For everything else...

nb: wrote this and next post yesterday, am posting now while home sick from work so I don't feel I've acheived nothing today and to be in time for ibarw. Thus am much less able to write intelligent replies than you might think.

This post exists as a repository for any and all off topic etc comments
about various possibly inflammatory topics I intend on posting about. I
know it's a weird idea, but I keep seeing interesting discussions about
stuff like feminism getting derailed into the same hackneyed topics or
vitriolic flame wars, and I wanted a way to try and stop that happening
without censoring anyone who feels like straying off topic or
having a good old rant. I may only use this the once then decide it's
more trouble than it's worth! (especially since it's hardly like my main issue with comments is that I have too many)
( Specifically... )

Racism and the sff scene

So, it's International blog about racism week.

I've never gotten around to joining in before (though I have posted about
racism at odd intervals) but as it happens have been heading towards
posting about this sort of stuff for a while.

So, two small and hopefully uncontroversial questions to start with:

Question 1: There's a lot of interesting science fictiony ideas involving
race, as well as questions about the racial subtexts to fandom itself. I
personally find these interesting, and have recently noticed there isn¡¦t
a lot of that sort of thing discussed at Swancon.

Am I just missing it and it is actually there? Are other people interested
or is it just me? I'd think of running some myself but I'm an ignorant
white science major who hasn't run many panels so I'd probably mess it
up horribly :)

Question 2: Something I've noticed recently and Do Not Like are racist
undertones in fandom, especially amongst the younger unisfans. What are
other people's experiences? Is it getting worse or am I just being an "In
my day.." old guard, or possibly only now losing some of the blindness of
white privilege? What's it like being a not-white fan in such a
blindingly pasty demographic? Any different to the regular grind of
Australian society?

I'm mostly interested in local west Australian fandom (since I've mostly
heard about online fandom) but stuff about the internet or international
fandom is cool too. And those less pasty than myself are under no
obligation to talk about such a loaded topic if they'd rather not!

May post about my own experiences when I'm not ill (wrote this yesterday, naively thinking I'd be able to proofread before posting tonight) Will suck at responding for a while but didn't want to miss the week since I was so close!

Since it seems unfortunately necessary to say: if someone says they have a
different experience to you that doesn't mean they assume you're stupid
or a liar, and nor should you assume that about them. Also:

IMPORTANT NOTE: off topic, ranty or flamey replies go here.

Yet another probably erroneous epiphany

This is based very much on my experiences as an Australian and reading english period works like Jane Austen and Dorothy L Sayers. Also while I'm feeling better than I was earlier today it's probably still pretty garbled! I wouldn't have posted till later but hey, ibarw and it means I can replace my insanely long reply to this post with a link to this one :)

Anyway, some thoughts on how sexism and classism differ inherently from racism and homophobia. I'm not putting them in a heirachy of badness, just saying they're different, though of course a lot of the same issues of privilige and othering etc apply. People suck in pretty consistent ways :(
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