three things

[harborshore]

Regarding the recent SPN Big Bang racist fail:

1. People who speak a language you don't understand do not gibber or jabber, they talk. You just don't understand them. ETA: This post is more detailed concerning this point.


2. If your story has a major tragedy whose victims are portrayed as somehow less than your protagonists, if said victims have no agency (as in, they don't do anything, they get things done to them), and if they (and their deaths) are there only to provide angst for your heroes, then you are doing it WRONG.


3. If you're considering writing a fic about a tragedy that is still going on, then tread carefully. Very carefully.

Note: the link above goes to an extensive collection of the offending quotes from the story; there's a full roundup at Unfunny Business.

Comments

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

You mean of the betas and stuff, while the story was being written? Yeah, me neither. AUGH. Someone said somewhere that just because Western literature has a long and great tradition of using POC tragedies like this doesn't mean one should continue it.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

just because Western literature has a long and great tradition of using POC tragedies like this doesn't mean one should continue it

It doesn't mean they should, absolutely not; but it does mean that they do and they do so without even noticing.

The 'long and great tradition' makes it sound like something that's perpetuated on purpose; in most cases it's not. It's something that's perpetuated because it's normal, it's part of the landscape, it's something none of the people in certain groups (i.e., lots and lots of groups of white Westerners, at least here in the USA) think anything about.

Which is not to excuse it; just to say, people keep saying 'how could she not have seen what she was doing?' and 'how could her betas / friends / artist / readers not have noticed and said something?' -- the answer is because they literally didn't notice. If you and everyone around you is used to stepping over a crack in the sidewalk every day of your life, you'll all keep doing it until someone comes along and says, "why don't you idiots just FIX that?"

(And if it seems like I'm conflating racism with something as mild as a crack in the sidewalk -- that's because for a lot of people, it is.)

It's just. I don't even. I think things are working toward getting less full of unbelievable fail, but there are certainly no end of examples of how far we have to go.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

The 'long and great tradition' makes it sound like something that's perpetuated on purpose; in most cases it's not.

Right, no, I know that. I know privilege is invisible to those who have it a lot of the time, I also know what it takes to point it out. The very first story I ever sent off to beta came back with a note about a line that was FULL of gender stereotype fail. But she called me on it. Of course they didn't see it, that's how this shit works. The thing is, at this point we kind of have to look, you know?

When I say "long and great tradition" I'm (sarcastically) referring to the tendency to think only the stories of one kind of person matter, and that is a sometimes straight, usually white, usually male. That is, what we think of as "normal." And people don't realize that seeing stories this way also means seeing the people who are not (in this case) white Americans as less than human. But people should realize, and when they miss it, other people should point it out to them. Like people are doing.