a tiny fist

auto-critique

Over the last week, I made a series of major, and increasingly larger, errors wrt race and ethnicity, to the point that it now appears I was co-opting POC anger as well as whitesplaining to POCs. While some of this came from my ignorance of salient facts - the ethnicity of those to whom I was speaking as well as some people’s mistaken presumption of my own ethnicity - that ignorance merely compounded the rest of my shit. I have apologized but my apologies are lacking. I am really sorry. I will no longer be speaking in these circles and I never should have spoken in the first place.

aeraspais:

tinyfist:

I appreciate the clarification. Obviously, I don’t know this person while it seems the rest of my dash does, so I should apologize for discomfiting you all.

I think where we’re failing to come together is that we’re discussing racebending. That’s something done to previously…

I’m posting this to let you know I have read your post. I fucked up, all the way throughout this, in several different ways. Though you didn’t owe me anything, I will be trying like hell to work on my shit, not least because of your post. Again, I am sorry for fucking up as royally and thoroughly as I did.

I was well aware you already apologized for your mistake, so you did not need to repost it, and it was obnoxious you did.  I do know how to read;—and, to be honest, I don’t even accepted.  Then fact is you did not extend it until after another white person entered the conversation makes me even less inclinded to.  I do hope, though, you make a serious conscious effort in understanding how and why you fucked up, because I am tired of seeing my supposed allies competing in a Who Can Fuck Up the Hardest™ contest.

I’m really sorry, I posted the “I’m posting this” as a reply to your post to me. I didn’t mean to simply repost my apology/post to Alliterate. I’m getting double notifications of all your reblogs and I overlloked which was the correct one to reply to.

    leatherpumpkin reblogged your post:     webslinging…

Okay, I know what race-bending is. As I said yesterday (though admittedly in a tag) is that when you go around trying to…

Okay, I hear your perspective on racebending. I did not read your tags and how they continued your point. I apologize for that. I also apologize for not knowing the identities of the people reading my post. It seems I should not have attempted to clarify to Alliterate what I understood; that was another mistake I made for which I also apologize.

    semierotic- reblogged your post:     webslinging…

SO YOU’RE WHITE

Yes.

For the record, full disclosure: I am white, overeducated, poor, fat, ugly as fuck, queer, mentally ill, and visually- and mobility-impaired. I think that covers most of the relevant identity categories.

alliterate:

tinyfist:

    webslinging reblogged your post: hint

With the exception of Captain America, every single character I listed is unbelievably privileged. And my point was that…

…but I wasn’t talking to you. If I had been talking to you, I’d’ve included it in my reblog to your discussion with skalja. That discussion did include the phrase “work better as white”, though I thought Skalja used it (as a shorthand), but so do most of these racebending go-arounds. I apologize for the lack of clarity on my part. The phrase triggered my thought process recounted here.

I do disagree with you that the presence of privilege and whiteness are inherently meaningful, narratively. Certainly they *can* be - there are some great stories in the Steve Rogers canon that actually highlight his status ethnically and classwise - but most of the stories about Bruce Wayne et al. take their privilege for granted, if not outright reinforce and celebrate them. That doesn’t work for me.

And if Gatsby is getting racebent, that is news to me.

I just want to jump in here and say that I think that was Raven’s point — that so many stories about Bruce Wayne are so steeped in white privilege she finds it difficult to imagine him existing without that privilege, because it shapes so much of who he is in comics, so much of the stories that have built his character over all these decades. Nowhere was the reinforcement and celebration of that described as a good thing, just as a thing that exists and happens every day in comics canon, as you yourself pointed out here. I mean, this really is not my argument to be having, and I don’t want to step on toes here, so I really apologize if I am — I’m white and I’m coming at this from a place of extreme privilege myself. But I think you’re misreading what Rae is saying, which is not that racebent Bruce Wayne is inherently bad or that nobody should do it, but that she, personally, cannot conceive of him existing without that white privilege since his character is so deeply built on it.

I appreciate the clarification. Obviously, I don’t know this person while it seems the rest of my dash does, so I should apologize for discomfiting you all.

I think where we’re failing to come together is that we’re discussing racebending. That’s something done to previously existing characters. So the canonically privileged Bruce is still there. Racebending him in some way that might highlight aspects of his privilege that go unremarked in canon doesn’t erase that white guy. In fact, it’s impossible without him. (And that’s why racebending can’t stand in for exploring actually existing chromatic characters, let alone making more of them.) So I guess I get confused about what’s being said: why not racebend? It’s like suggesting we should only read one writer of canon and never write fanfic, if only one version “works” best. Multiplicity of interpretation is a good thing to me.

I’m going to bow out here, because I’m not comfortable arguing this when it apparently looks like I’m doing it in bad faith or whatever. I’m not, and, yes, I’m white, too, and I’ll just leave it at that.

(Source: tinyfist-blog-blog, via alliterate-deactivated20120901)

    codalion replied to your post:     webslinging…

Captain America’s not privileged? Since when? I thought the point of race/gender/otherwisebending characters was to counteract the ridiculous overload of default-privileged characters in canons. /agreeing with you

Yeah, Cap isn’t *rich*, that’s true, but he’s really goddamn privileged on lots of other axes that I can see. Unlike Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark, he’s aware of some of his privilege, too.

But, yes, that’s what I thought racebending was for, too.

    webslinging reblogged your post: hint

With the exception of Captain America, every single character I listed is unbelievably privileged. And my point was that…

…but I wasn’t talking to you. If I had been talking to you, I’d’ve included it in my reblog to your discussion with skalja. That discussion did include the phrase “work better as white”, though I thought Skalja used it (as a shorthand), but so do most of these racebending go-arounds. I apologize for the lack of clarity on my part. The phrase triggered my thought process recounted here.

I do disagree with you that the presence of privilege and whiteness are inherently meaningful, narratively. Certainly they *can* be - there are some great stories in the Steve Rogers canon that actually highlight his status ethnically and classwise - but most of the stories about Bruce Wayne et al. take their privilege for granted, if not outright reinforce and celebrate them. That doesn’t work for me.

And if Gatsby is getting racebent, that is news to me.