sholio | Some more cultural appropriation links

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Some more cultural appropriation links

Forgive my linkspammage; this is something that I feel is important, and people are pouring their hearts and souls into these posts, this debate. This is far from the first time that debates like this have gone around; in the past, I've watched, and read a lot, and learned a lot. This time around, I'd like to help.

rydra_wong has excellent roundup link posts: 1, 2, 3, 4. There is also a comprehensive roundup at Aqueduct Press.

The Remyth Project looks completely awesome. In

yeloson's words:

The Remyth project is this: You, as a person of color, as a person whose myths have been sidelined, removed, changed, altered, turned into movies, popularized and sold, you as a participant of your heritage (even divorced by many generations)...

You write up, draw, or ramble in whatever way befits you about a myth you can claim ownership to. You take back that myth. You tell us what you think it is. Reinterpret, reconstruct, or even revise- give it a rebirth, as you would.

It's a beautiful and powerful project. Please tread carefully and respectfully.

Something that I found particularly relevant (for me) is

nojojojo's post We worry about it too. From the intro to that post:

So the great cultural appropriation debate returns, and one thing in particular has been bugging me. A lot of the people talking in all these comment threads -- clarification; a lot of the white people talking in these threads -- keep complaining that all this scary appropriation stuff means they're damned if they do and damned if they don't, they can never write people of color to the satisfaction of PoC so they're not going to bother, I guess this means white men should only write white men, o woe, o melodrama. That this is a false woe motivated in most cases by narcissism, spite, and no genuine interest in change is a given. But a few of the people voicing this complaint are sincere, because for various reasons they haven't yet realized something very basic: that racism infects the thinking of everyone, in a racist society. Everyone, including PoC themselves. White people are the most frequent perpetrators of stereotyping and "inappropriate appropriation", largely due to history and the power structure of Western society. But it's never been solely a unidirectional thing, however it might seem to those poor, confuzzled, put-upon white men (and others who think like them). PoC can stereotype and inappropriately appropriate other PoC. Hell, PoC can stereotype and inappropriately appropriate themselves. This is not some kind of intellectual-property race war, nor is it a game with winners and losers. It never has been, and the sooner everybody realizes that and gets on the same page, the sooner we can make some progress.

My writer/artist friend Jane is currently facing up to cultural appropriation issues in her own graphic novel. (“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” --Samuel Beckett)

Finally, I would really be remiss in my linkspamming if I didn't also link to another, slightly older, justifiably widely-linked article: Pam Noles' essay on the whitewashing of Earthsea, Shame, and her follow-up response to a clueless trolling idiot who is, as some of you know, me. (Glacierdust is the online pseudonym that I used to use for personal stuff, as opposed to Sholio/Friendshipper for fan stuff; I've since switched my personal blog to my real name, mostly because switching between all the different pseudonyms once I started spending a lot of time on the fan blog was confusing for me and probably everyone else as well.) Noles addresses many of the issues that have come up in this current round of debate in her essay. And she was also much more kind and gracious than a clueless white chick deserved, three years ago, when said white chick emailed her a mortified apology -- and then proceeded to argue with her via email. *headdesk x infinity*

I'm not posting this for self-flagellation purposes, but rather to point out that a) it's a fantastic essay, and everyone should read it, and b) you may be wondering, if you've been following these links, whether the sort of clueless stupidity that you've been seeing over the last few days is fixable, and I really hope that it is, because I think I've learned a lot over the last couple of years and become much less of an idiot than I used to be. If you've been participating in these (or similar) discussions and feeling like you're beating your head against the wall in these debates, wondering why you're taking the time to explain the same thing fifty times to people who Just Don't Get It, sometimes those words do fall on receptive ground ... eventually. I fucked up, and the fact that this particular fuck-up kicked me onto a personal journey of self-discovery doesn't make up for having, through my own ignorance, insulted and knocked down another human being. I can't make up for that; I can, however, move forward and try very hard to do better, and that's what I've been trying to do -- reading a lot, educating myself, and eventually getting myself to the point where I feel able to participate in these discussions in a constructive way, rather than being part of the problem. I don't want to do that to someone else again.

Also, I think that was the point where the complete interconnectedness of the Internet really hit home for me. The idea that Noles or anyone who knew her would read my selfish blitherings about her essay had honestly never occurred to me, and I still remember very vividly my mortified horror when I realized that this was not true. Yes, you do have to answer for everything you say online, and if you don't want to stand behind it or at least be willing to fix your own mess, don't say it in the first place. WORDS TO LIVE BY, PEOPLE.

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The more I read over stuff like this, the more I think that it's important for white authors/creators to have major, stereotype-breaking PoC chars - not only for the sake of the PoC fans, but to prove to the white majority that such chars can be every bit as interesting and engaging, etc, as white ones. Because hopefully that will help open the door for non-white creators to get their stuff published and read and fanned on, and that's what we need.

Reading that "Shame" essay, it seems to me like the most heartbreaking thing about it is seeing a fan who is excluded from universes she loves - and it's not just that there's no black people in the Star Wars fiction; it's that there were so few black people in Star Wars behind the scenes. That until recently a black kid who wanted to become an actor to be a scifi hero on the big screen probably would have to forget it (that's changing, but slowly) and a PoC writing comic books is going to have to write about white heroes, mostly, because that's what there are.

And even now, in most of the big English-speaking Western fandoms, you either have to fan on white characters, or fan on characters who are marginalized in the show canons and consequently the fandoms.

It seems to me that the mainstream PoC creators out there either just give in and write white characters; or when they write PoC heroes, those works get marginalized as "special interest" (I'm thinking of Dwayne MacDuffie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_McDuffie), who write a bunch of mainstream comics and JLU, and also Static Shock--SS was marketed more as "black superhero" than "electric-powered superhero" and maybe that's why it wasn't a hit. Of course it wasn't as good in animation or stories as JLU or Batman: TAS, though really I don't know why it doesn't have a bigger fandom following anyway, because seriously, people, one of the slashiest superhero partnerships ever!)

We have to get rid of that "special interest" stigma. A lot of publishers/producers/etc think of any work with a PoC protagonist as being only appropriate for PoC, and therefore not as worth investing in. At least in America, white is the largest demographic, so any creator or producer who thinks that audiences are only ever interested in people who look like them, is going to go for white heroes. PoC heroes are just not worth it, because they won't bring in the audiences (unless they're Will Smith or Samuel L. Jackson. And I think the screenwriters are still mostly white, though I could be wrong?)

And that's what we need to change - we need to prove that we, the white majority, can care about characters and stories written by people whose skin doesn't match our own, that it doesn't matter to us, that we'll be interested anyways. Genre PoC fans don't have to prove that, because pretty much if they're fanning on genre fiction, they have to be fanning on at least some characters who are ethnically/racially different from themselves. (Anime is an obvious exception here.) But it's got to work in the other direction, and I think that's why it's important for white creators - who are already established, already in the mainstream - to be taking the particular effort, like Le Guin, or the creators of Avatar, to make our fictional universes more than white, to be inclusive. Just as long as it's understood that this is the intermediary step, not the end of the road - the final point we want to reach is not white authors writing PoC chars sympathetically; it's authors writing people sympathetically.

But we're still a long way from that point, and until we reach it, yeah, it's going to take work.

And then, reading over my comments, I think I'm expressing myself poorly, or missing a point, anyway - I didn't emphasize that I'm looking at this from mostly the white perspective, how we can get more PoC into the mainstream, white-majority culture; how to make our culture more inclusive, so it's not a white culture, but multi-racial. So that PoC fans who love scifi and fantasy can feel as if it's theirs, too, that they have as much right to Tolkien's world, or Lucas's, as any white fan. (And likewise, so that white fans can have a right to Octavia Butler's and Dwayne MacDuffie's universes, etc.) Nullifying cultural appropriation, pretty much.

Projects like Remyth are also important, but they're something different; they're not for the majority culture but the minority culture. They're a defense against the appropriation that has already happened, a rebellion and a rejection. They're reclamation, and that's crucial; but they're not about integration, they're about creating a safe space for people to communicate and develop. I think it's a very important space (because like I said, we need more PoC creators, and there's so little space for them to develop in the current majority culture) but as a white majority fan myself, I can't take any part in that, save to help defend its existence; I only can stand on the sidelines and wait for if/when those creators feel ready to leave that space and try to go mainstream.

Finally, I would really be remiss in my linkspamming if I didn't also link to another, slightly older, justifiably widely-linked article: Pam Noles' essay on the whitewashing of Earthsea, Shame, and her follow-up response to a clueless trolling idiot who is, as some of you know, me.

I don't think I knew that! And wow, because I remember reading that second essay when it was posted, and thank you, because it takes courage to admit this stuff, and it gives me hope that I can move work through my own moments of fail.

I wasn't in fandom as much when Earthsea came out, and I doubt if my reaction at the time would have done me credit--for one thing, I hadn't realized until recently that the characters in Earthsea were brown. I mean, I must have known, but I hadn't thought about it. Ever. I never really cared about the physical appearances of the cast in books (except when their eyes were green, as mine are), although now I wonder if a lot of that was because I had the privilege not to worry about it.

Anyway, that's to say that I'm very very glad you linked this essay, and your statement about it gives me hope, yes, both about myself and about other people. Thank you.

Wow. If you hadn't told me you wrote that, I never would have guessed it was you. Thanks for sharing that. I think it is very hopeful, that people can learn from exchanges like this. And so I keep reading too.

I think it's brave of you to post it.

Coming over from

rydra_wong's link to your post--and just wanted to say how incredibly lovely, lovely, this post is. I would like to link on my own journal because I think it is important to show how change and growth is possible.

*also must friend you*

Wow...I've spent a couple of evenings reading and following links and following links from those links and on and on...

And what happens today but my friend who teaches at a community college tells me that she's teaching "multiculturalism and diversity in the classroom" as a new education course (for her) and the text deals largely with understanding white privilege before being able to become an effective teacher. "Help," she said, "I need to understand this more!"

"Why, do I have links for you," I replied. The other subjects she teaches deal with using literature in the classroom or are regular old English or education classes. She needs to read all of these right now.

I'm not sure if all of what I've read is on

rydra_wong's list or from links farther down the road, but a few things really hit me hard and made me sit back and do some thinking.

wasnt i supposed to put you in a pot for dinner?

*runs*

oh, um... *points* OH LOOK A PONY *runs*

I think both are necessary. Honestly, watching these things unfold over the last couple of years, I think if it had to be one or the other that there's a bigger need for safe spaces for PoC, and diverse voices who aren't writing for the majority, than there is for greater minority representation in the popular media -- but both are necessary and both feed into each other.

I think as white readers/writers/creators, we need to let go of the idea that everything out there has to be accessible to us, because some of it just won't be (at least not in the same way as it is for audiences who have a shared history and frame of reference with the work), and that's okay. I don't dumb down my writing or compromise my creative vision to appeal to the widest possible audience, nor should anyone else. I think most writers are writing for themselves first and foremost, and that's good. Random case in point: I read Nalo Hopkinson's "Brown Girl in the Ring" last summer, and while I enjoyed the book, it didn't really speak to me; it's probably not one that I'll re-read. But that's just fine -- I'm sure there are readers out there who were completely thrilled to discover that book, because it did speak to them, in a voice that had been silent. And sometimes, standing on the sidelines and cheering is okay too.

Yeah, I agree with you about the "special interest" vs. white mainstream dilemma -- there are a few people, like Kyle Baker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_baker), who are successful enough to do both ... write the mainstream, mostly white superheroes, and also work on their own projects or work on inserting more awareness of PoC issues into the mainstream comics that they write. I think it's a false fear on the part of corporate execs that white fans wouldn't be able to empathize with non-white characters, and it's also very dismissive of the not-at-all-inconsiderable numbers of fans who aren't white and are out there spending their cash on comics and movies and tie-in products too -- white fans are not the only customer base.

Reading that "Shame" essay, it seems to me like the most heartbreaking thing about it is seeing a fan who is excluded from universes she loves

That's it exactly. That's what I didn't get for a long time, and one of the main reasons why I didn't get it is because I never really felt it as a woman -- if that makes any sense. I never felt excluded from male-dominated casts and shows; I never have had trouble inserting myself into male characters (er, so to speak) and I couldn't seem to get past seeing everything through that lens until I made an ass of myself to Pam Noles and, then, started getting it ... first of all, that it wasn't the same, and second of all, that I'd been unfairly dismissive of women who had that problem on the basis of gender, too. Because everybody out there isn't me, and a lot of people have had (are having) experiences and problems that I can't begin to understand unless I close my mouth and listen to what they're saying.

Thank you -- for the comment, and for your linkspams and for not being afraid to speak up about this stuff. And that's precisely why I wrote it -- because, yes, I failed badly and I hated writing this out, but there are worse things ... like being on the receiving end of the fail.

You are welcome.

I'm just glad that I wasn't blogging much at the time, and I wasn't in the habit of venting in blog posts, because heaven knows how much deeper a hole I would have dug for myself had that been the case.

Thank you. (Though thanking you now, after nattering on and on in your comments, is probably rather pointless.) I angsted over posting this and I'm glad that you found it useful.

I'm glad it came across that way; I don't want to point at myself and go LOOK AT ME I'M A SUCCESS STORY YAAYYY because, well, I did what I did, and I'm still figuring out how not to do it again. But I did listen, after I got past thinking it was all about me, and I did learn. Thanks.

There's definitely a lot to read out there. You've seen

rydra_wong's Great Race Discussion Linkspam (http://rydra-wong.livejournal.com/7386.html), I hope?

and for not being afraid to speak up about this stuff

Oh, I'm always afraid to speak up about stuff.

thank you for posting this.

Thank you for posting despite your fear, then. :)

You're welcome. Thank you for the comment.

Thanks for posting all those links. I've spent... most of the evening reading one post and then following it to another, and another, and another. Lots and lots to think about, which is always a good thing. :)

You're welcome; I'm glad to help.

I think both are necessary. Honestly, watching these things unfold over the last couple of years, I think if it had to be one or the other that there's a bigger need for safe spaces for PoC, and diverse voices who aren't writing for the majority

Totally agreed that both are necessary and important. Fortunately, providing spaces for diverse voices is what the internet is for! Which means that yes, people need to accept that not everything will be accessible to them - really, it's not just a white/non-white question; it's more a question of the majority accepting that the minority may be writing for a different audience, for different reasons. Like the men who tried to insist that scans_daily be more heterosexual-guy-friendly in the name of equality, when that wasn't the point.

I think this sort of thing happens a lot because it's hard to see just how important minority spaces are, when you're from the majority. In the majority, some people make a deliberate effort to be inclusive, and those who are exclusive do so without thinking about it. While as if you're in a minority, being *exclusive* takes more thought and effort, because you have to go against the grain of the majority. So that effort stands out, and that's when you get a bunch of the majority piling on you, saying, "But we've tried to include you, why are you shutting us out!" While being blind to how exclusive the majority actually is.

But heck, that's a lesson that still needs to be learned in less important areas, too - maybe we need to take our cues from fandom; most McShep fans don't protest comms devoted to other pairings. But then considering the ship wars that arise in so many fandoms - letting people have their own spaces is something we've all got to work on!

and one of the main reasons why I didn't get it is because I never really felt it as a woman -- if that makes any sense. I never felt excluded from male-dominated casts and shows;

Ahh, see, and that is what spoke to me. I didn't exactly feel excluded from the shows (then again, the stuff I watched, like Star Trek & Wars, at least give lip-service to male-female equality. Though it was still an annoying revelation to me the day I realized that as awesome as Princess Leia was, there were no female X-wing pilots...) But I know when I decided I wanted to be a scifi writer, I wondered how easy it would be, when pretty much none of the scifi I was reading was written by women. And that was my upbringing, probably, same as with Pam Noles; I know I had conversations with my parents about it, that they very much encouraged me to seek out female SF authors - not instead of men, but in addition, to get the full range, to make sure I knew this was a field open to me, too.

...It persists now; I know there are plenty of female SF novelists, but when it comes to writing for American SF TV it's only in the last few years that there's been any real female presence there (I still do get excited when I see female writers/directors), and it is disappointing to watch SGA and know that I probably never could've gotten a job in that writer's room, because I've got boobs.

(That was one of the strange things about manga/anime, to me - it was the first time that I was seriously fanning on fiction created by women. *All* the shows and movies I'd seriously fanned on prior to anime were created by men...)

--Umm, and I've gotten off-track here. But, yes. With those associations, I found Pam Noles's points made perfect sense, but I can see how you, not having the same associations, would've had a harder time understanding. If you've always felt yourself to be in the majority, it can be really difficult to see where the minority is coming from...

Dude, I would almost be jealous because you totally made the post I wanted to make, only I know I could not have made it 1/3 as brilliantly and movingly as this. Beautifully done. //applauds

Thank you very much. :)

I hope you don't mind, but I feel compelled to friend you! (no need to 'friend' back, I hate that obligatory crap. Just....that really knocked me out.)

Certainly I don't mind! I'm flattered, in fact. I hope you won't be disappointed, though; most of what's around these parts is fan stuff. :D

Edited to add: I love your icon!

Hey, fan stuff is AWESOME. Nothing wrong with fan stuff! especially when my head has just asploded from reading this (http://truepenny.livejournal.com/625351.html?thread=4994759#t4994759) and aaaaaaaaaaghghghghgghgh

//GRIN

quoteymcquote made it! There's more here! http://community.livejournal.com/quoteymcquote/2804.html#cutid1

Thank you for posting this. You give me hope that I can get better at not hurting other people with my ignorance and privilege.

Thank you for pointing me in that direction! :D I snagged this one (I love this book!).

Thank *you*; that's what I hoped to do.

AWW YEAH CATCH-22 IS LOVE.

Ponies mean nothing! You will need a SPARKLY RAINBOW UNICORN RIDDEN BY ELVES if you want to deflect her terrifying wrath!

*runs*

Lakota elves (http://delux-vivens.livejournal.com/1125303.html), preferably naked.

That goes without saying.

This? This is why I oh-so-frequently use you as my Stupidity Firewall. Cuz you are smart.

Rock on, girl.

This is why I oh-so-frequently use you as my Stupidity Firewall.

As you, also, are mine! I love the concept of the Stupidity Firewall. IT IS SO TRUE.

And thanks.

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Some more cultural appropriation links

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