Or: this is why I'm probably never going to WisCon.

[megwrites]

ktempest responds to Kathryn Cramer's proposed WisCon panel "More Oppressed Than Thou".

Just to note, Ms. Cramer has removed the post that started all this, but K. Tempest Bradford has said she will supply screencaps later on.



Honestly, I'm appalled. I'm appalled that the subject of oppression has become such a joke to people that someone would even think of titling a panel that way, much less holding it! I don't care if I get accused of having no sense of humor. I don't find the subject of human beings getting treated like crap because of their race (or gender, or sexual orientation, or ability, or size) all that funny. If you do, please never try to entertain me and maybe try not to be in the same room with me. We will not get along.

Second, I'm appalled that apparently in order to understand oppression you must have been beaten up by the cops. Since when did oppression only come in violent, physical forms?

I direct you to the famous, much linked to list of white privileges made in 1990. I direct you to today's date: September 17, 2009.

It's nearly twenty years after that list was penned and I can't think of any items I can, in good faith, remove from that list concerning the way American society functions to date. In fact, I can still think of items to add.

Want to hear a really disgusting anecdote from my own life about how we're not even close to post racial?

Recently, my mother (who is white, as am I) and stepfather (who is black) went to my mom's class reunion in Kentucky. Now, her classmates were all very nice and had a great time was had by all - but after the class reunion, my mom and stepfather (who had never been in the state of Kentucky before, since he's a Jersey boy through and through) got separated and my stepfather got lost -- for several hours.

Of course, in her worry, my mother and her friends called the police after he was missing (without his cellphone) for a few hours. The police dutifully sent an officer who took a report and asked the prerequisite questions about where he was seen last, would he go off with a stranger, etc. At first, the officer takes my mother's worry very seriously. After ascertaining that he knows nobody in Kentucky, that he would never get into a car with a stranger, the cop starts to get a description of my stepdad while radioing it to his dispatcher.

My mom stops the cop to say, "No, my husband is black."

At which point the cop stops what he's doing, gives her a very pointed look, and says, "Are you SURE he didn't run off with another woman, ma'am?"

My mother had to assure the cop that my stepfather was a teacher, a veteran of the air force, and a man with his master's degree to convince him that my stepfather hadn't just run off with someone after being in town for all of twelve hours.

What if my stepfather had been robbed? Or had a heart attack? What if he had been kidnapped? What if every second counted in the difference between him living and him dying and the cop stopping to re-quiz my mother on whether he was just a cheating scoundrel because of his race had cost him his life? What then?

What if my stepfather hadn't had all those nice sounding credentials to his name that made the cop take him just a little more seriously? What if he had just been a mechanic? A clerk at a store? A janitor? I can promise you that if he had been white, my mother would not have had to practically give the cop his goddamn resume just to get him to do his fucking job.

When the cop assumed my stepfather was white, it was all serious business. When the cop found out he was black, the score changed completely. Not the situation. The situation was still the same. A 52-year-old man was missing and no one could find him.

Ask all the missing children and people of color who's stories don't get splashed across the news five minutes after the police report is filed because they're not the Missing White Woman Du Jour. Ask how many of them are victims of crime but assumed to be complicit or even deserving of what happens to them because of the assumptions law enforcement makes about them and their communities based on race.

My family was lucky. My stepdad had merely gotten lost trying to walk back to house where they were staying. Eventually, he arrived safely at the house and all was well. Like I said, he's a Jersey boy and he's used to cities where the roads make sense and are laid out in grids. Down south, our roads do not make sense and they're all named after trees and flowers and have the word "deer" affixed to them. Don't ask me why, that's just how we roll in Dixie.

The point is that people like Kathryn Cramer can just go take a big glass of shut the fuck up if they think oppression is only about being beaten up by the cops. Oppression is being ignored by the cops when you need them. Oppression is about being invisible when you desperately need to be seen. Oppression is about being swept aside when you desperately need to be taken seriously. Oppression is the negative assumptions made about you when you need someone just to give you a fair shot. Not a hand out, not a gimme. Just a square deal.

Oppression is the business loan you can't get because people of your race are "too high a risk". Oppression is the young women who look at themselves in the mirror and go through great (and often painful) lengths to change their eyes, their hair, their bodies to look like white people. Oppression is the professor or teacher who assumes you cheated. Oppression is the many books you read where there are no people of your race, or those people are all tokens, stereotypes, or soon to be dead in service to white characters. Oppression is the neighbors who don't want you there and think that your presence brings down property values.

So, if you're reading this Kathryn Cramer, from one white woman to another? Please stop. You're hurting people, and you're making yourself look like a really terrible person. You and I (yes ME) are the ones who don't know a damn thing about racial oppression. We're the ignoramuses in this. Not the POC who you seem so set on debunking even when they present you with irrefutable evidence from their own lives.

The POC who are speaking up, speaking out? Those are the people who deal with it every damn day. You need to respect them, respect what they say (and try listening to it without getting defensive, too!), and respect the fact that you and I as white people are idiots when it comes to this subject. Because we've been blinded and numbed and dulled and stupified by our own privileges as we have been our whole life.

But even if you're not reading this, if you don't listen to me (fair enough - like I said, I am an ignorant idiot when it comes to this topic), listen to them. Just openly and honestly listen. You might be surprised.

Comments

[marydell.livejournal.com]

you're making yourself look like a really terrible person

Not for the first time. Her post explicitly stated that she's NOT going to Wiscon, because Wiscon encourages "Fail fandom" which is her term for what we call "anti-racism." She'll only go if they'll let her moderate this panel she's suggesting. So at the time I read it, anyway, she was vowing not to go to Wiscon.

She's just stirring up shit because she doesn't like the sort of people that we like, if you follow me. Wiscon is cool and you should go.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

She's just stirring up shit because she doesn't like the sort of people that we like, if you follow me. Wiscon is cool and you should go.

In all honest, I'm quite wary of cons (never been to one) in the SFF fandom in general because of a lot of the things I've heard from other people. Not just from WisCon, mind you. But I really get uncomfortable hearing stories about panels being derailed (the one Karnythia was on at WorldCon) and the behavior of certain folks at the Verb Noire party and how things went at the Take Back SF panel and things like the Open Source Boob Project at ConFusion a couple of years ago really have made me reluctant to even consider it. Plus cons are really expensive and I kinda don't have that sort of money on me right now.

Eventually I'm sure I will attend a con somewhere, somehow if I ever do have that much money/time and feel that it's a good thing. But definitely not anywhere that would ever allow THAT kind of panel. Though maybe if people like Cramer abstained from cons for a while, I'd get a lot more interested in going.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about Wiscon is, if the panel you attend gets derailed, you can find plenty of sympathetic audience members and panelist who will be more than happy to go the bar with you and complain about it, sometimes even productively.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

Honestly, after reading Cramer's post, I'd go to Wiscon just because she's so offended by it.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

This actually comforts me, because it means that maybe some of the bad stuff I've been hearing about is just from the Big Name Folks, not the hoi polloi who attend.

I guess that if I'd went, I'd want to make sure I stuck close to those folks who I knew weren't going to do anything spectacularly disgraceful and try to have a really good time with them.

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

Oh dear...I must've missed that post--what happened at the Verb Noire party?

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

I'll supply links to reports of this later - I'm in a bit of a rush this morning - but apparently Sarah Monette (truepenny) went into the Verb Noire party and snubbed all the editors and sat around only talking with other white people. Didn't even acknowledge the hosts' existence or anything.

Then, after that, she apologized to the host in someone else's journal and said that she was just too shy and afraid to go speak to the hosts (but apparently not too shy to plunk down on the floor and talk with all the other white people...curious, that).

Though, I have heard that besides her fail-a-thon that the party, otherwise, went very well and fun was had by all.

Keep in mind, I wasn't there. Would've liked to have been there for the Verb Noire party at the very least because I ♥ Verb Noire.

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

This is my favourite response to the subject (the title vito_excaliber gave the link). (http://vito-excalibur.livejournal.com/238688.html)

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

HA! I LOL'ed. That is awesome.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

It's incredible (and disappointing) to see the level at which folks continue to fail.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just? But my hope is that we're moving towards something and every time someone objects to these things, we're teaching others that racism and oppression are NOT OKAY and that participating in them is NOT OKAY.

[(Anonymous)]

I hope so, too.

I think a lot of my hope lies in what I see among young people that my kids hang around with. I know it doesn't apply everywhere, but all these high school/college students accept one another for who they are, celebrate their differences as well as the ways they're alike. They strive to teach each other through student unions and clubs and college gatherings designed to explain beliefs and cultures to others.

When I see race fail going on online, it's mostly late 20's through middle age that are really slinging the worse of the sh*t, I think.

Maybe it's naive of me, but I hope that, if they don't breed or don't raise kids to believe as they do, there really might be hope for the future if we continue to work toward fighting racism and oppression today.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Ooops, sorry. I thought I was logged in.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Thank you for link--have also linked back!

And, oh Kathryn Cramer, NO!!!!!

I like how she says she's sick of people assuming things about her life (i.e. people on the internet) while she assumes that ANYBODY she disagrees with has experienced oppression only on the THEORETICAL LEVEL!!!!!

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

I like how she says she's sick of people assuming things about her life (i.e. people on the internet) while she assumes that ANYBODY she disagrees with has experienced oppression only on the THEORETICAL LEVEL!!!!!

Haha. I'd like her to go experience this "theoretical" oppression for a while and see how she feels about it after that.

[scififanatic.livejournal.com]

I can't even think clearly right now I'm so pissed off--and why is it that people like her can't stand by their words (if they believe in them so strongly) and keep the post up for others to read. Cowards!

Or perhaps they are simply starving for attention. When I visited her site, the main thing I learned is that she's been anthologized so many times, and what--does this give her some type of authority in speaking about oppression? NO! She's full of herself and needs to take a hike!

Also, the example you gave with your dad is the PERFECT example of how oppression pervades even the smallest details such as filing a report with the police. It's frightening to me when people live in this kind of denial.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

When I visited her site, the main thing I learned is that she's been anthologized so many times, and what--does this give her some type of authority in speaking about oppression? NO! She's full of herself and needs to take a hike!

Apparently her business is to be in anthologies and stir shit - and right now business is, unfortunately, good for her. I have my suspicions that she and Shetterly have made a bet as to who can fail most spectacularly.

By now, I'm kind of used to hearing my fellow white people vent their ignorance about the topic of how oppression works in America - but this really got under my skin like crazy.

What got to me is that she presumes to have the authority to a) lead a panel on the topic and b) decide who's oppression is legitimate and deserves attention, recognition, and serious discussion! As though she can pick and choose who she validates and who she doesn't.

How in the world did she ever get the idea that she, Kathryn Cramer, could be the authority on this topic? What gave her that right? Furthermore, what gave her the idea that somehow there needed to be someone around to pick and choose in the first place, that some people needed to be told, "Sorry, we're not going to consider your pain and lack and experience valid right now!"

What made her think she had any right to set down a definition of oppression (which, oddly enough, seems to work in her very UN-oppressed favor and support her ideology) and say that anyone who doesn't stick to it is wrong or only working in the "theoretical"?

Well, on behalf of my stepdad and my family and all those people who have lived under this system and have had their lives shaped by it, Kathryn Cramer can "theoretically" kiss my ass.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't know that I need to know anything else about this lady to decide I never want to be in the same room with her and I'm kind of sorry we both have to be on the same PLANET together, because she is definitely NOT HELPING ANYTHING.

I think it's pretty obvious that she does nothing but anthologies (and apparently just the same anthology in different editions), which kind of makes me disregard her as any kind of respectable professional voice.

As for her husband and personal life? I frankly just don't even care and don't want to know. Reading her words was enough for me.

Hope that didn't come off as harsh, it's just that I kind of wish to forget her existence if at all possible. :)

Also? I'd hate for her to think of any of this as a personal attack (even though everything you've stated is available in public records) and have any kind of ammo to back up her absurd claims that Scary POC Wanting Respect = ZOMG! Attack on my Personal Personage!!111!!!

I'd say that in more intelligent terms, but honestly? I don't feel like she warrants it.