Warnings Wank 2009

Friday, 26 June 2009 21:14
druidspell: Oh, you're being a jackass. It must be an even numbered day. (Jackass)
I am a survivor of abuse. I know too many people who have been victims of sexual violence. I have been stalked, harassed, and improperly propositioned by adult males when I was a minor. I have triggers. I want warnings, and I want them clearly displayed.

I have pre-emptively banned [livejournal.com profile] aukestrel, [livejournal.com profile] cynatnite, and [livejournal.com profile] mara_snh for comments and entries made during Warnings Wank 2009 (link goes to [livejournal.com profile] metafandom's collection of entries responding to a debate on warnings that began in bandom a few days ago). More specifically, I banned them for comments and entries that perpetuated the damaging culture of silence around victims of rape and abuse, for victim-blaming, for abusive language, and for general unacceptable behavior.

I don't know these LJers. I don't care to know them, nor am I interested in hearing defenses of them. As far as I'm concerned, their actions are indefensible. It doesn't matter that they didn't direct their bile at me in particular, nor does it matter that I don't know anything about the rest of the content of their characters or their histories on LiveJournal or elsewhere. I don't care if they feed the hungry, clothe the naked, cure the sick, shelter the homeless, end wars, crusade against any and all other social injustices all on top of rescuing disabled and displaced orphans from burning buildings. They're banned anyway, and my only regret is not doing it the second I saw their behavior in action.

I once cut a person I'd known and loved since I was three years old out of my life and heart for victim-blaming and making offensive statements to another friend of mine when it had actual, meaningful consequences in my offline life. I'm really not going to lose any sleep over pre-emptively banning users who have shown that they cannot be trusted to act like human beings on the subjects of rape and abuse.

However, if you're losing sleep over my decision to ban them, it is Defriending Amnesty Day around here all day, every day. The door is that way, show yourself out.
  • Mood: furious
  • Music: Jawbreaker - "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault"
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(no subject)

Monday, 13 April 2009 09:45
druidspell: WHOA. He touched the butt. (From Finding Nemo) (Whoa)
Amazon Rank

Ugh, am sick. Didn't sleep well; judging from my dreams last night, I can safely conclude that apparently my subconscious believes that picking up dog crap is indicative of great passion, and feels strongly that Waffle House was a classy little sidewalk bistro in another life.
(This was a dream where I was not featured at all; it was more like watching a TV show, but better.)
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SF/F: Failing in deep and meaningful ways all over the internet.

Monday, 9 March 2009 21:47
druidspell: Never give anyone to the monsters. It's a rule. (Monsters)
Authors and editors whom I will never read (again, or ever) or support: Elizabeth Bear. Kathryn Cramer. Will Shetterly. Emma Bull. Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Patrick Nielsen Hayden. David Levine. Luke Jackson. Jay Lake. Lisa L. Spangenberg. John Scalzi. Macallister Stone.
Publishing houses I will never submit my work to, and that I will think seriously about buying from and supporting with my money in the future, especially if any of the aforementioned authors or editors may profit from said money: Tor.


RaceFail 2009, Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom, has gone on for three months now. And frankly, the authors and editors listed above STILL don't understand why their behavior is seen as skeevy, wrong, and abusive. I won't stop keeping up with the meta on RaceFail '09, but I will NEVER see SF/F in the same light. As a writer and a reader, it causes me pain to know how awful SF/F can be, but my pain is NOTHING compared to the pain it's caused some others. It's my duty as a dedicated fan and a decent human being to not bury my head in the sand because it makes me sad and tired as a white person to see all this fail happening in one short span of time; because I am a white person, with all the privilege that entails, I should NEVER turn around and ignore it, because anyone without white privilege doesn't get that option.

Any of you can disagree with this. You can de-friend me, and ask me to de-friend you in return. I will probably be hurt by that, but I'll do it, and I'm declaring a De-Friending Amnesty around here. If my opinions that I've expressed briefly here offend you, go ahead and walk away from them, and go with my blessing.



For those of you on my flist not involved with fandom in the same ways that I am, and who would like to understand why I'm boycotting these people, you can check out [livejournal.com profile] rydra_wong's roundup of the links dealing with this racist, classist, elitist bullshit here. To give you an idea of the scope of things, there's more than 200 links in there, compiled in 77 entries thus far. RaceFail happened, and it happened in a big way, and it affected a lot of people.
  • Mood: disgusted
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I sense an essential change will have to come.

Friday, 19 September 2008 10:21
druidspell: Never give anyone to the monsters. It's a rule. (Monsters)
I ought to be at work today, right now. However, I threw up at work yesterday, and have thrown up 3 times since I woke up at 8:15. Today is not a good day, by any stretch of the definition. What gets to me most, though, isn't that I'm sick; what gets me is that by calling off, I've put my boss in a bad spot as far as staffing the restaurant goes, and I hate disappointing him.

But since I am stuck here at home, I'm going to type this up.

Fact: I do not have many friends of color--at least not that I've met in person. Over the internet, I try not to make assumptions about things like color (or gender or sexual orientation or anything else). But in meatspace, I don't have many friends with a higher melanin content than me. I don't seek to avoid people; I'm more than willing to make conversation and get to know anyone who's willing to make conversation and get to know me. I grew up in an area with a lot of white people, I went to a small private Catholic school in both grade and high school, and there weren't a lot of PoC in my area for me to know. When I was in sixth grade (the only year she was at my school), Elisabeth was one of my best friends, and was from Paraguay. When I was in fifth grade, I decided I didn't like Brittany--not because of her skin color, but because my best friend chose her over me.
I don't have enough emotional spoons in my possession to waste my hatred on people who haven't personally harmed me and mine, so I've never comprehended things like racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. That doesn't mean that I haven't internalized the -isms and phobias of the people around me, but I work hard to make sure that I don't act or think things that reflect whatever hatreds I've internalized. I AM voting for Senator Obama for president on November 4, and I hope like hell that Biden doesn't end up making decisions for this country--of all the running mates in the WORLD, I don't know why BIDEN of all people, but whatever, hopefully he's going to be able to deflect some of the crazy coming from the McCain camp.

The essential change I mention up in my subject line is this.
I try not to be a bigoted asshat. I try really hard.
But I think there must be something about me that gives the impression that it's okay to be a bigoted asshat around me, and as soon as I find out what that thing is, I'm KILLING IT. Because it is NOT OKAY WITH ME to do things like, for instance, telling me racist jokes and EXPECTING ME TO LAUGH. It is NOT OKAY to try and make me be complicit in your asshattery, and I'm motherfucking TIRED OF IT.

Please feel free to tell me what it is about me that makes people think that it won't bother me to be made complicit in other people's racist/sexist/classist/homophobic attitudes. I need to know, or I can't change it, because I don't want to be the person who attracts the asshats.
  • Mood: cynical
  • Music: Seanan McGuire - "Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves"
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