::eyeballs fandom:: SGA people, wtf.

[permetaform]

not that I'm really especially participating in fandom much, but...

Well, so I got caught up on SGA's Race wank, and well, what liviapenn's said on the subject, is pretty much spot on pure golden.

Now, I don't much like the type of discussion on racism that attempts to imbue shame onto "racists", because not only does that make people all defensive and reactionary liek whoa, but it also make "racists" the ones who commit racism.

And...the fact of the matter is that it's an issue of racism that exists in *people*, in *friends*, in people you *admire*; it's an issue of the racism that exists to some degree in each. person. because it *does*. Because we swim in it far too much (due to American media, that's tangled with worldwide media) and it's...it's *transparent* because you swim in it and is invisible to a very many people.

And I'm not going to hate people for being only human. I'm not going to shame people for something they cannot help.

However, I don't like people who aren't willing to self-examine when others are getting hurt at an act of theirs and it is being pointed out. I don't like how the sheer *possibility* that it's their own fault that they caused damage cannot pass through their mind, that they aren't willing to examine their own words and actions to see if these accusations are true.

Perhaps this is just my mental state as of now, with all the RL stuff going on for me. Perhaps this is me finally putting my foot down.

I'm defriending certain of you. Feel free to defriend me back.

[edit 1:11pm for grammar]

[edit 9:57pm] I've just come back from doing errands and ltlj's recent post was pointed out to me.

I sincerely apologize to ltlj for finding ill in her when there was none. I apologize for not following up and double-checking her own words before defriending. I apologize for the tone in my own comment. I was feeling betrayed at something that hadn't happened and acted far too quickly. Frankly, thank you for your ranty post.

I don't apologize for calling her a racist because in my post I called both everyone and no one a racist, because I believe that everybody has elements of racism in themselves to a degree. I do not level "that obscene hateful accusation" because I don't think it's useful in discussions of prejudice.

I haven't looked at the new comments in this post yet. I will do that now, time 10:10pm.

[edit 10:19pm] btw, I have re-added ltlj, and my current policy still stands that it's okay to either friend or defriend me at will.

[edit 10:33pm] ::facepalm:: edited my edit at 9:57pm to make it more concise and relevant.

[edit 9:22pm March 31st] in direct response here, but pertinent to the post in general:

Well, I have to admit that I was flustered and upset at myself for making such a mistake, and I was defending myself, so yes I was defensive.

What I have wished for of trolls is that they would just stop responding, to stop making an ass of themselves and to stop escalating the grief, so I will do so.

I am sorry.

Comments

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

Not something i even heard about in my case. I see it happens but think nothing of it. Some people can't help the ways they build stories. But that's no reason to thrash them for it. We all live with it to a degree. Very few of us can shrug it off or ignore it. The ones that can are usually influenced by different cultures instead of just our own, as well.

That said. It's probably best just to keep out of that viper's nest. Even skimming over the post made me a little angry. Because there was no compromise, no way to make it better that stuck out at me. Instead it was sheer and blatent anger, with no resolve. But i think that's the virgo in me, the eternal diplomat speaking. *grins* And a dash of the snake year i was born in, as well.

[amalthia]

yeah i'm glad those posts were locked because I don't know if I could have restrained myself. and the thing is both sides got me up in arms which was just awful!

[permetaform]

Because there was no compromise, no way to make it better that stuck out at me.

Have you ever come across a co-worker or a conspicuous and unavoidable person in your social circle that was consistently just so completely homophobic or misygnistic that the didn't realize it? That they'd keep commenting on women as objects, as cock sheaths, as deserving rape, or that they'd keep mentioning how all the fags will just go to hell because they'll infect the area around them?

And you just politely ask them to stop, and they think you're compromising their individuality.

You point out that it's hurting you and they think you're a weak pussy for taking offence.

You try to reason out *why* their logic is flawed and *why* they have blinkers on in regards to women or to gays, and they just think you're full of shit and soft-in-the-head, and, "ohhh they can't take a joke! We were just kidding around, right guys?"

This happens again and again.

And you've tried all the ways, and now you're just angry. Maybe yelling would work, you think, because fuck it all if anything else had worked.

There was no compromise, because So Many Compromises were talked about, over and over in SGA and in other fandoms. And none of them have taken hold. All the stuff and suggestions that liviapenn mentioned in her post have been mentioned before in other meta, other discussions, REPEATEDLY.

And btw? I know Virgos, who love to critique, who love a good debate, who loves their logic. It dismays me that you can't see your logic is flawed.

It's almost like one of those medical drama things where stuff goes wrong. They go to the doctor and they list their symptoms and the doctor thinks your imagining it. Or perhaps they think it's something other than what it is, or you're too stressed, or you're smoking too much and should quit and eat less fatty foods. They think that the pain you feel you're imagining and they don't believe you because they're so Firmly Set on their original diagnosis. And you try and you try again, to no avail. Turn around twice and suddenly you have cancer, and you discover that the symptoms that the doctor thought was all in your head was your body being attacked.

I don't particularly wish to go into the history of the race discussion in SGA. liviapenn outlines some of it but...it's long and twisty and you're having the same discussions over and over again. And considering which, the first time I read it I thought that lierdumoa's reaction was quite restrained.

So I wonder at the fact that her post made you angry. There was no compromise, granted. But she was pointing out that something was Wrong and it Hurts.

So why does it make you angry that she says it hurts? o.0; Is she not allowed to say "ow"? Must she diagnose herself at that moment?

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

It trips a nerve, but it's one i've dealt with my entire life as a mixed kid, Permeta. The complaining about being hurt does not help shit either. I live and i do my work in my way. Which means going about my life and not letting crap like that make me throw up my hands and give up about humanity. They can complain, they're allowed to. I'm not telling them to stop. That would be completely hypocritical! it's something i contemplated to myself as a teenager, and settling in on who i was. Not what i was defined AS.

I'd written an entire rant and erased it. There are some things not worth resurrecting for me, Permeta. *sighs* This kind of thing in fandom is just something i have to stay out of. I have enough problems in my rl, adding drama to fandom is too much. I'm not even angry about the whole thing. So i'm detached. But i'm not angry.

[amalthia]

I liked what liviapenn had to say on the subject as well she did it in such a way that it made me think but didn't get my hackles up. Of course I didn't know about the wank until after I'd ready read livia's meta on the subject...but a quick visit to fandom_wank filled me in on the rest.

[turtlespeaks.livejournal.com]

Uuuh, I am I little confused as to why you defriended me. I can understand if you are just not interested anymore, because goodness knows I am not really doing anything on my journal, but I just want to make sure you don't think I took part in the whole SGA Race thing, because I didn't, I didn't even really find out about it until it was pretty much over. I just wanted to make sure.

But, anyway, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, and I commend you for your point of view. I know I have been lurking for the past little while, but I do home things start getting better for you. Good luck. *hugs*

[permetaform]

here is where you commented.

That post was a direct response to the wank.

And it's not that I don't condone joking, but it wasn't joking in a way that shared in the silliness of the situation, (morgandawn is especially skilled at this), it was not a a joke to inspire connectedness between the two participants.

Instead it belitted one side of the dispute. It "put down", it "made light of", it "made fun of".

It made a genuine issue seem fake, and thus dismissable.

Also? I am in a white collar career. The a couple of the guys around me casually carry swiss army knives or switchblades of some sort. Mace/tazer in the purse is not a big deal. And two people I know are really into self-defense and other martial arts. At what point does carrying concealed weaponry constitute oneself as not being able to be white collar?

However, I thank you for your thoughts and well wishes on my RL situation.

[anoel.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. It's a cultural thing, people need to step away from themselves and see it that way.

[permetaform]

::hugs::

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why you apparently defriended me over the race wank, but that's your decision and it's always defriending amnesty day in my journal.

[permetaform]

::points at post::

However, I don't like people who aren't willing to self-examine when others are getting hurt at an act of theirs and it is being pointed out.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

That post was awesome, I thought. It's funny, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and had just gotten to the chapter on unconscious racial bias-- and then I turn on my computer and lo! here's this racewank. It's so easy to attack people on perceived racism, and it's so easy to deny that anything's happened-- it's tougher to think about your biases, and to be open to the possibility that other people's biases may not be intentional. It's not a simple-answers topic.

[permetaform]

::nods:: no it's not a simple-answers topic. And...well, just baby-steps I think.

There was that spat awhile back about the POTC 2 movie about racism too...and god just the sheer shame-spreading with the discussions surrounding it made me cringe so hard. Like the discussions THEMSELVES were making it tough for people to examine their own biases and thus the discussions were shutting down....discussion on race. XD

[kimera.livejournal.com]

I'm... what? If anything, I took offense to an implication that because someone happens to work in the service industry (as I do), that they're unskilled or unworthy somehow. That's all.

[jessant.livejournal.com]

Amen. What this whole thing seems to be about is a bunch of elitist snobs going on witch hunts. People who work hard in their everyday lives like you and me (I'm a barista, a profession which was singled out)are beneath notice, our jobs aren't considered good enough for people like Teyla and Ronon. But it's alright to watch a show that completely makes Teyla invisible. That makes Ronon eat with his freaking fingers. The fanfiction community is amazing, it's a bunch of women writing stories for other women, where the hell do you see that in everyday life. But we have to ruin it by picking apart stories that aren't all that offensive and driving away people who are talented writers. I wish people would think about that a little harder than they do before meta-ing. Right now I just hate meta in general, especially when it used this way.

[http://users.livejournal.com/solo____/]

Uh... I was busy, plus I'm not in SGA, plus I steer clear of race debates, so all I'd seen about it up till now had been a couple of links in metafandom. Seems it got really messy. I hope you get it sorted out. In emotive issues like that, it's very easy for each side to read ill intention into the words of the other.

[idyll.livejournal.com]

Wow. Classy.

[permetaform]

=) ?

[cereta.livejournal.com]

You know, everyone has to set their friends list to their own comfort. And I'm actually a firm believer in speaking out when you think something is a problem. Hence my comment here, actually.

However, I think what you've done here was ill-considered. It's not the unfriending and it's not the speaking out about racial issues: it's the tying of the two together in a way that cannot help but point to specific individuals in an accusatory way. And okay, sometimes individuals should be called on their actions and comments. But in at least two of the cases, you've clearly made a snap judgment that further information proved to be faulty, and there's no way of knowing how many other situations you made that same mistake in.

I mean, I made a comment on a post that it turns out was reacting to Livia's post. I hadn't read Livia post, didn't know it was reacting to it, but I agreed with the general principle of the post, and commented so. After reading Livia's post (which I generally agreed with with), I still agreed with it, because I don't actually think the two posts are disagreeing. However, if someone had read Livia's post, and then read the reaction post and my comment and see it as being dismissive of a larger problem, when the simple truth was, I didn't know the larger problem being discussed.

(Not, apparently, that I was dinged by you. I'm just using myself as an example because I know my own thought process.)

Your choices are your own, but as you say up above, once you say these things, you can't unsay them or make the bad feelings never have happened. I just think it's worth remembering that LJ is one vast interconnected web, and just because someone sees one thread, it doesn't mean they see another, and just because you've seen one comment, it doesn't mean you've seen the whole picture.

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm taking my racist self back to my 8 hour shifts at the grocery store, along with my uniform and my timeclock, where, horribly enough, I am not the manager, or even the head of my department, but a simple slinger of retail seafood at the public for minimum wage.

You know, Permeta, you can just...seriously, I was freaking marching in Civil Rights marches back in the 1960's, with my parents who were a lot of things of the bad, but not bigoted, and which I suspect is long before you were even thought of. I've been called a LOT of nasty things in my life, but a racist? All I can say is I shudder for you when your load of karma comes calling.

Hey...

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

Can I friend you just to be de-friended? Or, could you ban me? It would look good on my resume somewhere to be shunned by an immoderately, percipitously hypocrite such as yourself.

Re: Hey...

[(Anonymous)]

Gotto to say I loved this response. Only reason I´m not posting with a name is I don´t want to get dragged into the mess, but if I was in the mood i´d yell Ditto

[(Anonymous)]

The best apology is not to insult someone in the first place. That's especially true when the person in question has made no comment about whatever has your panties in a bunch.

The second-best apology is short and sweet: I'm very sorry. I was wrong. Follow that by removing the offending post.

Apologies tacked onto the bottom of the offending post, using language like I was feeling betrayed at something that hadn't happened and acted far too quickly and I don't apologize for calling her a racist because in my post I called both everyone and no one a racist ARE NOT AN APOLOGY. You don't try to justify yourself while saying sorry, because that is the ultimate in tackiness.

[kitakatzz.livejournal.com]

Hey if you'd waited two days, you could've called the whole thing an April Fool's joke! Heeee oh well. Anyway, there's this:

I don't apologize for calling her a racist because in my post I called both everyone and no one a racist

So. Like. Am I to understand that people you put on your flist are in danger of being called out as racists whenevs the mood strikes? When RL is stressing you out? When SGA fandom is being particularly wanky? Okay. Well, since I'd like to think of myself as not racist (blows the mind, doesn't it?), I guess I'm going to have to take myself out of that firing zone.

I don't even... man. Very surprising.

I believe this says it all..

[(Anonymous)]

I don't like how the sheer *possibility* that it's their own fault that they caused damage cannot pass through their mind, that they aren't willing to examine their own words and actions to see if these accusations are true.