More Against Racism
Aug. 9th, 2007 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseFirst, a comment in general.
Almost all of my friends would never deliberately do racist things**. best described, their conscious mind is not racist, they try to behave correctly. (Ditto sexist, anti-gay, prejudiced against other faiths, etc.)* Many people who are consciously anti-racist and try not to do racist things read about discussions of racism, and think, pretty much, "Well, I'm not racist, so go you, but I'll just get on with my life."
One of the things I *have* learned in the course of reading, though, is that there are *always* things to think about. Always new things to learn. Things that never occur to you if your whole thinking on the subject is, "But I'm not racist, neither are most of my friends and these days everyone knows racism is bad."
Part of why I posted the link to Will Shetterly's rather muddled thinking on the subject is that Will Shetterly *is* consciously anti-racist. His behaviour towards different people in person reflects that. His writing does. (Read Dogland! It's fabulous.) But. He still flubbed it.
We all do. Especially if we assume that our part is done just by being polite to everyone. Doubly so if we try to describe ourselves as colourblind.
Here's Elizabeth Bear on why she feels Will was wrong... and on a recent study about anger. Also read the comments.
And here is a specific thread in the discussion on why saying "But my life was terrible and I'm a white male" is not evidence against, or even relevant to, the fact that a white, or a male, and especially both, will and does have privilege.
Oh, and Will Shetterly again. An apology, and a quote from one of his commentors on why people choose causes.
Other writers: More to the anger study, and to anger in general.
And yet more, on voice in a more literal sense.
Racism and colourblindness in tv casting. Subthreads discuss Supernatural and Doctor Who in particular.
A response to a comment in that last discussion about how Britain isn't racist like the US.
I'm not sure what it means that these are 3/6 pasty white.
* Read this in whenever I talk about racism.
** This does not necessarily apply to "most of the *people* I know."
Almost all of my friends would never deliberately do racist things**. best described, their conscious mind is not racist, they try to behave correctly. (Ditto sexist, anti-gay, prejudiced against other faiths, etc.)* Many people who are consciously anti-racist and try not to do racist things read about discussions of racism, and think, pretty much, "Well, I'm not racist, so go you, but I'll just get on with my life."
One of the things I *have* learned in the course of reading, though, is that there are *always* things to think about. Always new things to learn. Things that never occur to you if your whole thinking on the subject is, "But I'm not racist, neither are most of my friends and these days everyone knows racism is bad."
Part of why I posted the link to Will Shetterly's rather muddled thinking on the subject is that Will Shetterly *is* consciously anti-racist. His behaviour towards different people in person reflects that. His writing does. (Read Dogland! It's fabulous.) But. He still flubbed it.
We all do. Especially if we assume that our part is done just by being polite to everyone. Doubly so if we try to describe ourselves as colourblind.
Here's Elizabeth Bear on why she feels Will was wrong... and on a recent study about anger. Also read the comments.
And here is a specific thread in the discussion on why saying "But my life was terrible and I'm a white male" is not evidence against, or even relevant to, the fact that a white, or a male, and especially both, will and does have privilege.
Oh, and Will Shetterly again. An apology, and a quote from one of his commentors on why people choose causes.
Other writers: More to the anger study, and to anger in general.
And yet more, on voice in a more literal sense.
Racism and colourblindness in tv casting. Subthreads discuss Supernatural and Doctor Who in particular.
A response to a comment in that last discussion about how Britain isn't racist like the US.
I'm not sure what it means that these are 3/6 pasty white.
* Read this in whenever I talk about racism.
** This does not necessarily apply to "most of the *people* I know."
