For those of you who don't see why any of this matters, please read these (heartbreaking, to me) posts: closing a door, softly,
operating in hostile territory.

For those of you either baffled by the calls for sf pros to take a stand or who feel that requests for statements of position are McCarthy-like, there are two things that shed light on that for me, neither of which were part of the current discussion.

One is a beautifully written blog post off LJ: ...white friends who don’t understand race and all it’s implications may hurt you deeply, consciously or unconsciously. It’s not about a friend you’ve hung out with for years one day turning on you and yelling a racial epithet or trying to beat you up or anything of that nature. No, it’s about the smaller things. As my friend and housemate Jackie put it “People can die by a thousand cuts.” and it’s much more painful that way.

The other is that, in my experience, for a woman to discover how her male friends, relatives, and/or significant others define rape is typically not a happy or comforting moment.

In light of those experiences and the societal racism and sexism that cause them, it does not surprise me that some people want to know who considers their experiences and feelings and lives important, and who doesn't.
rosefox: Green books on library shelves. (Default)

From: [personal profile] rosefox


I've seen a few people say "When I speak up I'm told to listen more and when I sit quietly and listen I'm told that I'm complicit by my silence", and others say "I do all this anti-racist stuff in the real world, why do I need to trumpet it online?" and it just makes me want to scream. If you're asked to listen when you're speaking up, then you're speaking out of turn. If you're asked to speak up when you're silent, then you're being passive when action is called for. If you're only anti-racist some places and not others--and in particular, if you're only anti-racist in places where there's no record of your behavior and no archive of your words--then you're doing it wrong. How hard is this? Seriously?
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