Holy mother of God *is horrified*

[elspethdixon]

Oh my God, every time I wincingly look back at the ongoing Cultural Appropriation bitchfight of doom, it gets worse. I'm not otherwise going to get involved, but here, I just couldn't help myself.

So, for those, like me, who hadn't seen or heard about Teresa Hayden's post wherein she expresses her anger over people badmouthing her husband (at least, that's what I assume she was doing from the descriptions - I haven't read any of the stuff involving him, either, but apparently he said things that offended people, refused to appologize when called on it, and then deleted his journal because people were yelling at him): Holy fuck, she calls fans of color and those who support them nithings.

In terms of offensiveness, as a former student of old English? Fuck, people, that's, well, not as horrible as the other n-word (which, please God, I hope no one's actually said), but it's pretty god-awful. Like, enough that I was reduced to staring at my computer screen in horror.

She has basically stated that all the people who disagree with her husband (including but not limited to, fans of color) are hateful, malicious, deformed, insane, sexually deviant, possibly cannablistic, sub-human or less-than human things. Because that's what that word means. It means monster. It means Not-a-Person. It means Grendal in Beowulf, the Ring-Wraiths in LotR, the in-bred, cannabalistic degenerate monsters in Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear."

That's what she's saying fans of color are. Maybe she doesn't really know what the word means and implies, but even if she just thinks it's an old spelling of "nothing" that would be offensive all on it's own.

And to think I used to respect her so much...

ETA: Apparently, there are differences between the Old Norse and Old English definitions, with the Norse one being a far worse insult and the Anglo-Saxon version being a little less on the digusting monster side and more on the outlaw side (see the discussion of several people with more expert knowledge than me in comments). Both versions are still insults, though.

Comments

[tavella.livejournal.com]

She's been behaving pretty abominably, yeah. I thought it was very telling that spiralsheep's scrupulously polite postings were deleted and she was banned, as were many others that dissented courteously
(or bluntly, in my case), while darkerblogistan was allowed to post things about "PoC Scum" unmolested and is still free to post on her journal.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Deleting dissenting comments seems to in general be a good signpost for when someone has started behaving badly, in that it seems to happen eventually in almost every bitter online debate, regardless of topic (i.e. from discussions of things with serious real word implications, like this one, to radical feminist criticism/wank over Joss Whedon, to ship wars), often from someone who's losing the argument.

If I ever host a bitter comics-canon fight on my lj again (or any other very contentious discussion), and for some reason decide it would be a good idea to delete comments that disagree with me/my friends/whatever (outside of someone asking me to remove x comment containing y piece of personal info or whatever), I hope someone calls me on it.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

I think another problem with TNH is that she decided to jump into an lj flamewar without really understanding how LJ works. Judging from some of the comments on her "I locked that flamey post" announcement, she wasn't aware you could freeze some posts/threads while still letting other conversations go on. (And, y'know, for a professional mod, you'd think that might be useful information to have.) And she also didn't seem to understand that you can actually click through to people's profiles and see if they list their real name, or that you can see long they've been on lj/how many posts&comments they have/etc., if you suspect they're a troll, and so on.

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

yeah, but if you ever get to the TNH point you'll simply delete the calling out post and ban your erstwhile friend.

( i have joined the ranks of the banned, myself (http://dharma-slut.livejournal.com/66879.html) no great surprise.)

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I think it's been established all the way around that if there's a way to exemplify fail in this context, she's done it. Or Will Shetterly or mac_stone or medivalist have.