closing up shop

2010-10-10T03:10:47Z

Hey guys-- I'm closing up this journal and the matching one on LJ. I've made a post about it on LJ, where the journal originated.

Just don't have much fannish posts to make anymore.

I'll be around, making comments via perseph.

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Classic racism

2010-06-16T07:21:51Z

AN OPEN LETTER TO GATORGRRRL

[In all the years that I've been on LJ and now on DW, I've never posted about things going on in other journals. I've never even left comments to original posts. But since comments are frozen on the original post, and I feel I cannot let this one pass without comment, I'm making a post here. So here goes.]

I'm a Nigerian woman, I read the first half of your novella, here's what I have to say.

Your story pretty much nails all the major the tenets of classic racist ideals.

Bearing in mind that this is not an academic paper on the subject, your story nevertheless serves as a perfect tool for demonstrating what people claim to not understand when someone gets accused of "being racist."

Whether you intended the story as racist or not is, I'm afraid, your bad; I'm still going to use it. So if you or any one you know is baffled and wondering what's the big deal, point them in this direction.

This is in reference, of course, to your fic -- a novella, actually -- entitled Caught Between the Earth and Sky, written by you, gatorgrrrl, for the Supernatural Big Bang. It's a Jensen Ackles/Jared Padelecki AU slash story set in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. Jensen plays a doctor and Jared a photojournalist.

And yes, I am aware that you wrote an "apology" for choosing that backdrop, but we'll get to that later.

racism. what is it?
Racefail, racism, racial stereotypes. We've heard the words so much that they're now, in the words of Louis MacNiece, almost a cypher, like a Latin word that many languages have made their own, till it is worn and blunt and easy to construe, and often spoken but no longer heard.

Today, however, you're going to hear it, and perhaps understand it.

So what is racism? According to my dictionary (paraphrasing), it's the belief that members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race.

From your fic: Her wide eyes fixed on Jensen once again, scanning his face as if searching for a reason not to trust him. As if his white skin and American accent weren’t reasons enough.

Okay. So let's get right to it.

( Click )

Edit: "Getting it" in Writing Non-white Characters. A couple of commenters brought up this point and I thought this would be a good time to address it as well.

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Persephone's Journals

closing up shop

Classic racism