elspethdixon | Holy mother of God *is horrified*

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Holy mother of God is horrified

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.

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Thanks for writing this - I didn't realise the depth of the insult. The sheer vindictiveness (not to mention threats) has really shocked me.

I know - I was/am appalled. I don't agree 100% with all the criticisms of Elizabeth Bear or others involved in this whole thing, but insisting that people out themselves and threatening to make sure they're never published ( I swear that's in there somwhere, or maybe that's just the way I interpreted her "shut up or else" message) takes the entire thing beyond acting like a brat on the internet and into real world consequences. It's bullying in its purest form, and considering the context and whom she's directing it at, it looks an awful lot like racist bullying.

ETA: No, let me rephrase that. It doesn't "look like" racist bullying. It is racist bullying. Directed at people she's openly dismissed as worthless.

I've seen others translating it to mean "outlaw/outcast," and from tnh's other comments it seems she wants it to mean some combination of "evil lying mob-member" and "person I'm going to snub at parties." What she wants us to act like she's saying vs. what she's actually saying, of course, is the heart of the problem.

'Evil, lying mob member' is bad enough all on its own, honestly.

The whole post would be shocking even sans insults, just for the threatening element. Threatening + horrible insults is just the icing on the cake.

I've been doing a lot of silent listening and thinking through this whole thing (mostly because I'm not confident I won't make it worse) but yeah, when I got to that point in her post, I just had to stop and ask "Did she *really* say that?"

Did she really think that bringing in slurs for underclasses from *other* languages would be helpful in any way?

I hadn't remembered just how awful it was until I looked it up more context just now, but just the suffix -ing ought to be enough to tell you it's an insult based on membership in a cultural (sub)group, which is just exactly on the nose for a privilege discussion.

And omg. Yes! Let's use one of the three homophobic insults that's bad enough to give you the legal right to kill the user! That will calm things down!

(Who thought this debate would come around to the point where "Let Us Explain To Ya'll About Anglo-Saxon Culture" would actually be relevant. sigh.)

Yes! Let's use one of the three homophobic insults that's bad enough to give you the legal right to kill the user! That will calm things down!

I know. Just because it's an archaic term no one uses anymore doesn't mean it's any les insulting than just saying "monsters" or "worthless people" would have been. Plus, this is fandom. If you use an arcane piece of terminology, someone in your audience is going to know exactly what it means, probably in better detail than you do (I just know it's a horrible insult, but I bet there's someone out there on LJ who could write a whole essay on ancient Germanic and Nordic culture and linguistics if asked for a definition).

Who thought this debate would come around to the point where "Let Us Explain To Ya'll About Anglo-Saxon Culture" would actually be relevant. sigh.

Usually it's a digression on how Irish-Americans should count as an oppressed minority, or how X piece of Northern European cultural background means that [thing that offends people] isn't actually offensive (like, "the kelpie's human form is black because he's a kelpie, which anyone who knew celtic folklore would know, so there are totally No Racial Implications At All"). This time, historical context just makes it worse (as in the HP miscegenation wank).

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

To be fair to him, he said things that offended people in response to a Cryptic Non-Specific Post Regarding Unspecific Stupid Mean People (oh my GOD, one of my major pet peeves during kerfuffles are the Cryptic Non-Specific Posts Regarding Unspecific Stupid Mean People, I *hate* them).

Of course, that's no excuse for not modifying, retracting and/or apologizing for his comments when people tried to point out, "Um, you do realize that in context, 'Unspecific Stupid Mean People' = PoC who are attempting to discuss race-related issues, right..."

Oh, and the other hilariously horrifying antique insult that TNH called her critics was "draggle-tailed," which means an untidy slut. So she actually covered both the racist *and* the sexist axes, just like mac-stone with her "blog-whoring" and "orcing." Nice job there!

The term niding/nithing basically meant someone who was completely without the law, rejected by society to the point where killing them carried no punishment. Needless to say one didn't become niding unless one had committed some fairly grisly and cowardly crimes to start with.

oh my GOD, one of my major pet peeves during kerfuffles are the Cryptic Non-Specific Posts Regarding Unspecific Stupid Mean People

I generally get the distinct feeling that you (or at least, the poster's flist) are supposed to know exactly who the poster is angry at, but that they're being coy about it to avoid wank and/or give themselves plausible deniability if someone objects ("Of course, when I said, 'Someone out there on lj is stupid and mean. I won't say who, but you know who you are, stupid mean person!' I didn't mean you.").

My first encounter with it was a classmate in an undergraduate creative writing workshop who turned in a poem for group critique that criticized an unspecified fellow classmate or classmates for not taking the class seriously enough/offering bad critique/being a bitch. I distinctly remember thinking "If you have such a problem with this person, why don't you talk to them about it or mention your concerns to the professor? Instead of, you know, trying to guilt trip the entire class by announcing "I think one of you is so bad in workshop that you deserve to fail, but I won't say which."

the other hilariously horrifying antique insult that TNH called her critics was "draggle-tailed," which means an untidy slut. So she actually covered both the racist *and* the sexist axes, just like mac-stone with her "blog-whoring" and "orcing."

See, "draggle-tailed" just made me snicker (who talks like that outside of an 18th/19th century novel?) though, now that I think about it, in addition to sounding ridiculous, it also sounds dismissive and demeaning.

mac-stone is the origin of the "orcing" term? What is that word even supposed to mean? (I haven't read her original post - it was flocked or deleted or made inacessible somehow before I could). Is it like trolling, but in hordes, with the implication that everyone in said horde is dark-skinned like the Uruk-Hai?*

* which is actually something that bugged me during the LotR movies. Orcs are made from debased and twisted elves, so shouldn't they be pale the way elves are? The Mordor orcs are kind of blue-green, which works pretty well for me, but the Uruk-Hai combine blue-green orcs with men whom I'm assuming are also pale skinned, since everyone in the West is, so why aren't they blue-green? This may be a sign that I put far too much thought into those movies.

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.

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.

or give themselves plausible deniability if someone objects

*nods* Which is exactly what mac-stone is doing now, actually; she deleted the Cryptic Post and claimed that it was directed to anonymous trolls not Avalon Willow at all, even though in the comments (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/889663.html) people basically chimed in immediately with "I know, right, AW is such a bitch!" and she responded like "Yeah, those mean ol' PoC make me so mad!" so... either the post was always about AW or she was happy to let people assume it was, which is pretty much the same thing.

You can see the "orcing" comment quoted in context here in coffeeandink's lj (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/880554.html?mode=reply) along with screencaps. Basically, yeah, it seems like her cutesy-geeky way of saying "trolling." And SOMEHOW she is either completely, totally unaware of the dodgy racial subtext of calling a black woman an "orc" (ie, yeah, part of the dark subhuman savage horde) or, she doesn't care. (It is also totally ironic that one of the original posts in this imbroglio, DeepaD's, specifically referenced dodgy racial subtext in Tolkien, so if she'd even done a *little* bit of reading she might have avoided saying something like that.)

which is actually something that bugged me during the LotR movies. Orcs are made from debased and twisted elves, so shouldn't they be pale the way elves are? .... This may be a sign that I put far too much thought into those movies.

No, the visual representation of orcs (and elves, even!) in the movies is SUPER SKETCHY. I mean, dreadlocks to indicate a savage sub-human race? Really? (It reminds me of all those conversations I had in SGA, where people would describe Ronon Dex's dreads in fic with adjectives like "bizarre" or "messy" or scary," and then not understand why that was an issue. Guys, you're talking about how a lot of people's hair just NORMALLY IS, so think about what you're saying: that a physical characteristic based on race makes someone automatically "scary" or "unkempt!" Just... no!)

Add to that the part where the movies made a lot of elves pale and blonde that weren't blonde in the books (like Legolas) and the whole visual metaphor that they have going on there gets kinda really sketchy. (It's kinda like how in the Narnia movies, all the Talking Animals and Beasts that went over to the White Queen were the ugly yucky-looking ones, and all the ones who stayed loyal to Aslan were the noble/cute-looking ones, whereas in the books the WHOLE POINT was that you can't tell who's a good or bad person just by looking at them. SIGH.)

(eta to fix link)

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.

Ronon's hair is 'bizarre'? *raise eyebrows* I didn't see any "bizarre" or "scary" comments being tossed around about Jack Sparrow's dreadlocks in PotC fandom. Is this the same people who make him and Teyla cats instead of writing me the long, plotty, h/c-filled Ronon/Teyla fic I can never find?

Add to that the part where the movies made a lot of elves pale and blonde that weren't blonde in the books (like Legolas) and the whole visual metaphor that they have going on there gets kinda really sketchy.

I know *nods* Since elves are supposed to be a more enlightened species than humans, it probably says something that the only dark-haired elves are Elrond Half-elven and his daughter. Mostly it says that they wanted to cast Liv Tyler, I think, but you still get all the pure-blooded elves being blond while the half-human ones are darker. Legolas in particular I'd give a pass on because he's frequently been portrayed as blond ever since Greg & Tim Hildebrant got his hair color wrong in a 70s-era Tolkien calendar, but there are many, many spear-carrier elves in the films and like I said, they're *all* blond except for Arwen & Elrond. And then you have Grima Wormtongue as the only dark-haired Rohirrim (I mean, it makes perfect sense that they're all blond, since they're basically vikings with horses instead of longboats, but there's one dark-haired one and he's the evil guy?).

Personally, I was a little disappointed in the Gondor characters, too, because while I thought that Viggo Mortenson made a perfect Aragorn, and while I love Sean Bean to bits in, like, everything he's ever been in, I always imagined Gondor as a sort of Rome or Byzantium equivalent, with Minas Tirith as Alexandria and Rome and Constantinople and Troy all rolled into one, yet the men of Gondor were more Northern Europeans and not the dark-haired, dark-eyed people I'd been picturing.

* which is actually something that bugged me during the LotR movies. Orcs are made from debased and twisted elves, so shouldn't they be pale the way elves are? The Mordor orcs are kind of blue-green, which works pretty well for me, but the Uruk-Hai combine blue-green orcs with men whom I'm assuming are also pale skinned, since everyone in the West is, so why aren't they blue-green? This may be a sign that I put far too much thought into those movies.

Jackson muddled the pedigree for the Uruk-hai: is it Gandalf who says that Saruman has been breeding "Orcs and goblin-men"?

Actually the movies have generally muddied the waters when it comes to racist subtext with the Orcs. Not that Tolkien critics didn't try to identify Orcs with blacks prior to the movies (a vilified racially-identified Other) but for what it's worth, according to one of Tolkien's letters, Orcs are supposed to look like the "least lovely (to European eyes) of the Mongol types." So there you go, Orcs aren't black, they're...Mongolian?

(Actually, doing my Orc project it's been interesting to see how many different ethnicities/nationalities people have claimed Orcs represent. My favorite is Eskimos. Almost as "special," and quite ironic when included in the usual list of Africans, Asians, Arabs and so forth, is neo-Nazi Varg Vikernes' theory that the Orcs are vilified representations of his pre-Christian Norse forefathers.)

Wow, that is fandom killing.... seriously. I was semi curious because I recognized some of the names from lurking in various places and then wow. <3 I hope it resolves alright for you as a follower of this. (I was curious about the specificity of the fandom though- I am fairly sure I get what it is from the names I am seeing but was curious)

I would buy Norsemen if Morder were to the North ("from the fury of the Norsemen, lord, deliver us"), but hordes of brutal attacks from the east do make more sense as Mongols or Turks, given that medieval/renaissance European horror of "Tartar" hordes attacking from the east. So the movies' error was actually in being a different kind of racist than the books intended, rather than in being racist at all?

Hmm... In the books, I always kind of got the impression that the Uruk-Hai looked basically like other orcs, except bigger.

Yeah, "orcs and goblin men," which confused me, because I was never clear on what the difference between orcs and goblins was, exactly, or if the orcs in the Trilogy and the goblins in the Hobbit were possibly the same thing (the Hobbit goblins I imagined as very pale, because they lived in caves).

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.

*G* Well, PoTC fandom had its own issues.

(Oh, man, don't even bring up the cats thing. That's another one of those things where, okay, the original story was just mentioned offhandedly, and then fen went nuts because OMG YOU'RE CALLING ME/HER/THEM/PEOPLE RACIST, and oof, now it's all anyone remembers, when there were MUCH crazier stories, like the "we're all doctors in a hospital" AU where Dr. Novak got demoted to a nurse because, I guess, men are doctors, ladies are nurses!)

Of course, that was a while ago, and I feel like fandom has at least moved up to, like, version 1.1.6 of this conversation as opposed to being stuck on level zero like we were for a while.

and then you have Grima Wormtongue as the only dark-haired Rohirrim

Huh, you know, I don't think I ever picked up on that, but yeah. Good thing we have some brown-haired hobbits or I might start feeling oppressed as a brunette! ;)

My fiancee, who is dark-haired, notices these things, after a childhood spent reading stories where the princesses (other than Snow White) are almost always blonde (another little girl once told her that she could never be pretty, because dark hair just wasn't as nice as blond hair). So now I notice them, too.

You'd think alleged professionals like Teresa and her husband would know by now to not post things while angry, but apparently not. Or maybe they don't really care about their on-line image anymore.

I'm a native speaker of a Scandinavian langauge, and I was rather stunned by her usage of 'nithing.' It is not part of contemporary language but 'nidingsdåd' (nithing deed) remains part of everyday parlance. Also, from what I've seen, Theresa is rather fluent in Old and Middle English, so she would know the meanings of the word.

>(just like mac-stone with her "blog-whoring" and "orcing." Nice job there!)<

I've had it in my head that that particular bit of fail came from Medievalist's head?

Just jumping in to chime in; I have the "Mediterranean" type, olive skin, very dark hair and eyes (htough they're getting lighter as I age), and Snow White was my favorite princess because of that very same issue. Where/when I grew up (rural France, 70s and 80s), the Pretty, Popular Girl was always a blonde girl with blue eyes, and for a while I wished for nothing more than to be able to change my eye color. The Blonde Princess thing drove me crazy.

Ah, you're right. Mac_stone's post, but Medievalist's comment. (I even linked right to the context!) My bad.

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Holy mother of God is horrified

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