(Slightly irrelevantly—given that you say your mob is from way north of Broome—I’ve always wanted to visit Broome—even before I first heard the soundtrack of Jimmy Chi’s Bran Nue Dae.)

I’ve delivered no end of ‘cultural awareness training (I’m a Bardi fella – my mob are found well north of Broome) here in Perth – and there’s very little that divides us quite so well as the ‘race debate’.

I won’t go into any further details – I squawk way to much about it at times over in my own little bit of blogosphere – but currently, where I work right now, in the arts… well – lets just say that this issue insinuates itself across all facets of our own society – and the more we have people diverting the issue, or simply not acknowledging it – the more we watch it live on.
Sheesh – good luck Justine – real life is bad enough, fancy having to do this in another plane as well…

Bugger!

Justine–I appreciate the post, which although common sense in one way is a necessary anchor in another.

Back to deadlines–gotta put food on the table.

JeffV

I want this on a t-shirt

I didn’t even know that things had re-erupted until this afternoon. But I’m glad you’re talking about it. I’m glad you’re not afraid of it.

Throughout all of this I’ve been really heartened by the astonishingly smart and thought-provoking posts that have been produced. Such as the one I linked to above by Deepad. She also has an excellent post on white allies. There have also been many great posts by Rydra Wong, Tempest, Coffeeandink, Nojojojo and many other people. It’s been amazing.

Mary Anne: Sure, lots of people have no idea what’s been going on. In trying to explain this post to one writer friend it emerged that she did not know what livejournal is.

Colleen: Yeah, that was a similarly horrible suckfest. But at least way more prominent sf folks spoke out about it. That person’s rudeness to you was insane and is exactly the kind of behaviour I’m talking about. People who are rude online but nice off remind me of people who are lovely to their peers and superiors but insufferable to waitstaff and taxi drivers and other people they consider not to be their peers. Or the kind of bloke who’s great to everyone except his wife and children. They are not good people.

Colleen, a lot of the racefail/derailing behavior I’ve been witnessing has really brought to mind that exact same Connie Willis related craziness and the aftermath. I’m sorry to hear that happened to you.

Part of me wanted to stop ever reviewing books from the pub house he worked at – although that would be punishing poor authors who knew nothing of all this so obviously I dropped the idea.

Anyway, at the end of the day I felt just like you are right now. It is impossible for me to believe that this person could be so kind and wonderful in person and so downright mean online. I couldn’t forgive one set of behavior because people who personally knew him were testifying to the other. I decided just to pull out of the online community altogether. I only read a couple of personal blogs now and thus have missed all of this recent madness (until Gwenda linked).

I can only imagine what has been said and am only thankful that I have missed it.

Unfortunately, this discussion, it’s difficult sometimes, both in fiction and real life, because often people aren’t ready to listen. (The people you’ve mentioned a perfect case in point.) I think some of that must come from the idea that any mention of the notion of privilege and the concept of race relations is an attack on the person being addressed. “But I’m not like that, I’m not a racist, so this is irrelevant to me! So stop talking about it, or I’ll leave.” I have had this happen with a friend already, and it is saddening and alienating. Or, “It can’t really be like you say; I don’t see it.” (Because if you don’t see it, it can’t be real? What kind of logic is that?)

All we can do is try to keep talking. Thank you for this post in helping to continue the discussion.

Please don’t assume that there are tons of professional writers supporting the outing of pseudonyms or whatever other nonsense has been going on. I’ve barely had time to read the initial posts so far, and probably won’t get through most of the comments anytime soon, if at all.

And despite the uproar in various pockets of fandom at what was being said and flung around, it seemed that no matter what we said about how awful this all was, there was a divide: fans vs. “writers.”

And as with Airbender, no matter how outraged fans would be, the “creators” or “producers” of mainstream would look away, ignore, and feed crumbs on the side.

So thanks for posting, and for that last line. And for your part in breaking the silence and the divide.

Thank you for doing it eloquently.

and thank you for being plain and honest and blunt. I didn’t know about you before, but I’m a lot more likely to pick up one of your books now.