swim through the fires to stay in this world

So, during one of the instances of race!fail over the past year and a half, I had a thought that I never posted about and a recent picspam reminded me of.

During the conversations about writers using trite (and usually edible) descriptors for CoC, I remember thinking that part of the problem (at least in my case) is that the media is so white-dominated that authors don't spend enough time just looking at people of different ethnicities.

So I thought it would be a great idea to do a comment spam full of images of people of color. I'll start us off with Adam Moore (I discovered this basball player via multibeautiful, which is a dreamwidth community all about images of non-caucasian beauties).

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Zetta Elliot wrote a guest post on Justine Larbalestier's blog. Now, there is a hell of a lot to unpack and discuss in her post but I'm going to focus on one part of that which I feels relates directly to me, as an aspiring author: 

 "I must confess that lately, the only white-authored books I read are those about people of color. I sometimes feel obligated to read these books in order to ascertain whether or not black people are being misrepresented by white authors who mean well, but don’t really have a clue. I generally expect white authors to get it wrong, but sometimes they do surprise me (Liar would be one example; Octavian Nothing Vol. 1 is another) so it’s important to keep an open mind. Mostly I just wish white authors would leave people of color alone. I appreciate their desire to be inclusive, but statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center show that there are more books about African Americans than by African Americans."

Now, I totally relate to how Elliot feels on an emotional level (and probably would feel the same way in her shoes) but as someone who does want to write CoC and be more inclusive, it's quite frustrating. Does me writing a book with black characters prevent a black author from getting published? If CoC are unrepresented in mainstream fiction, especially sci fi and fantasy, wouldn't having CoC, even if written by someone white, make it MORE likely for young people of color to feel enouraged about writing or make publishes more likely to accept books with CoC?

Now, I'm not positive the answer to all of these questions is 'yes' but I keeps like Elliot is requesting that we keep the status quo, quo, which... doesn't seem to be doing much for equality.

Happy MLK Day. Please enjoy some political/social commentary:

Why I Think RaceFail Was The Bestest Thing Ever for SFF

 I have bitched about the term 'gyped' and how it's racist before, but let me add this: if you're going to use this out-dated and offensive term, at least fucking spell it right.

ETA: while I was away from my computer and things got heated in the comments. Adding my personal replies would feel like stepping into a minefield at this point, and quite frankly I don't have the patience or energy. If you have more to say on this issue, say it on your own ljs. Comments are disabled.

These last two days have given me emotional whip-lash. I feel like I need a nice long crying jag to feel okay again.

Some links from my flist and surfing the web:

Obama's speech in Cairo

Describing characters of color

Except from 'Men On Rape' (warning: there is an interview with a man at the end of this that is incredibly triggering.)

Also, I want to point out, because I don't think that this statistic is not talked about as often as it should be, 60 percent of women who fight back against attempted rapists are successful.

Also, flist? *hugs*