Disclaimer: I'm gonna use this as a venting space, please don't interpret this as my asking for ally cookies or whatever.
It's... interesting, trying to engage other white people in the issue. Yesterday I had the misfortune to take an abrasive racist asshole on good faith, spent way too much effort putting together links, got to hear all about this person's "hurt feelings" and my "bad faith" and after hours of all that they pretty much literally went "lol this is trash". 🙃 And yet, bc an actual fan of color was tagged into that thread it was WAY better that I was the one doing the getting jerked around? Because like you said - yeah, I'm tired, but this hasn't been my whole fucking LIFE.
The first time I posted about the whole "hey have you ever noticed the AO3 doesn't seem to care about racism?" Thing, someone I'd been casual mutuals with since SGA decided I was being so unreasonable for not accepting the status quo that she (locked account) unfriended me on the spot. And this is me, so you can imagine how mildly I was putting things! I still get very "ah, them" when I see the username around (they're mutuals with many in my circle).
I've also come across the silencing tactic of telling me it's fake/performative wokeness to talk about any of this. At the same time apparently talking about a lot of these issues in fandom is also the actual real problem!
It's been heartbreaking to see non-white friends ask for more support, and for more white people speaking out, and that should ALWAYS be more important than feeling uncomfortable because of any mistakes we might make when we try to engage in it. But definitely a lot of people will just come out swinging for racism, whether it's with slippery slope to censorship arguments, or "make your own site then", or "white people shouldn't speak about this" or "I've never seen any proof of this racism you speak of so it's not a real problem" and then all of the above.
And I have been approaching this with links and stuff, but I'm beginning to feel if you as a white person are arguing that there can't be a racism problem because you (a white person) hasn't seen it, you're already so far down the path of bad faith that there's no point in engaging. The worst part is that this frequently come from queer people and women, who fucking KNOW that there is a lot of harassment that's invisible to those not targeted by it. But their ability for empathy just completely ends when it comes to the combination of BIPOC and fandom.
Anyway. The point is you can't stop talking about it because some assholes are going to tell your voice doesn't count or you can't prove to them that they should care.
no subject
It's... interesting, trying to engage other white people in the issue. Yesterday I had the misfortune to take an abrasive racist asshole on good faith, spent way too much effort putting together links, got to hear all about this person's "hurt feelings" and my "bad faith" and after hours of all that they pretty much literally went "lol this is trash". 🙃 And yet, bc an actual fan of color was tagged into that thread it was WAY better that I was the one doing the getting jerked around? Because like you said - yeah, I'm tired, but this hasn't been my whole fucking LIFE.
The first time I posted about the whole "hey have you ever noticed the AO3 doesn't seem to care about racism?" Thing, someone I'd been casual mutuals with since SGA decided I was being so unreasonable for not accepting the status quo that she (locked account) unfriended me on the spot. And this is me, so you can imagine how mildly I was putting things! I still get very "ah, them" when I see the username around (they're mutuals with many in my circle).
I've also come across the silencing tactic of telling me it's fake/performative wokeness to talk about any of this. At the same time apparently talking about a lot of these issues in fandom is also the actual real problem!
It's been heartbreaking to see non-white friends ask for more support, and for more white people speaking out, and that should ALWAYS be more important than feeling uncomfortable because of any mistakes we might make when we try to engage in it. But definitely a lot of people will just come out swinging for racism, whether it's with slippery slope to censorship arguments, or "make your own site then", or "white people shouldn't speak about this" or "I've never seen any proof of this racism you speak of so it's not a real problem" and then all of the above.
And I have been approaching this with links and stuff, but I'm beginning to feel if you as a white person are arguing that there can't be a racism problem because you (a white person) hasn't seen it, you're already so far down the path of bad faith that there's no point in engaging. The worst part is that this frequently come from queer people and women, who fucking KNOW that there is a lot of harassment that's invisible to those not targeted by it. But their ability for empathy just completely ends when it comes to the combination of BIPOC and fandom.
Anyway. The point is you can't stop talking about it because some assholes are going to tell your voice doesn't count or you can't prove to them that they should care.