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syncope at 09:17am on 02/02/2009
syncope at 09:17am on 02/02/2009We have a lot of leftovers kicking around the house. Normally I am shit about eating leftovers, however, I just knocked together a lunch consisting of toasted whole grain french bread, huntsman cheese, and leftover rare lamb. Drool, internets!
Alright, I just deleted a whole post complaining about my life. This is typical in that I can't even bring myself to complain in my own dang livejournal. Thanks, mom, for that training. Change: I'm doing it wrong.
A few of my thoughts.
We can't all be Ursula le Guin but here is what she had to say about Earthsea. I didn't read this when the miniseries aired for whatever reason (utter disgust, probably), but I just read it now. There's a lot that could be said about the placement of her in a social context (privileged white woman who could make a stand because she could fall back on the expectation of a half-decent life otherwise), but anyway the books exist.
Personally, I think the commentary in the current conversation that touches on "oh well, I give up, why try when people are just going to drag me over the coals" is dangerous, cowardly, and comes from a place where not-caring is even an option. People are critical of all writing on many levels. You might have heard of courses you can take from accredited colleges called "Literary Criticism"--that's about trees, right?
In what way is it a surprise that people bring all of their life experience to the reading of any text? When I read Vanity Fair articles I often roll my eyes at fatheaded, white, male, East Coast intellectuals because I personally find those people insufferable. Very recently I read the Otori cycle and spent a good deal of time wondering if the books were cultural appropriation and came to no conclusion on that. One of the many books I'm currently flitting around is Doing Our Own Thing by John McWhorter, and my reading of that is mostly impacted by my views on language "degradation" and what I see as the little Dutch boy finger poking so often seen in academia with regards to language evolution in an increasingly egalitarian (in the sense of usage) world.
My point here, is that racial dynamics and realities are one of the myriad lenses that texts are refracted through. It happens to be a lens that freaks (white) people out, but if one could step back and realize that this is just one of the aspects people bring into reading a text and not some super scary monster waiting to fuck white people over, I think we could move the debate from I AM SCARED to ALRIGHT I SEE YOUR POINT. By seeing someone's point you're not conceding you did anything wrong or that you're wrong-thinking. You're simply being a grown up who realizes that each individual has their own thoughts and feelings--just like you. I'm sure you've read a book or an article about some group you're in and thought "WHAT THE HELL???" This is a fairly universal experience. The human condition is universal, the expression of that condition is individual.
While it's sometimes comical, sometimes awful to see one's own group described incorrectly, it's poignant and important to self-worth to see one's group presented affectingly and well. This is the point being made time and again when PoC or other minorities discuss under representation in the media. So when one promises to disengage from writing PoC at all it is a threat not a bowing out. It's saying "you ingrates, look what you made me do to you!" I think we can agree that's a pretty shitty response to something like "I see troubling themes of colonial attitudes in this text." Have you never read a book about your group that pinged some "OH DAMN NO!" bells? Never? You might have even noticed troubling themes about a group you're not even in. Noticing themes an author might not have noticed isn't the end of the world. We were all trained to do that in English class (if you went to school in English). Remember reading Emily Dickinson (insert your own author here), just before you nodded off you might have been taught to see things in her poems she never intended but readers noticed later. Just like all art forms, the written word has a social context whether the author sees it or not.
Now back to the topic at hand. Maybe I can appeal to people on a selfish level: the most important person in your life is you. What if I didn't gave a shit about your feelings, perspective, and thoughts? What if I had no compunction about telling you that overtly and through codes? What if you finally got tired of that and spoke up about it only for me to say if only you'd framed your objections in my terms I might have listened?
Why is everything about me? Because I said so. Also, for having the audacity to try to infringe on ME talking about ME I'm going to disregard anything and everything you have to say in perpetuity. Make it all about you. Do this as a thought experiment. You can make the bad guy me. Imagine me laughing at you. Imagine all the flocked lj posts and private emails I send to my friends laughing at you for expressing an objection to my opinions or actions. Imagine I'm ubiquitous and inescapable. Imagine I ask you to see me as the correct standard for your self-worth. Make it more complicated because I'm not always awful--sometimes I can be funny, engaging, intriguing, and semi-decent in my own way--but I'm never escapable. I am on your television, in your books, on your box cereal, in your hospitals, in your Congress, in your schools, and maybe even in your bed.
Can you see through my opaque analogy?
Now apply what would be a lifetime's worth of that analogy to every action you take. How can you, then, really be a threat to me? I can choose to listen to you or not. I can choose to care or not. *If* I choose to care, I set the framing of my caring and put the limitations on how much I'll care. When I choose, I can stop caring again.
Apply this to accusations of PoC oppressing anyone in our society. Ever. But in particular in the current online, literary conversation. Who is the inescapable bully? What does it mean to tell someone who has no voice they're bullying? What does it mean to be complacent when these claims happen? Really make it about you. Fully make it about you by imagining what that would actually feel like. Do that every time you open a comment window.
To cycle this back to Le Guin, she didn't just throw her hands in the air and say "forget it, I might get criticism, so I won't even try." Who knows what she did say, to be honest, maybe "pass me another cup of grog" or "it always rains on Fridays," but the important part is that she wrote the damned books. She stepped into the void and wrote a series of books that, yes, some people might find troubling and culturally appropriating, but that many PoC YA readers experienced as cherished parts of their youth. The opportunity to be somewhat represented EXISTED. Everything a person does has ripples, saying that receiving criticism is a reason to not even try is giving up.
If you give up, can I have all your stuff?
Alright, I just deleted a whole post complaining about my life. This is typical in that I can't even bring myself to complain in my own dang livejournal. Thanks, mom, for that training. Change: I'm doing it wrong.
A few of my thoughts.
We can't all be Ursula le Guin but here is what she had to say about Earthsea. I didn't read this when the miniseries aired for whatever reason (utter disgust, probably), but I just read it now. There's a lot that could be said about the placement of her in a social context (privileged white woman who could make a stand because she could fall back on the expectation of a half-decent life otherwise), but anyway the books exist.
Personally, I think the commentary in the current conversation that touches on "oh well, I give up, why try when people are just going to drag me over the coals" is dangerous, cowardly, and comes from a place where not-caring is even an option. People are critical of all writing on many levels. You might have heard of courses you can take from accredited colleges called "Literary Criticism"--that's about trees, right?
In what way is it a surprise that people bring all of their life experience to the reading of any text? When I read Vanity Fair articles I often roll my eyes at fatheaded, white, male, East Coast intellectuals because I personally find those people insufferable. Very recently I read the Otori cycle and spent a good deal of time wondering if the books were cultural appropriation and came to no conclusion on that. One of the many books I'm currently flitting around is Doing Our Own Thing by John McWhorter, and my reading of that is mostly impacted by my views on language "degradation" and what I see as the little Dutch boy finger poking so often seen in academia with regards to language evolution in an increasingly egalitarian (in the sense of usage) world.
My point here, is that racial dynamics and realities are one of the myriad lenses that texts are refracted through. It happens to be a lens that freaks (white) people out, but if one could step back and realize that this is just one of the aspects people bring into reading a text and not some super scary monster waiting to fuck white people over, I think we could move the debate from I AM SCARED to ALRIGHT I SEE YOUR POINT. By seeing someone's point you're not conceding you did anything wrong or that you're wrong-thinking. You're simply being a grown up who realizes that each individual has their own thoughts and feelings--just like you. I'm sure you've read a book or an article about some group you're in and thought "WHAT THE HELL???" This is a fairly universal experience. The human condition is universal, the expression of that condition is individual.
While it's sometimes comical, sometimes awful to see one's own group described incorrectly, it's poignant and important to self-worth to see one's group presented affectingly and well. This is the point being made time and again when PoC or other minorities discuss under representation in the media. So when one promises to disengage from writing PoC at all it is a threat not a bowing out. It's saying "you ingrates, look what you made me do to you!" I think we can agree that's a pretty shitty response to something like "I see troubling themes of colonial attitudes in this text." Have you never read a book about your group that pinged some "OH DAMN NO!" bells? Never? You might have even noticed troubling themes about a group you're not even in. Noticing themes an author might not have noticed isn't the end of the world. We were all trained to do that in English class (if you went to school in English). Remember reading Emily Dickinson (insert your own author here), just before you nodded off you might have been taught to see things in her poems she never intended but readers noticed later. Just like all art forms, the written word has a social context whether the author sees it or not.
Now back to the topic at hand. Maybe I can appeal to people on a selfish level: the most important person in your life is you. What if I didn't gave a shit about your feelings, perspective, and thoughts? What if I had no compunction about telling you that overtly and through codes? What if you finally got tired of that and spoke up about it only for me to say if only you'd framed your objections in my terms I might have listened?
Why is everything about me? Because I said so. Also, for having the audacity to try to infringe on ME talking about ME I'm going to disregard anything and everything you have to say in perpetuity. Make it all about you. Do this as a thought experiment. You can make the bad guy me. Imagine me laughing at you. Imagine all the flocked lj posts and private emails I send to my friends laughing at you for expressing an objection to my opinions or actions. Imagine I'm ubiquitous and inescapable. Imagine I ask you to see me as the correct standard for your self-worth. Make it more complicated because I'm not always awful--sometimes I can be funny, engaging, intriguing, and semi-decent in my own way--but I'm never escapable. I am on your television, in your books, on your box cereal, in your hospitals, in your Congress, in your schools, and maybe even in your bed.
Can you see through my opaque analogy?
Now apply what would be a lifetime's worth of that analogy to every action you take. How can you, then, really be a threat to me? I can choose to listen to you or not. I can choose to care or not. *If* I choose to care, I set the framing of my caring and put the limitations on how much I'll care. When I choose, I can stop caring again.
Apply this to accusations of PoC oppressing anyone in our society. Ever. But in particular in the current online, literary conversation. Who is the inescapable bully? What does it mean to tell someone who has no voice they're bullying? What does it mean to be complacent when these claims happen? Really make it about you. Fully make it about you by imagining what that would actually feel like. Do that every time you open a comment window.
To cycle this back to Le Guin, she didn't just throw her hands in the air and say "forget it, I might get criticism, so I won't even try." Who knows what she did say, to be honest, maybe "pass me another cup of grog" or "it always rains on Fridays," but the important part is that she wrote the damned books. She stepped into the void and wrote a series of books that, yes, some people might find troubling and culturally appropriating, but that many PoC YA readers experienced as cherished parts of their youth. The opportunity to be somewhat represented EXISTED. Everything a person does has ripples, saying that receiving criticism is a reason to not even try is giving up.
If you give up, can I have all your stuff?
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