Because writing a book for fun and profit is totally just like what happened at Bataan

[megwrites]

Because some people really never learn.

Usually I have a policy of ignoring Elizabeth Bear and the things she's involved under the Fuckmuppetry Doctrine, which I reserve to myself and all other human beings as the right to disengage from people who conduct themselves as Fuckmuppets on or off the internet.

But sometimes, the fuckmuppetry just cannot be ignored and needs to be called out, pointed at, and told "NO!".

Her response to someone telling her how hurtful the use of the "deathmarch" tag and phrase to describe the act of WRITING A BOOK?

I am aware of that history, and I'm sorry that this use of the word causes you discomfort.

I have very mixed emotions about political correctness in language: I believe that it's our responsibility to be aware of the language we use, but I also have a sense that mythologizing language only gives it power.

I think part of the process of winning free of a history of blood is, indeed, common use--compare "decimated," "witch hunt," "massacre," and similar words, all of which refer to real atrocities, but the sands of time have worn them clean(er).

I think by refusing to allow terrible things to be banal and mundane, we mythologize them.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure avoiding the phrase "Soup Nazi" isn't it. I'm going to go away now and think hard about it, though, because I'm also not keen on causing random damage to well-meaning passersby.

Also, she isn't the only one who uses "deathmarch" to inaccurately, offensively, and hurtfully describe marathon sessions of writing to finish a book that I've seen. Funny how it's pretty exclusively white American folks who do this.

The commenter mentioned the absolute horror and tragedy of the Bataan death march, as the OP identified as Filipino, and that person - who is brave and who I commend for commenting - was 100% to call out Bear on this matter and to show how the cultural scars of that event, of all the tragedies of that part of history, many of which are still ongoing get erased and covered over.

And that person was also right to point out that Bataan was not the only deathmarch.

Want examples? Let's take the many forced, fatal marches and shipping of human beings to death camps in Nazi Germany.

Or the abysmally brutal, excruciating march of the Cherokee people, the Trail of Tears, which killed an estimated 4,000 human beings of the 15,000 (give or take) who were forcibly removed from their lands by a President who did so AGAINST the ruling of the United States Supreme Court and is now on $20 dollar bills. And the Cherokee were far from alone in being groups that the government blatantly tried to exterminate. Yeah, that's right. Ethnic cleansing, genocide. And the people who did it have statues made of them and halls and buildings and schools named after them. They're on our fucking currency and we have days to celebrate them and we call them heroes and they did this and you tell us that it's good that we've let the suffering YOU AND I benefit from every day become banal.

And we do benefit so disgustingly from the rape, murder, torture, extermination, enslavement, and abuse of other peoples. Everything from the very land we're standing on to the wealth that allows us to have jobs and educations when others can't or get a much worse one is because of that.

I'm not better or less implicated than you by any means. I'm not. And I don't pretend that somehow it even makes me better that I get this and I want to change it. My good wishes and guilt and White Woman's Tears don't wash clean anything. And if the sands of time bury something so that the sting of it doesn't touch me or the stink of it doesn't cling to me, that is a tragedy, not something to be desired.

So fuck you, Elizabeth Bear, fuck you so, so, so, MUCH. Murder and genocide and torture and suffering and oppression are already mundane and banal enough in our culture. Fuck you and all those like you who think that if oppressed groups fight erasure and remember their history and openly grieve for what they've suffered and try to account for the damage done to them as part of their healing and rebuilding that they're "mythologizing". Just fuck you. God, I can't even begin to think of harsh enough words for you, I just can't. Not without turning to as oppressive and hurtful a tone as you've taken here.

But your disrespect is obvious and long standing, and it doesn't surprise me. Enrages me, yes. But surprise, no?

I mean, since you obviously couldn't be bothered to "walk away and think hard" about this BEFORE you dismissed the person who bravely spoke up to you. You couldn't have given them that decency or respect, could you?

Because what's a deathmarch to you, after all? Just a word for you to play with. Because it's not part of your history as a white citizen of the U.S. Because you don't look back and get to say "I don't know what nation any of my ancestors come from because they were rounded up, enslaved, had their names stripped, and became animals to those who bred, sold, and used them like property." Because nobody's ever rounded up your friends and neighbors and family members and shipped them like boxes or cattle to a place where they were intended to be worked to death or killed outright. Because nobody's ever come to you and said "sorry, this home you live in isn't yours, gotta go" and held a gun to you and make you walk from GEORGIA TO OKLAHOMA. Because your home, the place where you reside, has not seen active aggression from a foreign combatant in centuries. Because of course murder and torture and genocide are banal to you. They don't touch or affect you personally or culturally, so why shouldn't you play around with those words.

They don't hurt you after all. So why shouldn't you say "Soup Nazi" or "deathmarch" or any of those things. It isn't like it hurts you, and if it doesn't hurt you, it's obviously not important, is it?

I don't expect Elizabeth Bear to learn from this. After all, this interview here shows how willfully and deliberately clueless you keep yourself, and the hypocrisy inherent in such a thing.

A person can talk Nice White Lady things about "queering SF", but when to do so claiming one grew up so differently from the mainstream and are sort of beyond that White Male influence, but it's their words and actions that will tell me if they're a hypocrite or not.

When someone then asks you, after you talk about how populated with oppressed voices your childhood bookshelves were, what authors amazed and inspired you and only ONE is of color (and is Octavia Butler - because WOW, white people never read/like Octavia Butler. How radically diverse of you!), you absolutely are NOT beyond that influence whatsoever and in fact, you're rolling it.

That, friends and neighbors, is willful cluelessness. (Note: the first person who uses "blindness" in this discussion and isn't talking, literally, about a visual impairment of some kind, gets booted out of my space for good. Blindness is the lack of ability to see something, it describes a disability that many people have. Cluelessness is being able to see something and just not caring to. It's the ACTUAL descriptor of the hurtful things people do. It has nothing to do with blindness. Don't use that word. People who are blind don't deserve that shit, so don't exclude and disrespect them in this conversation.)

Saying you're beyond the influence of the dominant in literature and in society while acting out the same oppression-enforcing patterns shows me that you really have learned nothing and don't want to.

You think society isn't telling white people and indeed, all people, to make tragedy and horror banal and mundane on a daily basis? You think we somehow need more training in how to make ourselves immune to recognizing suffering in others and how it's wrong, and why we need to stop causing it and remember it so that we don't fucking do it again? We don't, especially not here in the U.S. We really, really don't. In fact, we need the opposite.

You can talk about how you want to get it right, and you can talk about how different your upbringing was and how you're beyond these influences or not as touched by them as everyone else or how you want to think hard about things - but it's your results that tell me the truth.

You may say you were brought up different, but your words and actions are no different than others who were brought up in those White, Protestant, Straight, Middle-Class homes and their culture that you think you're so removed from

You say you want to think hard, but you say the things that come from the mouth or the fingertips of people who aren't thinking at all and don't want to.

And maybe I'm holding this one person up as an example, but Elizabeth Bear? Is a drop of seawater in the OCEAN of this vast problem. If the micro describes the macro and gives an example, that's useful. Especially to me, because I'm another drop.

Because if I say "fuck you" Elizabeth Bear, fuck me for the comforts I enjoy at other people's expense. Fuck me for all the times I haven't listened, for how long it's taken to realize I need to. Fuck me if I ever think I'm better or beyond or exempt or finished. Fuck me if I forget. Fuck me if other's pain and suffering becomes banal and mundane to me.

And to miir, who spoke up and said something? Who pointed out what I've seen but kept my mouth closed about (to my shame)? Thank you for being brave and righteous. Thank you.




ETA: I will be moderating comments closely and carefully. Check yourself for privilege and then CHECK YOURSELF AGAIN before you comment. If you don't, I will shut down the thread and possibly ban you. I make no apologies. You want to spew your *isms, you can take it elsewhere.

And if anyone wants to try to Bear-'splain to me (oh yes, she's an adjective now) why that reply isn't as bad or horrible as I think it is? Just DON'T.


ETA 2: Spelling mistakes corrected, and I apologize for not having been more diligent about the spelling of Bataan.


ETA 3 (7-August): A cursory look seems to reveal that EBear has removed the deathmarching tags from her tags list and edited the offending entry to remove that word. However, no statement that she understands why it was offensive and will be making any effort in the future not to repeat her actions does not seem to be forthcoming.

Comments

[megwrites]

Thank you for making that comment.

*hugs* (if its wanted/appropriate).

[megwrites]

Yeah. Though, I'd rather not forget this wilful ignorance because that'll be the moment I start acting it out, knowing me and my privileges and my ability to put foot-in-mouth.

But yeah, not enough hot showers in all the world to wash off the stench of this.

*facepalm*. I'm so tired of my fellow White Woman SF/F Writers failing so hard like. I feel like I need to call a meeting and let them know that this shit is unacceptable and that they need to KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF, immediately.

[megwrites]

I vote for equal pissing offingness (I have no idea how to parse that with actual grammar) for both. Bear for not getting it, and that other person for reinforcing it.

That's been the problem in all this. There so many voices that are coming in to reassure Bear about how awesome she is and how it's just those mean PoC trying to be difficult and purposely "orcing" and how she's totally right and such a great person and she doesn't need to listen to them and she's perfectly correct in how to Treat Those Brown People.

I'm not surprised that the voices of dissent and hurt and the battle against erasure and appropriate get lost in the ocean of flattery or that Bear would rather listen to them than to those telling her that what she is doing is painful.

[megwrites]

Well, I hope you like what you find here. It's not all this sort of stuff. Some of it is sheer silliness.

But I'm glad that you liked the post.

[havocthecat]

I will, thank you! I hadn't seen that link; I'll go and read it now, and make sure to include a link.

Oh, EB. She doesn't seem to learn, does she?

[trickster_tree]

Oh, silliness is good, too! Otherwise I'd have to worry about your blood pressure, wouldn't I?

Also, all of your posts being similar would presumably require Bear and her ilk to be doing this kind of thing in public all the time, a prospect that makes me shudder. Ugh.

Re: Via network

[lamardeuse]

You think society isn't telling white people and indeed, all people, to make tragedy and horror banal and mundane on a daily basis? You think we somehow need more training in how to make ourselves immune to recognizing suffering in others and how it's wrong, and why we need to stop causing it and remember it so that we don't fucking do it again? We don't, especially not here in the U.S. We really, really don't. In fact, we need the opposite.

Here via glass_icarus - yeah, the above was kind of the central wtf? bit of her argument for me - that and the fact she's trying to argue that for her "politically correct" = "oppressive voice of mainstream 60's culture against poor oppressed hippies", which just, what? We've kind of moved on from there, honey. I have a note for her: stop using the term "politically correct" to describe people (often people of colour) who are trying to point out you are being an asshole on the Internets. Then you won't get confused with your halcyon days fighting The Man on the barricades of Haight-Ashbury.

[green_knight]

I've seen 'massacre' used casually: the team were massacred by their opponents (=they lost), the guests massacred the buffet.
'Decimate, in my idiom, does not involve '10%' - but it always has a sharp negative undertone, unlike 'reduce'. (You reduce seedlings, you decimate weeds).

For an icon, may I reccommend borrowing the shorter phrase of 'Oh E.Bear No'? That should have the right connotations.

(And, yeah. The correct response to 'you're standing on my foot' has _always_ been 'I'm sorry.' I admit that 'we shouldn't give so much power to bruises' is a new one for me.)

[green_knight]

For me, 'death march' has been associated mainly with the Trail of Tears, but it's a pretty self-explanatory phrase.

What gets me is the 'I'd forgotten this was pointed out to me,' because how can you forget that you've been offensive on an epic scale? I don't remember every post on my LJ either, but hurting people isn't on par with rambling about writing process.

Re: Via network

[pantryslut]

actually, fwiw, she's arguing that The Second-Wave Lesbians Who Raised Her used "politically correct" to police their community members ideologically.

I came out into a pretty hardcore lesbian separatist community in all my bisexual kinky glory, so I kinda know she's talking about. But as lanning said, "we are not children any more, Ms. Bear." To keep pretending at this late stage that her experience of the term in the past is the whole sum of its meaning now -- it's the very definition of willful ignorance. Emphasis on the willful.

Re: Via network

[megwrites]

Whatever she's arguing, it amounts to her saying that she has some right or imperative to erase and ignore other people's pain when it suits her and her view of How To Fix The World And All Those Other People.

I've seen her "I was raised by radical second-wave lesbians" excuse in pretty much EVERY discussion like this that comes up that she's part of. I find it to be disingenuous. Nor do I think that miir or any other person who comes to her and tells her that using "deathmarch" to describe something she does voluntarily and FOR MONEY is erasing and hurting them should give a flying fuck about it.

When someone is hurting you? How they were raised is not your problem and anyone who expects you to even give a damn IS the problem.

Why should any of Bear's upbringing matter to those who want her to stop appropriating and erasing their history just so she can look marginally clever (and shill some books)? Bringing it up as though it changes the level or amount of hurt she dealt to so many people is a clear sign of her disrespect and just how centered she is on herself and her own views of the world.

Her intentions, her thought processes, her philosophies do not change the reality of things for those she hurts and dismisses. Acting like it does or should or ever will is part of her waving around her privilege.

Yes, she may have been raised in a politically and personally toxic environment. A lot of other people I know were too. I come from the South (Tennessee specifically). So the argument that somehow, she's got a free pass because she was harmed by "political correctness" gives me a case of Epic Eyerolling. I've met a lot of people who claim they're victims of political correctness, for a lot of reasons. And none of them actually are.

Given what I know (from her own statements), she's the victim of an abusive household and subculture that manipulated/misused "political correctness" as a policing tool, not of "political correctness" (ie, the disuse of hurtful language and actions towards marginalized groups) itself. However, she seems unwilling to make this distinction, or realize how this abuse does not exempt her from making sure she's not being abusive towards other people.

And no amount of toxic upbringing gives you the right or the place to dismiss and erase other people's history and their present hurt as part of your own warped sense of liberating yourself. When your liberating of yourself hurts others, you stop being the abuse survivor and start becoming the abuser.

Elizabeth Bear keeps saying she wants to do better. Or "fail better" as she puts it, because apparently trying not to fail at all is beyond her. That's the problem here. Not only does she expect HER personal issues to be the problem of those she's hurt - but she talks about working within her awareness of those issues while not doing anything that actually looks like CHANGING HER BEHAVIORS.

She's been called on this TWICE. Both times, she's been dismissive and carried on doing that same hurtful thing without even offering a genuine apology that admits that she DID something hurtful.

So, no. I'm afraid it's actually worth very little.

Re: Via network

[pantryslut]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you. I am beyond frustrated with her unwillingness to make the distinction in the face of repeated conversations on the subject, the way she uses it as a shield.

Re: Via network

[megwrites]

Ah, okay. Didn't mean to scream at you or seem like I was completely blowing you off. I guess I just get frustrated with people who use their personal upbringing as a shield.

I'm not doubting that anyone raised in politically and personally toxic environments has to do some extra work in making sure they listen and act compassionately, but I guess I'm annoyed because she doesn't seem to get that mainstream American culture ITSELF is quite politically/socially toxic and that anyone exposed to it for any significant length of time is going to be bombarded with some pretty awful things.

Especially when that person keeps telling us all how hard they're trying but the actual effort and results of that effort are nowhere to be found.

Also, I don't want to seem like I'm dismissive of any of your experiences in life. Because that occurred to me later that this could be read as me saying that I was completely brushing off your POV, and I'm not. Because it is good to hear from someone who can speak to something resembling her experiences and still say, "Nope, you can go through this and still not be an utter jackass when people ask you nicely to stop hurting them".

Re: Via network

[pantryslut]

Thanks for the follow-up, it's very much appreciated, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to clarify my own position a bit, too.

Re: Via network

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth Bear keeps saying she wants to do better. Or "fail better" as she puts it, because apparently trying not to fail at all is beyond her.

It's part of a quote, actually: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett

:)

Re: Via network

[megwrites]

Yes, thank you, I was aware of that. But frankly, when her failure results in other people being hurt and her contributing to a massive problem that marginalizes and erases human tragedy, falling back on a Beckett quote as part of her guiding philosophy is obnoxious and obscene.

Also, caught your cute little comments about "words we can have" and "words we can't have" over on another journal. Because snow damage to your roof is COMPLETELY LIKE RAPE, MURDER, AND TORTURE and then people using those same atrocities as WITTICISMS.

Consider yourself banned, and also, consider yourself part of the problem.

Re: Via network

[kathryn_kat_allen]

So you were playing at being ignorant of the quote in order to further your rant? Would that be wilful cluelessness, or malicious cluelessness?

Incidentally, blind and blindness are not perjoratives -- clueless however is a way of calling someone so stupid they don't realise how stupid they are. (The heroine of the film Clueless, which popularised the word, is neither deliberately or maliciously ignoring the feelings of others.) And clueless is only ever used insultingly. Strange that you want to change a phrase so that its more insulting to people with stigmatised disabilities (such as autism).

Re: Via network

[megwrites]

Don't bother replying. You're banned. I have no interest in you defending the indefensible or waving privilege here as though you have any interest in actually engaging rather than defensively flailing. You obviously have no problem doing that in your own space, so take your shit elsewhere.

Incidentally, blind and blindness are not perjoratives

Using blind/blindness to describe the act of someone willfully ignoring facts and to equate inability to see with unwillingness to see IS insulting and frankly given that your post used some of the most appalling ablist language I've seen in a while (yes, let's make fun of phobias and then tell someone they're obviously mentally ill for thinking that MURDER and HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS are not to be used as puns and the lecture others).

I'd ask you to explain how it is that clueless = autistic in your mind (because assuming that to be on the Autistic Spectrum is somehow equated with "being so stupid you don't know how stupid you are" is not AT ALL INSULTING) or why you feel like defending the heroine of the movie Clueless is somehow relevant when your disdain for the pain and experiences of ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS is so evidently clear, but honestly? I have no wish to have any further conversation with you. Ever.

Re: Via network

[crossedwires]

Oh, look, appropriation of Chinese superstition too. DNW.

[surpassingly]

Excuse me? We're appropriating events now?

I hope megwrites will forgive me if I jump into this thread and get more heated than I usually like to be, but-- how dare you. How dare you. Those of us who are claiming the histories of our people are talking about these events as ours because they happened to our people, our families, and we're appropriating now? I do not see anyone here trying to erase the role of USAmerican soldiers in whatever atrocities of war we're discussing. By saying this happened to us we are in no way saying that this did not happen to them. But we are saying that the fact that this happened to us matters, that these deserve to be remembered and not erased or trampled upon, and we get accused of appropriating? Appropriating what, our own histories? We raise our voices, and suddenly we're depriving USAmericans of the right to speak?

And what you're implying re: "this was not an anti-Filipino event therefore this is not a race issue" is disingenuous at best and-- hangal, walang-hiya, kamuhi-muhi at worst. That a lot of white USAmericans can and do erase these things -- and encourage others to do the same -- at their leisure, at the expense of the lived experiences of people of color who keep getting told we're overreacting, we're looking to get offended, we're too angry, we're dogpiling, we're not acting like nice rational enlightened adults -- is ongoing reality, not just an artifact of megwrites's framing of this issue. You don't think this is a race issue? That's your prerogative. I certainly do not have the luxury of effacing race from my experience of seeing my history trampled upon by privileged white people.

(frozen)

[carmiel]

You're upset about human torture. I am too. Do you support Amesity International? Write to D.C.? What do.you do to help?

(frozen)

[jhameia]

Hey look! It's a Questioning Of Your Social Justice Cred! Because clearly, if you're talking about this on the Internet, clearly you must do Other Important Activisty Things Of Note such as Letter Writing to DC, or else all you're doing is spouting and thus invalid! Because addressing these issues on a personal level, WHICH IS POLITICAL, BTW, is not as valid as Letter Writing To DC and Giving Money to Amnesty International.

I donate on a pretty regular basis, thankyouverymuch. And meg is doing something to help: she's using her voice to speak out against injustice.

(frozen)

[megwrites]

What do.you do to help?

I start by respecting survivors and victims as human beings and teaching myself to recognize them as real, important, and worthy of my respect and compassion.

Because whether I donate a dime or a million dollars to these organizations or others, whether I write no letter or ten a day, whether I go to a hundred rallies or none, if I go around trivializing and making self-serving jokes of the very things I'm donating/writing against, if I go around telling the survivors/victims and their families, friends, and communities that their pain is so much ornamentation for my own self-aggrandization, then I might as well have done nothing. In fact, if I do that, I've basically shown that my activism is hypocrisy and that I'm doing it for the credibility it gives me rather than the results it may yield. I've shown that someone else's struggle is just something to put on my resume as proof that I'm a Really Nice White Liberal White Lady.

Money donations and writing letters to D.C. are forms of activism which favor the privileged and well-to-do. It favors those who, for instance, can afford to trust that their names, addresses, and political beliefs won't be used against them should they reveal them to an elected official. Money donations favor those who can afford them.

At this point I'm going to co-sign jhameia's comment, because she's very correct and remind you that it's quite ableist and exclusionary of you to pick certain activities and decide that these are the hallmarks of valid activism and others aren't.

You don't get to decide what constitutes "valid" or "real" or "important" activism and what doesn't. I've been over this before .

You are derailing and acting in a privileged manner. This thread is frozen. Derail again and you will be banned.

[megwrites]

You need no forgiveness. In fact, I'm really happy you've said all this and I fully and 100% support everything you've just said and I'm glad that you said it here.

You're absolutely right in everything you've said. Thank you for saying it.