Kind of general SF fandom, not actually a fandom for a specific book or series - many of the people involved in the whole thing were/are published authors and professional editors.
I'm not directly involved at all - I've been kind of reading along as the thing snowballs, occasionally doing "ZOMG, s/he said WHAT" double-takes, because it's been very educational. I'm still learning an awful lot about priviledge/cultural appropriation/racism vs. opression vs. prejudice/etc.
I used to get very irritated by these debates (fandom is my happy place, vital to my mental health, and I hated having it turned into something not fun), but this fall watching a lot of people respond to Proposition 8 in California - I realized that everyone who critized protests of it or opposition to it or gay rights or gay marriage in general used *every single tactic* that Fans of Color and allies in fandom have been calling people on for years. If it was on a bingo card, someone was out there saying/doing it. It's hard to escape seeing how cruel/offensive those rhetorical tactics actually are when they're being directed at you, and to draw a clumsy parallel, I really don't want to find myself being the fannish equivalent of the Mormons anymore.
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Date: 2009-01-30 01:55 am (UTC)I'm not directly involved at all - I've been kind of reading along as the thing snowballs, occasionally doing "ZOMG, s/he said WHAT" double-takes, because it's been very educational. I'm still learning an awful lot about priviledge/cultural appropriation/racism vs. opression vs. prejudice/etc.
I used to get very irritated by these debates (fandom is my happy place, vital to my mental health, and I hated having it turned into something not fun), but this fall watching a lot of people respond to Proposition 8 in California - I realized that everyone who critized protests of it or opposition to it or gay rights or gay marriage in general used *every single tactic* that Fans of Color and allies in fandom have been calling people on for years. If it was on a bingo card, someone was out there saying/doing it. It's hard to escape seeing how cruel/offensive those rhetorical tactics actually are when they're being directed at you, and to draw a clumsy parallel, I really don't want to find myself being the fannish equivalent of the Mormons anymore.