10% of Your LJ Experience

The tail end of last Friday, a link on my flist led me to the incredibly detailed lists of posts collected by http://rydra-wong.livejournal.com/

It's been almost a week, and I've barely touched the surface of it, despite having spent hours and reading dozens and dozens of posts and hundreds if not thousand of comments. But I've read enough to become really, really angry. I've read enough to wake up dreaming about it last night and wake up upset and unable to think of anything else.

I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir here - god I hope I am, and thank god I am - but - this is just NOT ok.

Some of the issues I've been aware of and bothered by for years - the depiction and lack of PoC in visual media. And yet even with that, I fail and miss things and only realize it after the fact that with all my pointing out the sexist issues with Castle, I failed to mention that almost every person at the book release party was a young, glamorous/wealthy, pretty *white* person.

Other issues are - awfully - new to me, and I hadn't realized just how bad the exclusion is in the written medium, much less in fandom itself. I have been graceless and clueless in the past, and I'll probably be so again in the future. I will continue to try to work on that.

I read Scalzi's post and the *godawful* comments that just continue to pile up on it, and I feel frustrated and sick and ashamed of a genre that I love that that many people - both professionals in the industry and their fans - continue to make excuses, continue to mischaracterize the situation, continue to dismiss something that has been spelled out for them line by line. And that they're being so self-congratulatory on how calm and rational they are in doing so.

So I just wanted to say that I do not dismiss problematic portrayal or lack of characters of color in SF/F, in the exclusion of PoC in either a fannish or author role. I do not dismiss it, I see it, I know that it is real and that it's a problem and that it's wrong.

I am still feeling out what I can do. But I can say - I am going to actively seek out more SF/F books by PoC, and that I have already started. And I will continue to listen, to seek out information and perspectives, to try to learn and to ask hard questions of myself.

(I'm reluctant to hit the post button on this right now, because I feel like there are far, far too many *I* statements in this, but it's the only framework I can work in at all right now. I originally disabled comments because of that, but that makes me feel even weirder and also I am not explaining that right so I stop now.)

I put too much water in my oatmeal this morning. It is driving me freaking insane. I'm going to continue eating it because the whole 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day' but the thing is, it's *really* good oatmeal when it's not watered down because my hand shook when I was pouring in the boiling water and so it's extra tragic. It's not even actually oatmeal, it's an 'all natural multi grain hot ceral' with oats plus other things like whole grain wheat and rye and barley and flaxseed and there's NO FREAKING CORN SYRUP in it and it's my second-to-last box (please Aldi's, bring it back soon into your rotation) and it's awesome except for THIS watery version.

*sigh*

Last night my Nephbo was like "My friends K and T can't come to my babysitter's anymore because their dad lost his job. So I am writing them a note because on the news there was a website you can use to find jobs". And my heart simultaneously breaks because god, the economy freaking sucks (and we're not hit nearly as hard as a lot of cities) and also because I really like the person Nephbo is becoming. Well, when he's not scowling and getting pissed off because he can't have dessert NOW and *also* in the morning for breakfast. Which happened a mere hour later, so you know, we're still working on perfection.

For work, I am reading The Secretby Rhonda Byrne.

We're supposed to positively visualize our world domination, I think. A mantra of "We Rule the World. All Bows before Us."

On the other hand, CoWorker L. started my day off surprising me with a vanilla latte *just* because she could. I did not even have to visualize it!

Today's LuthorCorp Thought for the Day is *appalling*, in the way that it always is +1:

Everyone in this world walks around with two buckets: a bucket of gasoline and a bucket of water. When you see the spark of a problem fire being lit, we can choose to douse it with water and put it out, or we can throw gasoline on it and make it worse. Choose wisely...

LuthorCorp, I think the problem with your analogy is that problems are meant to be SOLVED, not smothered or inflamed. Of course, arundhathi might suggest that maybe the spark should be carefully tended and the energy of it harnassed for the greater good. Like, perhaps, using it to warm people and make them comfortable and also to toast marshmallows.