on comments I've seen around, not made by people that I know personally.
Here's the thing. Sometimes, there's stuff in fandom that infringes upon My Stuff. My identities, the things that shape my life offline and cause me to experience particular kinds of prejudice and disadvantage. And, you know, having misogyny and ablism and homophobia turn up in the middle of the things I do for fun is less than ideal. So, sometimes I talk about it, in the hope that it makes it less likely to happen again. Sometimes (more often) I decide it's not worth the emotional energy/spoons, and I leave it, or rant over email or something. And no one else, not even other people with equal and valid and totally different experiences of My Stuff, gets to decide what's worth my time/energy/spoons for me. (What, of course, you always get to do is call me out when I'm being offensive or faily, and i'm thankful to all that have done so.)
Why is it that when it comes to anti-oppression issues that people suddenly get grumpy about things being all over their flist? I don't complain when my reading list is full of nothing but pictures of people's cats. (Disclaimer: I love looking at pictures of people's cats, it's a hypothetical example.)
When something comes up in fandom that affects me, I am always very grateful that there are other people who can give my feelings voice where I can't. And I'm also grateful to the people who signal boost, who linkspam, who chime in their agreement that what's happening is wrong, or call out problems in the framing of the discussion. The support is directly felt and directly impacts my experience of fandom.
As other people talk about the problematic potential of some kinds of h/c, for example, I feel less alone. (I totally believe disability and abuse issues can be written respectfully even when one is 'writing the other'. I also know that it was very jolting to see a bunch of My Stuff in a list which initially had no real context or dialogue around it. /2 pence.)
And thus, it seems only fair play to offer the same support on other issues that don't have a personal impact on me. Not to mention that I think it's important to take advantage of the wealth of material that members if fandom provide in the interests of self-education. So, no, I don't believe that I'm contributing to a 'mob' when I post about the hot *ism/fail topic of the moment. Sometimes it's important for me to speak, sometimes it's important for me to listen and point towards where others are speaking. (Emphasis on the *for me*)
Also, a note: there is a big difference between not engaging for whatever reason - there are many reasons why people don't engage with these issues, and that's valid and understandable - and acts of silencing and attempting to shut down conversation. It's kind of a jerk move in a lot of contexts - in conversations like these, it's even more of a problem.
Or, more simply put, I post because I want to do better. I'd like fandom to do better. This little journal here is a spanner in my toolkit, and I'll continue to make use of it.
And, as always when particular conversations come up in fandom, the same few reactions start to appear. 'Mob mentality', 'K, bored now', etc. Which has been addressed far more eloquently than I could hope for by ephemere. I also like what furiosity had to say. The following is based on comments I've seen around, not made by people that I know personally.
Here's the thing. Sometimes, there's stuff in fandom that infringes upon My Stuff. My identities, the things that shape my life offline and cause me to experience particular kinds of prejudice and disadvantage. And, you know, having misogyny and ablism and homophobia turn up in the middle of the things I do for fun is less than ideal. So, sometimes I talk about it, in the hope that it makes it less likely to happen again. Sometimes (more often) I decide it's not worth the emotional energy/spoons, and I leave it, or rant over email or something. And no one else, not even other people with equal and valid and totally different experiences of My Stuff, gets to decide what's worth my time/energy/spoons for me. (What, of course, you always get to do is call me out when I'm being offensive or faily, and i'm thankful to all that have done so.)
Why is it that when it comes to anti-oppression issues that people suddenly get grumpy about things being all over their flist? I don't complain when my reading list is full of nothing but pictures of people's cats. (Disclaimer: I love looking at pictures of people's cats, it's a hypothetical example.)
When something comes up in fandom that affects me, I am always very grateful that there are other people who can give my feelings voice where I can't. And I'm also grateful to the people who signal boost, who linkspam, who chime in their agreement that what's happening is wrong, or call out problems in the framing of the discussion. The support is directly felt and directly impacts my experience of fandom.
As other people talk about the problematic potential of some kinds of h/c, for example, I feel less alone. (I totally believe disability and abuse issues can be written respectfully even when one is 'writing the other'. I also know that it was very jolting to see a bunch of My Stuff in a list which initially had no real context or dialogue around it. /2 pence.)
And thus, it seems only fair play to offer the same support on other issues that don't have a personal impact on me. Not to mention that I think it's important to take advantage of the wealth of material that members if fandom provide in the interests of self-education. So, no, I don't believe that I'm contributing to a 'mob' when I post about the hot *ism/fail topic of the moment. Sometimes it's important for me to speak, sometimes it's important for me to listen and point towards where others are speaking. (Emphasis on the *for me*)
Also, a note: there is a big difference between not engaging for whatever reason - there are many reasons why people don't engage with these issues, and that's valid and understandable - and acts of silencing and attempting to shut down conversation. It's kind of a jerk move in a lot of contexts - in conversations like these, it's even more of a problem.
Or, more simply put, I post because I want to do better. I'd like fandom to do better. This little journal here is a spanner in my toolkit, and I'll continue to make use of it.
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I found the dialogue (don't know how many comments you read on the posts on this topic) quite intriguing because it consistently referred to 'dreamwidthers', as if they are an interest group, who had 'a different agenda'. And I can see why DW is the one place to migrate to if you are less used to privilege swinging in your favour. The level of paranoia that these people exhibit ("there's nowhere in fandom you can just write what you want anymore -- they're taking over!" *wail*) is the same paranoia of establishment happy, privileged people.
And they need to learn that it has no place in fandom, because fandom is a level playing ground and they may just find themselves outnumbered.
(So, this got lengthy, soz.)
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I've caught up on the 'dreamwidther' thing now from furiosity's journal, and, just, what. Ahahaha. I haven't heard about the Great Dreamwidth Conspiracy in ages!
Jeez, people.
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When something comes up in fandom that affects me, I am always very grateful that there are other people who can give my feelings voice where I can't. And I'm also grateful to the people who signal boost, who linkspam, who chime in their agreement that what's happening is wrong, or call out problems in the framing of the discussion. The support is directly felt and directly impacts my experience of fandom.
This is me exactly. I feel like I'm still at the 101 level in some of the conversational topics, which means I can handle the basics that other people are tired of taking care of (and that's probably a good thing), but what I really want to say often escapes me, which is why I'm really glad others can say it. And it's so nice, when I'm personally affected by the topic at hand, to see how many people will even just leave a quick link in their journal and say, "Not cool." Especially considering how many people around me in-person don't even begin to get it.
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Right, absolutely - it's not hard to scroll by! And hearts for you, I know dealing with comments on these topics can be super spoon-draining.
Especially considering how many people around me in-person don't even begin to get it.
Yes, this is an important point as well! Some of us do have offline friends that understand these kinds of issues, but many of us don't. If fandom's the only space to talk about this stuff, even more reason to treat the conversations with respect.
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(Thanks for the link to the h/c thing, btw, I somehow hadn't caught up with that.)
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i love the signal boosting. it brings things to my attention that i might have otherwise not seen. like the h/c thing. *clicks*!
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Thanks for this. You've said a lot of things that really resonate for me when I post about these issue on my own journals - and why I do so.
I'll be linking to this.
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Here via network
...
Sometimes it's important for me to speak, sometimes it's important for me to listen and point towards where others are speaking.
Yes! Exactly. Thank you so much for this post, and for the link.
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I'm tired of seeing these posts because it means, yet again, someone isn't able to enjoy fandom because of someone else's fail. I think, truly, that if people stopped heaping their fail on others, if people stopped being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, they could still have fun. Unlike what happens when people are all those things and only they have fun and a bunch of marginalized people and their allies are stuck feeling hurt, abused, necessitating posts that say, hey, that's not fucking cool.
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