incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

(The SyFy reality series that's a makeup artist competition.)

( The one with superheroes, sidekicks, and cars: )

( The one with the distorted video game characters: )

( The one with kids' drawings: )

So one of my Readercon panels is called "Guess Who's Coming to Fairyland" and is described thusly:

Many fantasy and SF novels struggle with an issue that, at first glance, looks downright old-fashioned: interracial marriage. The races are non-human, and some of their problems are unique; for example, in Cheryl Brooks's Cat Star Chronicles, the near-extinct Zetithians must breed with other species or die out. Others face very familiar concerns such as being rejected by their families or peers. Their risk-taking is often rewarded with the birth of children who display enhanced or unusual abilities--though those children have their own concerns about not fitting in. How do these themes reflect and interact with real-world tensions around race, marriage, and culture?

I've been meaning to ask you all to poke at my thoughts on this, and I just send the mod an e-mail, so now I can simply cut and paste:

( preliminary thoughts )

When non-winter infant and toddler girls' clothing [*] has, as a rough approximation, at least 33% less fabric than boys' clothing (because we require two and three year olds to gender-conform by showing skin!), and when I was able to find precisely two picture books, out of the thirty-odd displayed face out at my local B&N, that had female-identified humanoid-ish protagonists who weren't princesses and who did things.

(One of those was white. The other was a pig.)

Fuck systematic oppressions, I say. Fuck them with a goddamn chainsaw.

Also, recommendations for picture books, or anthology-type-things of fairy/folk tales (about 10 min./tale), that are not sporkworthy are highly welcome.

[*] Not that I am shopping for these at the moment, but it remains a massive irritant.

Mary Doria Russell has apologized.

And if anyone else is having trouble commenting without an DW/LJ/OpenID login, you can always e-mail me at knepveu@steelypips.org (you can look for e-mail addresses by clicking on the little gray head/body icon next to people's usernames, which brings you to the user's profile page, though not everyone lists one).

Further to this post, deepad has some nuanced, thoughtful, and important things to say about Orientalism, consumption, and creation. If you read the original, do go read this.

So one of the things I want to talk about at the WisCon "Fanfic 401" panel is marginalization of non-white characters; my principal recent example is Yusuf and Saito from Inception. [*]

And that reminds me of my response to Hawaii Five-0, specifically the fannish reaction that I've seen. I have not seen a single episode of this, though I have heard the occasional thing that makes it sound like I might like it. But, here's the thing, the principal cast consists of four people, as shown in this ridiculous promo image:

I see some fannish activity about this show from people who I keep an eye on for their fic in other fandoms. I will give you three guesses as to which two characters I see 99.95% of the energy focused on; the first two don't count.

And maybe that's not a reflection on the show (remember, haven't seen it). Maybe I'm getting a skewed view of the fandom from the random bits I happen to see. But I truly cannot motivate myself to watch this show where every goddamn reference to it makes me say to myself, "Seriously, fandom? Four team members and you pick the two white guys again?!"

(And, I admit, this isn't helped by one of them being Scott Caan (far right), because, seriously?)

Before commenting, please note: as the title says, I am ranting. If you can honestly tell me that the fandom isn't actually all about the white guys (hell, I won't even demand 50%, just a sizable chunk), go ahead and show your work. But I really don't want to hear explanations, justifications, or defenses. You, personally, reading this? Your reasons for being interested in one character/relationship more than another are your own, they're for you to be happy with or not, and I'm not going to give you a gold star or the Magical Minority Fairy seal of approval or whatever, so please keep them to yourself. I'm talking about my own reaction to the apparent aggregate fannish reaction, which is: very tired.

[*] Sadly Sherlock has only one non-white character in its principal cast, and she is not only nasty but gets slut-shamed (well done, show!), so I cannot justly blame her marginalization in fic on fandom alone. (Note, however, that I have not seen that many fics attempting to reclaim her character.) Leverage fandom, at least back when I read it, might be a little bit better about this—Hardison being a geek helps—though I continue to look very side-eyed at the prevalence of Eliot/Nate in this regard. Of course my principal comparison, as the main post suggests, is SGA . . . and that is a topic that will not fit in the bounds of this footnote.

This morning, for Please forgive me for the actions of extremists I have never met who commit acts of violence that I have never advocated.

popelizbet is organizing a Characters of Color in Science Fiction & Fantasy Faceoff, starting at con_or_bust and concluding at WisCon's Gathering. It's a bracket challenge like Suduvu's Cage Match or chickfight, except not Death Matches!!!, just a friendly opportunity to showcase some awesome characters and make silly arguments about who's better.

You can nominate people for the eventual bracket now. I'm already enjoying this and think it's going to be a lot of fun. (And as the icon suggests, one of my nominations was Wendy Watson from The Middleman.)

How to Discuss Race and Racism Without Acting Like a Complete Jerk, based on my Boskone talk this year, is now up at fight_derailing.

(I was going to do more link-wrangling for boskone tonight, but it's late. Tomorrow.)

Many awesome things being auctioned at con_or_bust, including a guest post on my LotR re-read, a signed copy of Chad's book, numerous things highlighted at my Tor.com post from earlier this week, and—and and and—an ARC of CryoBurn, the next Vorkosigan book by Lois McMaster Bujold (to be shipped when available).

More later.

*thud*

skwidly has posted notes from my two explicitly-race-related panels at WorldCon, Writing the Other and Other Assumptions and Writing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Geographic Terms (this would be the panel with L. Jagi Lamplighter that has resulted in an imbroglio).

Also, two of yesterday's link dump items are highly relevant and written by people who, I would bet money, have never heard of WorldCon. Fandom is a part of society, people.

• Notes From The Geek Show: An Open Letter to John C. Wright :: "You would do well to start with the premise that the head of the SyFy Channel's public commitment to not simply presenting more homosexuality but to presenting it as a non-issue *might* actually be born of a genuine belief that this is an ethical thing to do. // . . . we, the Elders of Sodom do have those opinions, trust me, and many within our ranks hold such opinions not because they are themselves homosexual, (we are open to all and sundry, welcoming even to the Brethren of Breeders,) but simply because they have a trait we refer to as "empathy." The ethics we hold to among the Elders of Sodom is, generally speaking, based primarily on this "empathy," and therefore rejects homophobia for the same reasons it rejects racism, misogyny, and all other forms of prejudice."
  (tags: sexuality sff)
• yuki_onna: An Open Letter :: "I said I wouldn't try to change your minds. It's pointless. All I'm saying is that when given an opportunity to spend my $10 on a book by someone who hasn't personally insulted me and my friends, and someone who has? It's an easy choice. It's a predictable choice. And fortunately, not a one of you is making it any harder by writing such heartbreaking works of genius that I have to second guess that choice, even a little bit."
  (tags: race gender sexuality books sff)
• We are respectable negroes: Is “Racism” dead?: An in-depth conversation with America’s most inflammatory and most misunderstood word :: "WARNNN: Divorcing you from structure seems to be at the heart of this flattening. // Racism: Exactly. They focus on individual attitudes—racially hostile attitudes—so as to limit the scope of racism to the hearts and minds of benighted souls. Not systematic discrimination in housing, the criminal justice system, education, employment. Not racism with any kind of heft or history to it, but just attitudes. That way, anyone can be racist and all racisms are equal. They can say, “Hey, racism is a 2-way street!” That’s their new favorite saying."
  (tags: race)
• stuff white people do: mistake non-white people for service workers :: "Derald Wing Sue, a psychologist, labels such incidents "racial microaggressions" (he adopted the term from an earlier psychiatrist, Chester M. Pierce). Sue defines these behaviors as "everyday insults, indignities and demeaning messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned white people who are unaware of the hidden messages being sent.""
  (tags: race)
• How to fix racial disparities in medical care. - By Darshak Sanghavi - Slate Magazine :: "Over and over, this theme recurs: Universal quality-improvement plans coupled with publicly reported measures are the best way to cut health disparities" between different races and classes.
  (tags: race class medicine)
• book_icons: For fellow fans of Kate Ross's Julian Kestrel mysteries!
  (tags: books julian.kestrel)

More when I have time; something is horribly wrong with my computer.