i keep saying i'll have more cogent things to say about this, but till then...

[fictional]

Check out deepad's post, I Didn't Dream of Dragons, a thoughtful, lucid, poignant essay on race and reading fantasy.

Excerpt from my comment:

But here is my problem, and that problem is love. Brought up on a steady diet of white fantasy and British boarding school novels, now, even when I can identify the alienation imposed by them -- these are stories by people who think of me as sub-human -- I still love them. They are still the fabric of my childhood, the patterns of my inner landscape. It's like Stockholm Syndrome.

And I still don't know what to do with that? How does one cope with the politics of desire?

Comments

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I come back to this question a lot but in really awkward ways. Sometimes it's blindingly clear that I'm coming from a position of White Liberal Guilt. So, uh, yeah. Poke me with a stick if I do something stupid.

As someone white who writes, I know I struggle with including characters who aren't. I'm afraid of writing token characters who are distinct only because of their skin, or their national origin, or their accent. OTOH, I want to live in a world where there are enough characters with enough different skin tones, origins, and accents that the problem of tokenism is less overt. (I'm not sure if it's something we can eradicate or not.)

As someone who reads, I run into things The Spirit -- not the film, but the original comic -- has a lot going for it, but then there's Ebony White and my guts go, "Oh no. No no no no." There are tons of old films and cartoons that I grew up with, but when I see them as an adult I go, "Whoa! Not okay!"

I think everyone has to find their own point of acceptance/comfort. Art is uncomfortable because it reflects life, and artists are dirty mirrors whose flaws show in their work. Some are dirtier than others, I'll grant, but if the light you get is pleasing, even for a little while, maybe it's useful? I don't know. I really don't have an answer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, one of the weird things for me as a writer is that a lot of my original work has non-Western settings, but hey, white chick. A lot of that comes from living a culturally adjacent life -- a man I lived with in my 20s grew up in Okinawa, for example. There are a lot of cultural habits or awarenesses I have of other places not because they are fashionable or because I'm trying to be a cool white chick, but because they are natural and familiar to me in a lot of ways. But when people read my stuff, they have no way of knowing I'm not just appropriating at random. It's sooooo complicated. Patty goes through this too. She wants to ask the men who work at the bodega downstairs from us where they are from, because their Arabic sounds different from the Arabic she's learned, but she knows what is a natural question for her, won't sound like one coming from her to them, without a lot of backstory they probably don't give a crap about.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I grew up knowing people from India, Korea, and Okinawa (O HAI THAR, Ft. Leonard Wood), and I've had two partners from different parts of Britain. I've absorbed a fair bit here and there (one of the exes joked that he was taking back the colonies one American at a time), and so I'm in a similar (if probably much smaller) boat.

From a creative standpoint, it seems unfair to everyone (artist and audience) to declare Things Which Are Not Yours entirely forbidden, because I think that art is for reacting to things and experimenting with them, and I want people who are Not Me to be allowed to express whatever they like. People should be able to share their experiences and dreams, damn it. OTOH, when privilege gets involved, there probably should be some self-examination about that.

For some reason, this whole thing makes me think about Arthur Golden.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I doubt stick poking will be necessary, and no one died and left me Grand High Arbiter of Political Correctness, but yeah. Most (all? sheesh) of my closest friends, my partner -- they're all white. So sometimes I go, "uh! wait!"

As someone white who writes, I know I struggle with including characters who aren't. I'm afraid of writing token characters who are distinct only because of their skin, or their national origin, or their accent

Right, right! Actually I was just thinking about this -- in my last post, in this play I went to see, they had NO BLACK ACTORS (though one black character.) And if that was "color blindness" at work - I was incredibly disturbed by it. Would I have been if it'd been the other way? But it's not all right for the race of privilege to read as neutral, like you can just paint anything else on top of it. white (or pink-beige-cream whatever) is a color too. I think of this in cosplay all the time. Somehow, on top of whiteness, one seems to be able to paint anything... it's a blank canvas of possibility. And that is perhaps what I feel most envious of.

Did you ever see the original Fantasia? Which has a black maid unicorn/pegasus thing waiting on all the white pegasi? Disney cartoons are really alarming at times. And I too was okay with lots of stuff when I was young, but not later. Does it work as a historical artifact though? Is it okay to love those things if the authors are dead?

I dunno. These are all the questions I wrestle with, all the time.

Art is uncomfortable because it reflects life, and artists are dirty mirrors whose flaws show in their work. Some are dirtier than others, I'll grant, but if the light you get is pleasing, even for a little while, maybe it's useful?

Maybe it's just the unexamined that that's unuseful. I don't think one ought to be ashamed of pleasure or desire in any form (though it might not be my personal cup of tea) and art and life are both messy, messy things. But talking about it, thinking about it -- maybe that's what makes it possible to move forward.

Clearly I have no answers either.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I doubt stick poking will be necessary, and no one died and left me Grand High Arbiter of Political Correctness, but yeah.

True, but I'm (sometimes painfully) aware that growing up/living in the Midwest doesn't exactly give me an edge, and that I'm open to correction if a) I need it, and b) you (or other relevant people) feel the urge to dish it out. So! Onward...

in this play I went to see, they had NO BLACK ACTORS (though one black character.) And if that was "color blindness" at work - I was incredibly disturbed by it.

This happened to us when I was in "Proposals" because we couldn't find a black actress to play Clemma. The woman we did cast was very careful in how she played her role, and we had to take out a few lines. In the end, she read as Southern, and while the class dimension was still very clear, it was far from comfortable for us while we worked it all out. I'm sure we could have had audience members who were uncomfortable with it, too.

Also, I could go a long, long time without "color blindness." Because, really, it's almost always just an excuse to pretend everyone is white, and that whiteness is the default, and anyone who doesn't like that is the one causing trouble. *facepalm, twitch*

I think of this in cosplay all the time. Somehow, on top of whiteness, one seems to be able to paint anything... it's a blank canvas of possibility. And that is perhaps what I feel most envious of.

One of the people I'm planning on cosplaying with at D*C is of Asian descent. I saw her play Ianto a fair bit last year, and she's going to be Harriet to my Gerald. She was telling me that she gets some really strange comments about it sometimes.

OTOH, I know someone else who was really disturbed/offended by a white Tia Dalma.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all. Philosophically I keep falling back on my belief that people should be able to express themselves, but then reality sets in and I have to try and figure out how privilege works in that context, too.

Did you ever see the original Fantasia? Which has a black maid unicorn/pegasus thing waiting on all the white pegasi? Disney cartoons are really alarming at times.

They really are. So are a lot of the old Warner Brothers-type cartoons. And yeah, I remember that bit in Fantasia. I didn't notice when I was a kid. As an adult, I slammed on the brakes and was like, "Holy shit! Not okay!"

I dunno. These are all the questions I wrestle with, all the time.

Honestly, I think anyone with a brain should. Obviously our starting points and stakes in the matter are different, but the alternative is ignoring it, and that's...well, it strikes me as kind of sick to do that.

But talking about it, thinking about it -- maybe that's what makes it possible to move forward.

Of all the alternatives that come to mind, this is at least the one that seems most likely to engender forward cultural motion without censorship (which doesn't help).

Then again, I'm inclined to say more people (including myself, sometimes) should stop and think about more things more often...

[electro-club.livejournal.com]

Disney cartoons are really alarming at times. And I too was okay with lots of stuff when I was young, but not later.

Disney cartoons scare the hell out of me, and yet I can't help but love some of them (guilty?). Aladdin? The Lion King? Pocahontas? Mulan? Anastasia? (Ok, Anastasia is not Disney's, but it's practically the same thing). They all speak to a specific audience, with a specific language, appropriating some discourse and completely removing its original meaning or purpose. It edges the absurdity sometimes.

Donald Duck's 'Have you been to Bahia?' movie doesn't show ONE black person. And we have to agree that it is hard to not find a black person when 80% of the population is black.

Have you ever read 'How to read Donald Duck', by Armand Matelart? I think it's extremist and exaggerated on many things, the whole 'omg! Imperialist pigs!' kind of speech. But it's interesting never the less, and has some very intriguing visions and studies about Disney's comic books.

No one died and left me Grand High Arbiter of Political Correctness

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Um, didn't you get the Memorandum of Intent...