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http://kaigou.livejournal.com/442909.html
The OP has since locked her post, which sucks because I'd friends who couldn't read it last night and had planned to today. In this post, the OP was protesting the concept of a Protected Space for PoC (at Wiscon) because it wouldn't be followed up by an open panel/event where the PoC could then tell Whitefolk what they'd been talking about and discussing.
She claimed it was because her primary experience with protected spaces came from conflict mediation where one side met and discussed and the other side met and discussed and then they all came together to try and find common ground.
I think that's not the same as a protected space at all, as referenced in this conversation where the topic is being explored as a possibility (for Wiscon).
Bu after this comment thread, the OP then went on to discuss racism, and homophobia in her own journal, but put them in the context of (her words) appearistims and shippist/relationshipism.
Yes, no history, no power, no privilege, no fears of other, but "You look different than everything I've experienced in my whole life' and 'You have gone against the grain of the type of relationship I expect my child to have / I expect people to have.'
There was more too. At one point she brought up Transexuals as an invisible minority claiming that PoC could wink and nudge and direct each other to quiet corner but for people with invisible differences - what about them, what about 'to quote her' People like Me'. Do note She was not identifying herself as trangendered but as someone with differences not readily apparent who's being excluded. She did not say what those differences were. She just offended me by sticking Transgendered people in there as a token for why she was being unfairly treated.
There was more.
She also went in depth about how having a PoC Only Protected Space was hogging brilliant minds and possibly also writers and artists that she'd like to meet. It would be shutting her out of full participation in an event like a Con (Wiscon).
I learnt of Kaigou via metafandom when she did some wonderful pieces about how lots of urban fantasy writers get it wrong when they try to write about characters living on the streets and being disenfranchised in that manner. She wrote from personal experience.
Reading the above post gave me a shock of untold proportions to realize that even after being disenfranchised thusly, even after having society treat her as other and as something to be ignored and reviled and as someone who no longer counted - she could so positively reek with entitlement.
LET ME IN. LET ME IN. I DEMAND TO BE LET IN.
That's the essential cry of the now flocked post - along with an actual 'Fuck you' to the PoC who pointed out that the purpose of the protected space would be so that they could have a moment without explaining, without being 'on parade' or as 'living examples'.
Someone commented to me, about this, that if this is what friendlies really and truly think of People of Colour and all the struggling we're doing in fandom and all the discussions we're having - they really don't want to know what the unfriendlies think.
I commented back that I don't think Kaigou was a friendly. I think she thought of herself that way, but her inability to listen, her defensiveness, her lacking comprehension of the privilege she was so boldly waving around shows the difference between an Ally who has done the work, and someone who hasn't but would like to seem sympathetic.
I realize, by the way, that with the post flocked, you're essentially taking my word for what happened. So I let you know that this was my reading comprehension of her words.
And below the cut will be a c/p of a comment I typed - WHILE- reading said post.
( The liveblogged response to Kaigou's Post: We Need Some Neon Signs )
And yes, I didn't finish reading, I was so overwhelmed with rage. Kaigou, once finding herself in the lap of privilege again is holding on to it for dear life and doesn't seem to hold plans for letting go.
Now if you've made it all the way down here, thank you for reading.
If you're wondering why I've been posting so many race relation entries - it's because I'm fed up.
I AM FED UP.
When I get emotional - I write. So I'm going to be writing about this; About the people who want to seem well, but don't actually want to pay attention to the words that are coming out of their own damn mouths.
I am grateful as hell that I don't have to deal with the Klan, that I don't have to sit at the back of the bus. I am grateful that when teachers started shit in high school and my mother had to get involved, they at least had to pause and wonder/worry about the LAW. I am grateful I didn't have to go to an exclusively black college (though I ended up there any way on the 2nd try around). I am grateful for options.
But never. ever. think my gratitude means I'll put up with this bullshit. The old bullshit threatened my body first, my family second and my mind and sanity third. This bullshit goes straight for my spirit and I am not having it. I AM NOT HAVING IT.
This is my space too. This too is my retreat from when the world goes to hell in a handbasket and life disappoints. This community too is where I find comraderie and laughter and joy and friendship.
You have been warned.
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