Feeling a bit better

[changeyourstars8]

We buried Marvin yesterday. Bit of dark humor in the whole thing: one of the employees at the vet's is selling Girl Scout cookies, and the only box they had to give him back to us in was-- you guessed it. So I hear this from the vet assistants as they come up to the front room:

#1: "Hey, you made a sale!"
#2: *urgent whispering*
#1: "Ohhhhhh."

Anyway. Onward.

Today's entry inspired by this essay:

This Hurts Us All

Talking about the racism debates within sci-fi/fantasy circles, the derailment of same, etc. Even if you're not fully caught up on the entire thing (which I know for sure I'm not), it's a good read.

And what I'm going to do is start talking about this more. Sortof.

I can talk about feminism because I have a lifetime of experiences as a woman to draw on, and research/reading on top of that. Racism, though? White girl living in Whiteville, USA. Research/reading is all I have, and at this point in time I feel that me trying full-out essays would just be the equivalent of someone who's taken a high-school calculus class interrupting a Convention of Rocket Scientists and saying, "Hey! Listen to me because I know stuff, people!" Not cool. But staying utterly quiet on the subject doesn't feel right to me anymore, either.

So, obvious solution? Linkspams. ;-) Here's the first one:

Well, I say, maybe you shouldn't touch things before you learn about them or know how to treat them with respect.

On the differences between 'immigrant' and 'ex-pat'.

Aby's Bed of Terror graphic, which is one of my New Favorite Things Ever.

"And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good"

Comments

[shadefell.livejournal.com]

There was a HUGE FUCKING BLOWUP in the feminist blogosphere AND in the fatosphere because both groups have very a large, very vocal, white presence. And in both instances, POC (well, primarily WOC) have spoken up about their experiences and gotten initially shouted down. And now this. It's really terrible.

I wish people would just sit down and shut the fuck up and LISTEN.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

I wish people would just sit down and shut the fuck up and LISTEN.

Amen.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

I support the linkspam idea. I also support the flailing angrily and incoherently in support behind POC plan.

It's still RaceFail, definitely, there are too many people wounded and disengaging to chirp, "But it's worth it in the end!", but. I feel like this is the crest of a wave, somehow. Fandom imbroglios about racism have been coming with greater and greater frequency over the past few years, but (I'm not just going to mix the metaphor in this paragraph, I'm going to throw it against the ceiling), the primal scream is finally reaching the point where it shatters glass.