But to portray me as a white author with no understanding of racial bias reflects more on your bias than mine. You don’t know me well enough level such a charge. Oh, yeah. You don’t know me at all.
Please point to the direct sentence where I said, "You, Ms. Stein, are a racist". Please, inform me of where it is that I've said that to you. Not where you think I've said it. Point me directly to where I have said those words. Because I haven't. I have however said that you've written some things which are racially problematic and hurtful to many people.
Furthermore, I'm not portraying you at all, Ms. Stein. I am studying the words that YOU YOURSELF wrote. I am quoting them directly. I am not making anything up. I am working with the very concrete evidence at hand.
It seems to me that you are far more invested in telling me how not racist you are and defending your book rather than opening your eyes to the fact that you have, probably unintentionally, written some things that were very hurtful because you, like me, live in a place where it is our privilege to ignore such details because we are white. It is called white privilege (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html). And there are some very good selections (http://delicious.com/starkeymonster/forcluelesswhitepeople) about it and about conversations concerning racism that you might read up on. I encourage you in the strongest possible terms to read about these things, to read about RaceFail09, and to educate yourself.
I do not think you are a racist running around in a pointed white hat burning crosses. I know what those people look like, thank you very much.
I do think you are willfully clueless. I think there's a lot around you that you are not seeing, hearing, or reading about because you neither want to nor have to. The experiences of people of color in this country, and the portrayals of them in SF/F literature, as well as their ability to work on equal footing in the SF/F field is not something you are forced to notice. I'm not forced to notice it either, but I choose to because I think turning my head away and ignoring it is inexcusable.
Furthermore, I think your willful cluelessness shows itself in your novel in the way you describe (or do not describe) characters, in the roles, importance, and actions you assign to characters of color, and in the things that your white characters say and do.
If you were as enlightened and not racist as you claim to be, your first response would not have been to defend yourself, but to carefully consider whether there was any merit to these claims.
If you were a professional, that consideration would have been done in private and not on the internet for all to see.
You are flashing your ignorance in public, Ms. Stein. You are acting so unprofessionally that it astounds me. As an unpublished, aspiring author myself? I now consider you a textbook example of What Not To Do.
And if you have to ask me whether something is or is not professional, you have very large problems indeed.
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Date: 2009-08-24 12:30 pm (UTC)Please point to the direct sentence where I said, "You, Ms. Stein, are a racist". Please, inform me of where it is that I've said that to you. Not where you think I've said it. Point me directly to where I have said those words. Because I haven't. I have however said that you've written some things which are racially problematic and hurtful to many people.
Furthermore, I'm not portraying you at all, Ms. Stein. I am studying the words that YOU YOURSELF wrote. I am quoting them directly. I am not making anything up. I am working with the very concrete evidence at hand.
It seems to me that you are far more invested in telling me how not racist you are and defending your book rather than opening your eyes to the fact that you have, probably unintentionally, written some things that were very hurtful because you, like me, live in a place where it is our privilege to ignore such details because we are white. It is called white privilege (http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html). And there are some very good selections (http://delicious.com/starkeymonster/forcluelesswhitepeople) about it and about conversations concerning racism that you might read up on. I encourage you in the strongest possible terms to read about these things, to read about RaceFail09, and to educate yourself.
I do not think you are a racist running around in a pointed white hat burning crosses. I know what those people look like, thank you very much.
I do think you are willfully clueless. I think there's a lot around you that you are not seeing, hearing, or reading about because you neither want to nor have to. The experiences of people of color in this country, and the portrayals of them in SF/F literature, as well as their ability to work on equal footing in the SF/F field is not something you are forced to notice. I'm not forced to notice it either, but I choose to because I think turning my head away and ignoring it is inexcusable.
Furthermore, I think your willful cluelessness shows itself in your novel in the way you describe (or do not describe) characters, in the roles, importance, and actions you assign to characters of color, and in the things that your white characters say and do.
If you were as enlightened and not racist as you claim to be, your first response would not have been to defend yourself, but to carefully consider whether there was any merit to these claims.
If you were a professional, that consideration would have been done in private and not on the internet for all to see.
You are flashing your ignorance in public, Ms. Stein. You are acting so unprofessionally that it astounds me. As an unpublished, aspiring author myself? I now consider you a textbook example of What Not To Do.
And if you have to ask me whether something is or is not professional, you have very large problems indeed.