From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":
-matociquala
I think there's two overlapping problems with the discourse. The first is that, yes, people would prefer not to acknowledge subtle prejudice because they have been told all their lives that being racist means you are evil, and they have an array of defensive mechanism they bring to bear to defend themselves when they feel attacked. It's very hard to admit you made a mistake, and it doesn't get any easier when people are invoking codes and prior discussions you don't understand.
The other is that it's very hard to use *any* language or answer any question without triggering a certain amount of righteous wrath in people who have been sensitized to expect dismissal by way too much insensitivity. If all you are used to hearing is dismissal and marginalization, eventually it's all you *can* hear.
This is not to say that people's gut reactions are without merit. But once you have created a climate where it is assumed that the only reason one person can disagree with another is due to racism, you have created a climate in which rational discourse is impossible, and the question being asked is the age-old conundrum, "Have you stopped beating your wife, Senator?" Which is useful for venting justified rage, but not so useful for bringing about social betterment.
The problem arises when people of color are held to a different standard than white folks. Period. Whatever that standard is.
[...]
And yes, despite what one of the friends I have lost over this kerfuffle said to me in email, I do think that a person of color saying something patently racist and misogynist is as offensive as a white person's unexamined privilege.
I do.
From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":
matociquala
There is a scene in the book where the character who enslaves him--and it is slavery--literally uses him as a repository for the soul she's selling for power.
Um.
I didn't think that was all that subtle, actually.
He's also a POC because he's appropriated that identity, and he has no clue that there's anything wrong with the appropriation (he is a Celtic spirit)--and I was hoping that would also support some of the thematic freight of the book regarding conquest. (He is, after all, a sociopathic anthropophagous water demon. I didn't really intend him to be somebody whose politics bore up to much moral inspection. *g*)
But, you know. It's complicated, and stuff doesn't always work just because you wanted it to.
What I should have done is ignored the criticism and refused to engage the critic, which is generally speaking what we do with critics if we are sensible writers.
(If I was going to dignify it with a response, maybe I should have pointed out that the original critic's reading missed several important points. Like the fact that of the two characters she identified as white women, one is described as golden-skinned and I believe the race of the other is never stated in the book. Or the various other things I could have pointed out, like the fact that not all art is a depiction of Utopia. But, you know, I figured it was as pointless as trying to explain to a radical lesbian separatist that yes, Sting probably knows the narrator of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" is kind of creepy. And I shouldn't have engaged. I just shouldn't have.)
And that's what I meant when I said I had taken a hit for the team. I had tried to be a good cooperative white author, and listen to criticism from a person of color with open ears, and try to engage in a helpful dialogue of how to address one's own unconscious racism.
Cease Fire--Part 2
From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":
-matociquala
I think there's two overlapping problems with the discourse. The first is that, yes, people would prefer not to acknowledge subtle prejudice because they have been told all their lives that being racist means you are evil, and they have an array of defensive mechanism they bring to bear to defend themselves when they feel attacked. It's very hard to admit you made a mistake, and it doesn't get any easier when people are invoking codes and prior discussions you don't understand.
The other is that it's very hard to use *any* language or answer any question without triggering a certain amount of righteous wrath in people who have been sensitized to expect dismissal by way too much insensitivity. If all you are used to hearing is dismissal and marginalization, eventually it's all you *can* hear.
From Cease Fire:
This is not to say that people's gut reactions are without merit. But once you have created a climate where it is assumed that the only reason one person can disagree with another is due to racism, you have created a climate in which rational discourse is impossible, and the question being asked is the age-old conundrum, "Have you stopped beating your wife, Senator?" Which is useful for venting justified rage, but not so useful for bringing about social betterment.
The problem arises when people of color are held to a different standard than white folks. Period. Whatever that standard is.
[...]
And yes, despite what one of the friends I have lost over this kerfuffle said to me in email, I do think that a person of color saying something patently racist and misogynist is as offensive as a white person's unexamined privilege.
I do.
From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":
matociquala
There is a scene in the book where the character who enslaves him--and it is slavery--literally uses him as a repository for the soul she's selling for power.
Um.
I didn't think that was all that subtle, actually.
He's also a POC because he's appropriated that identity, and he has no clue that there's anything wrong with the appropriation (he is a Celtic spirit)--and I was hoping that would also support some of the thematic freight of the book regarding conquest. (He is, after all, a sociopathic anthropophagous water demon. I didn't really intend him to be somebody whose politics bore up to much moral inspection. *g*)
But, you know. It's complicated, and stuff doesn't always work just because you wanted it to.
Next time I will try to do better.
From Cease Fire:
What I should have done is ignored the criticism and refused to engage the critic, which is generally speaking what we do with critics if we are sensible writers.
(If I was going to dignify it with a response, maybe I should have pointed out that the original critic's reading missed several important points. Like the fact that of the two characters she identified as white women, one is described as golden-skinned and I believe the race of the other is never stated in the book. Or the various other things I could have pointed out, like the fact that not all art is a depiction of Utopia. But, you know, I figured it was as pointless as trying to explain to a radical lesbian separatist that yes, Sting probably knows the narrator of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" is kind of creepy. And I shouldn't have engaged. I just shouldn't have.)
And that's what I meant when I said I had taken a hit for the team. I had tried to be a good cooperative white author, and listen to criticism from a person of color with open ears, and try to engage in a helpful dialogue of how to address one's own unconscious racism.