Note: I am commenting publicly here and I have PMed half-vulcan with this same comment.
I'm going to start by saying that my first response to your comment is a heightening of the discomfort I already felt to the reactions to this post. I may post at greater length about how I feel about the response, but in brief, I feel as though I as a white person am being listened to, am being heard, because of the dispassion that I bring to the issue that I mention in the post itself. It is easy for me to achieve that dispassion, because the things the story represents don't affect me personally very much. I'm not saying anything here that commentors in bossymarmalade's pull quote post haven't said just as well, if without the luxury of my dispassion.
Also, I would never think poorly of you or anyone for feeling compassion and empathy for another human being. The lack of that is rather what brought us here. I do think that prioritizing or emphasizing the author's feelings is another way that she is more real to many people that the people her story exploits. But it is not for me to tell you or anyone how to feel. And that's a two way street, yes?
In a thread somewhere, someone very concerned about the author's feelings raised the issue of fandom as a safe space for people who are shy or socially awkward, or even just young and naïve, I suppose, and skywardprodigal asked if fandom is meant to be a safe space for Haitians. No answer was ever offered. A silence that speaks volumes.
bossymarmalade speaks here about two instances of misogynistic language used in the form of direct personal attack on the author. The contrast to the casual, calm, polite--dare I call it articulate--bit of deceptively non-violent looking, extreme racism she points to in her post is telling.
I'm not going to talk about the French/Creole/Jabber issue much, beyond saying that as a Canadian of a certain age, I have some familiarity with language politics and French language politics in particular, albeit outside of the context of Haiti. jazzypom wrote a post that is very thought-provoking on what makes a language, and the status accorded people based on how they speak and what they speak here.
I'm going to tell you a bit about me, partly because you shared your personal context, but I want to put what I am saying in a personal context too.
I am white, Canadian, in my mid-forties. I grew up in a very small town that was very nearly exclusively white, organized disdain of the majority was reserved for the Hungarian immigrants. I was raised in a tumultuous environment and ended up with a rather intense aversion to unfocused anger, but I have a temper of my own, and righteous rage has always tasted different to me. I have lived in everything from a fairly comfortable working-class consumerist paradise to where is the next meal coming from poverty.
That level of poverty in Canada is vast wealth to a Haitian whose house has collapsed and whose work place went down too, but I do recognize the classism in the story, the dismissal of people as people because of poverty as well as race and "foreignness". I recognize the classism in your statement here: My family is wealthy and I have never used being Black or being wealthy to hurt anyone. Even though I don't doubt for a moment its literal truth. I play in a fandom sandbox where the sentiment that, we're all college educated women, slides by with nothing but an occasional concern about the men left out of that we.
I also, as I said, recognize a very little bit, the taste of the righteous anger over what this story represents. Abstract, dispassionate conversations are all well and good, but people bleeding from a thousand cuts, the fresh ones from this story itself, are going to be angry and the characterization of their anger in metaphors which casts the author as a victim of systemic oppression is very troubling.
hackthis says here, facetiously, that I'm a better person that her. But I'm not, I'm just not bleeding from a thousand cuts.
And I think I'll shut up now, because it's not my place to tell you how to feel or what to think about this issue.
Re: half_vulcan on Live journal I am not anon
I'm going to start by saying that my first response to your comment is a heightening of the discomfort I already felt to the reactions to this post. I may post at greater length about how I feel about the response, but in brief, I feel as though I as a white person am being listened to, am being heard, because of the dispassion that I bring to the issue that I mention in the post itself. It is easy for me to achieve that dispassion, because the things the story represents don't affect me personally very much. I'm not saying anything here that commentors in
Also, I would never think poorly of you or anyone for feeling compassion and empathy for another human being. The lack of that is rather what brought us here. I do think that prioritizing or emphasizing the author's feelings is another way that she is more real to many people that the people her story exploits. But it is not for me to tell you or anyone how to feel. And that's a two way street, yes?
In a thread somewhere, someone very concerned about the author's feelings raised the issue of fandom as a safe space for people who are shy or socially awkward, or even just young and naïve, I suppose, and
I'm not going to talk about the French/Creole/Jabber issue much, beyond saying that as a Canadian of a certain age, I have some familiarity with language politics and French language politics in particular, albeit outside of the context of Haiti.
I'm going to tell you a bit about me, partly because you shared your personal context, but I want to put what I am saying in a personal context too.
I am white, Canadian, in my mid-forties. I grew up in a very small town that was very nearly exclusively white, organized disdain of the majority was reserved for the Hungarian immigrants. I was raised in a tumultuous environment and ended up with a rather intense aversion to unfocused anger, but I have a temper of my own, and righteous rage has always tasted different to me. I have lived in everything from a fairly comfortable working-class consumerist paradise to where is the next meal coming from poverty.
That level of poverty in Canada is vast wealth to a Haitian whose house has collapsed and whose work place went down too, but I do recognize the classism in the story, the dismissal of people as people because of poverty as well as race and "foreignness". I recognize the classism in your statement here: My family is wealthy and I have never used being Black or being wealthy to hurt anyone. Even though I don't doubt for a moment its literal truth. I play in a fandom sandbox where the sentiment that, we're all college educated women, slides by with nothing but an occasional concern about the men left out of that we.
I also, as I said, recognize a very little bit, the taste of the righteous anger over what this story represents. Abstract, dispassionate conversations are all well and good, but people bleeding from a thousand cuts, the fresh ones from this story itself, are going to be angry and the characterization of their anger in metaphors which casts the author as a victim of systemic oppression is very troubling.
And I think I'll shut up now, because it's not my place to tell you how to feel or what to think about this issue.