This guide may seem directed mostly at fandom in some places, because that's how it started. But I'd like to think it could be useful for everybody.

One of the things that becomes clear if you spend enough time around the internet is that there are people who are versed in anti-oppression discourse and people who are not. To the latter category of people, the former can seem like capricious, pretentious, self-righteous, arbitrary judges, eager to exercise their powers to declare you Unfit As A Human Being. To the former, the latter category of people can seem ignorant, rude, and selfish.

(I've found that the best way to find out what category of person you're talking to is to drop the word "privilege" and see how they react. But that's a subject for later.)

Here's the thing: everyone in Category A was once in Category B. Yes, even if they are a queer woman of color--they were probably once kind of douchey to disabled people, before they grew up and realized how society at large fucks up everybody's heads in some way or another. So, this guide is for the Category B people who don't want to be douchebags, but who don't really get what the big deal is about "privilege" and "kyriarchy" and are tired of being accused of being bigots.

You aren't Unfit As Human Beings. You just need to adjust your goggles a bit.

( The Situation )

( The Advice )

Quote from a source which does not need to be named, because it was a random MU* discussion and who gives a fuck:

Modern Feminism isn't about equal rights, it's about subjugating men. It's a yoyo affect [sic] that happens whenever an oppressed group is empowered.

No. This "yo-yo effect" is imaginary, caused by taking the known fact that individuals abused as children are more likely to become abusers as adults and generalizing it to the very different dynamic applied to an entire group of people. It makes a pretty story (oh, the tragic cycle of abuse!), but it's wrong on so many levels. For one, it implies that any time a disadvantaged group starts to regain power, they will abuse it. For another, it paints every questionable action they take as somehow related to their minority status. That woman didn't hit her male child because of her own anger management issues and violent personality, she did it because she's a woman!

I would like to stop seeing it applied to any disadvantaged group that is now starting to reclaim its power, whether that group be women, people of color, or Jews. We can still criticize the things that particular feminist groups, black politicians you don't like, or the Israeli government have done. But we can do it without the tiresome "cycle of abuse" narrative and all its ugly implications about the inescapability of "oppressed" status and the fears of power falling into minority hands.

I'm cranky, and I'm going back to my video game now.

So, I wasn't going to talk about the latest storm about race and appropriation that's flooding through fandom. Then I realized that, actually, I do have some things to say about it (other than "oh God, I wish I never had to see people I thought were cool like Emma Bull and Patrick Nielsen-Hayden saying such things"), so I might as well speak up.

I. This is the crux of what disturbs me: to any white observer (and some of color) who is not educated in anti-racist thought, this whole mess will look like a bunch of well-intentioned white writers reaching out a hand to the dangerous, scary community of color and getting it bitten off. ( That's not what's happening. )

II. The flagship post of this round of discussion seems to have emerged as deepad's post here. It's an interesting post, and if you're interested in the way being from a marginalized race and culture affect one's lenses on fiction, it's worth a read.

( As for the reactions... )

III. For a while I've been tossing back and forth in my head some of my ideas on what I think of as the marked and unmarked case (although most people know that as a linguistics term so it may not be the most helpful explanation). I'm not going to try to get it all out here, but I think I should touch on it.

( Reversal. )

IV. This post is fascinating to me, and at some point I might want to discuss the idea of liminal minorities. But since I know I'd wind up reframing the discussion to be at least partially about issues that affect me--that is to say, not race--I'm going to wait on it for now.