Thing is, I don’t believe there’re 20 of them for every one of us (black or white or other) who wants to make things right; I think there’s actually somewhat fewer of them. But for each white supremacist (and for each person of any color who wants to make things right) there are 20 nice, well-meaning, but privileged and entitled white people who thing “racism is bad” but have no idea whatsoever that real racism exists, or what it’s like to be a target of it. Or how much they have benefited from their European coloring, and from not having centuries of slavery and legally enforced poverty limiting every aspects of the parents’ and grandparents’ and great-great-great-grandparents’ lives.

This got me thinking about those white folks who exist in that liminal space where they are against racism but don’t understand how it works and get defensive, hurt, and freaked out when folks point out how they benefit from it without trying. We saw a lot of that on the Thank You thread before the others showed up. I am wondering how you turn that kind of person into an ally. I’m wondering if maybe I cannot simply because, when they read my words, they are so filled with defensiveness and perhaps guilt, nothing I say can get through. If they can’t listen to me, can they maybe listen to other White people?

And that got me wondering if this was true for any kind of ally. Is it easier to understand oppression, to move past guilt and on to useful dialogue, etc., if the person explaining these things to you in-depth is a person like yourself? White or male or straight or Christian or whatever? I don’t know. But as this is the Internet, it should be easy to figure out.

I call a Carnival. The Carnival of Allies. Where self-identified allies write to other people like themselves about why this or that oppression and prejudice is wrong. Why they are allies. Why the usual excuses are not good enough. I figure allies probably know full well all the many and various arguments people throw up to make prejudice and oppression okay. Things that someone on the other side of the fence may not hear. Address those things and more besides.

And when I say allies, I’m talking about any and every type. PoC can be (and should be) allies to other PoC, or to LGBTQ people if they are straight, or any number of other combinations. If you feel like you’re an ally and have something to say about that, you should submit to this carnival.

Now for the nitty — this is how it’ll work. I’m not sure if this carnival will happen more than once, so I’ll keep it local for now. Submit links (with short descriptions) via this contact form:

by May 5th. I’ll run the Carnival itself on the 2nd or 3rd week of May. Instead of doing it all in one post, I will make a week out of it. Every day for 5 days there will be links and discussions about allies, ally work, etc.

Spread the word!

ETA: A few people are confused about how a Carnival works, so here’s a short explanation. If you’d like to be in the Carnival, write a post on the topic at hand. Then publish the post at your blog whenever you feel like doing so/you’re done writing. Once you’ve published the post, come back here and submit the link plus a short description of the post in the form ABOVE (not in the comments below).

Once I get all of the submissions in, I will go through and decide which posts to include in the Carnival. I will link to your blog, excerpting from the post or describing it. Then more people will go to your blog and read your post.

Clear? If you’ve never seen a Carnival before, check out my right sidebar. I’ve linked to some of the Carnivals that linked to me.

Allies Talking -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

But I just got back from a trip back home, and it’s made me more contemplative about the past than the present. Bear with me; this is a bit rambly.

“Home” for me covers several places, but the one that holds the most claim on the title is Mobile, Alabama. It was Mardi Gras time in fair Mobile last week — yes, yes, there are actually many cities besides New Orleans which celebrate it, N.O. was just the one that got famous, Mobile’s is more family-friendly and less infested with stupid college kids, anyway let’s move on. I haven’t done Mardi Gras in Mobile since my late teens, so for me this was a trip down memory lane — even more so since an old college friend of mine was in town too. Right out of the gate we hit up the Mystics of Time parade, which has always had a Chinese theme, complete with fire-breathing dragon floats. I have fond memories of being thrilled and delighted by these as a kid.

This year, I noticed some things I hadn’t before. The elaborate dragon floats, compared to their human-powered counterparts in Chinatown during New Year celebrations, were pretty tired-looking and dull. The oldest of them, Vernadean, had to be dragged by a pickup truck; that pretty much blew my fond nostalgia all to hell. Also, the dragon floats no longer breathe fire, probably because, y’know, FIRE. (Yeah, well, running for my life never hurt me none when I was little…) But other things hadn’t changed. The crowds, cheering for Moonpies. The bands, sashaying and jamming their way down the street. The maskers on the floats, festively attired in bright red Han-dynasty costumes and… yellowface masks.

Yeah. Definitely didn’t notice that part when I was a kid.

I looked over at my friend, who had noticed it too. She grimaced and said, “Yeah, well. You know how this town is. This place doesn’t change.”

See, Mardi Gras was never the anything-goes party that tourists see. In most of the towns that celebrated it, Mardi Gras came only once a year, but Jim Crow was year-round. The original Mardi Gras organizations (called “krewes”) were all white, and some of them were just the shiny happy drunk face of the local KKK. The parades didn’t originally travel through black neighborhoods, and if any black people appeared along the parade route, the maskers wouldn’t throw anything to them. So eventually black krewes started to form, which didn’t have the money to match the flash and glitter of the white ones — but they made up for this with style. Among other things, black marching bands developed a tradition of dance-stepping that was so much fun that even white people would turn out to see it. (And the black people would throw to them. Wasn’t smart not to. The lines of power in Mobile have always been very clear.)

As Mardi Gras became more of a tourist attraction, some of the old traditions got whitewashed a bit. It was a matter of practicality, not enlightenment. Nowadays the parades all follow one of two basic routes, which both go through a demographic mix of neighborhoods. The white parades now throw to black crowds, though there are still some issues (noted below). The black krewes, I’m told, have admitted a few Asians and Latina/os, though of course I couldn’t see past the masks to verify this. Most parades employ a mix of black and white bands — and the white bands have learned to shimmy a bit.

But a lot of things are still the same, especially once you scratch past the surface. The black krewes might have opened things up a little, but the white krewes haven’t. (Rumors were flying this year about a white out-of-towner who’d received a coveted invitation to one of the more popular krewe’s balls — only to be turned away when he brought his black wife.) The krewes still make it clear who their preferred audience is. They often throw stuffed animals to kids along the parade route, but this year there were complaints of black kids getting used, dirty stuffed animals. (This did happen; my friend brought her two-year-old with her, and one of the teddy bears she received on his behalf was gray with dirt and smelled like urine.) At the M.O.T. parade, I stood amid a mostly black crowd near a small knot of white paradegoers. I had to move — it was too dangerous to be near the white people, who got showered with so much stuff that I thought I might get a concussion. And it’s really only the younger generation, black and white, that attends parades regardless of krewe, note. Many older folks on both sides, remembering the unwritten rules of the past, still don’t cross the lines. My mom only goes to the black parades. She just had too many ugly experiences at the white ones, during her formative years, to take a chance on them now.

However, as with Mardi Gras, practicality may soon force further changes on Mobile. What was a majority-white town in my youth now stands poised to become majority-black. There was always a small Jewish population in town, and when I was growing up there were infinitesimal populations of Latinas/os, Asians, Native Americans, and others. But these days the population of Asians is growing — mostly recent immigrants from southeast Asian countries. (My mother proudly informed me there’s now a sushi restaurant in town. Really!) Also, Hurricane Katrina pushed a lot of New Orleanians into Mobile who are pretty much becoming permanent, and while these are mostly black and white too, they bring a more cosmopolitan outlook, and a greater economic diversity than is common in the town. (Like many Southern towns, Mobile is a very binary place — mostly black and white, dirt-poor and affluent, Evangelical and areligious, without a lot of “in between”. The New Orleanians bring the in between.) And new European-owned corporations that are setting up factories and headquarters in town promise to bring in entirely new populations never before seen in the city limits: young, diverse, affluent techies; and affluent foreigners.

I imagine this will trigger all manner of changes in Mobile in the future, and of course these changes will be reflected in Mardi Gras. This year there were complaints about the yellowface masks and the dirty stuffed animals in the letters column of the paper, which I found heartening. Could we one day see integrated krewes, and parade themes which aren’t full of cultural appropriation and gross stereotypes? Maybe, though probably no time soon. Mobile’s got a long way to go in that respect.

(I bring all this up not to suggest that the South is more racist than the North, note. I hear that crap all the time, and it’s bull. I’ve lived in Mobile, New Orleans, Washington DC, Boston, and New York, and I’ve seen overt racism in all those places; the South’s just more open and honest about it.)

But as I listen to today’s media doing its damnedest to imply that racism is a thing of the past, or a lesser thing than sexism, or an esoteric thing existing only between the varied shades of brown, I can’t help but privately marvel. I know they don’t pay much attention to the Mobiles of the nation, but there are a hell of a lot more Mobiles than there are New Yorks. It’s dangerous to ignore them. (As this book explained so well, to digress for a moment.) More dangerous still to reduce these microcosms of America to simple black-and-white equations. No matter how simplistic this stuff might seem on the surface, change is always taking place underneath. The nuances are always there, and it’s stupid to pretend otherwise.

Anyway, I’m off to enjoy the pralines I brought back as souvenirs, and to do some letter-writing to add my voice to the complaints about Mardi Gras racism. Every little bit helps.

(Side-note — if you’re wondering what pralines are, these are still the best I’ve ever had. They’ll make you eat your tongue, as folks say down there.)

Carnival time in old Mobile -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

First, there’s my review of Acacia (fantasy… with brown people!  omg) and an excerpt from my interview with the author.

Next, my rant about Stargate: Atlantis.

Then a post about the last season of CSI and the stupidly racist storyline that would not die.

Also worthy of a look, the 16th Erase Racism Carnival at Alas, A Blog, which is full of links to things I kept saying “I should blog about that!” and never did.

Finally, the People of Colour SF Carnival 2 which is equally wonderful and chock full of good links.  I also neglected to mention the first People of Colour SF Carnival, and that was bad of me.  Especially since it is so awesome.

Speaking of neglect, I realized today that I never, ever linked to this piece I did for Racewire.  Arg!  It was a while ago, too.  I really need to stop being such a flake.

Anyway, go read and comment and such.  Also, I declare this an Open Thread for any random thing you all want to talk about.

Linky Carnival -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Not getting enough hot and smexxy race-related discussion here on ABW? Well, you’re in luck, because it’s International Blog Against Racism Week again! Last year’s IBARW was an impromptu event that pretty much boiled out of the confluence of a Wiscon panel, a multi-blog-discussion on cultural appropriation that got pretty heavy, and a whole bunch of people collectively deciding that we need to talk more about this stuff. You can find the roundup of last year’s discussions on the link provided (which goes to the new IBARW community, where this year’s discussions will be tracked), as well as “against racism” icons and resources to use if you decide to blog against racism too.

Which you should. Here’s how, if you’re a blogger:

1. Announce the week in your blog. (Doesn’t have to be an LJ blog, though you might have to get an LJ account to create a link post in the IBARW LJ community. If you’re feeling too lazy to do that, drop me an email or post the link in the comments here, and I’ll use my LJ account to post it for you. Ain’t I nice?)

2. If you use icons on your blog or elsewhere, switch your default icon to either an official IBAR week icon, or one which you feel is appropriate (see the link above for icons).

3. Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of a race that isn’t yours, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc.

That’s it. Easy, huh?

Actually, it’s not. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the weeks since I started guest-blogging here at ABW, it’s that it’s hard to talk about racism. It’s infuriating. Frightening. Crazy-making. I’m a pretty mild-mannered, optimistic person, and some of the crap I’ve heard here on this blog has made me both incandescent with rage and cynical about our future as a species.

And yet I keep talking. I have to. In our society it has become increasingly common to equate discussion of race with racism. I’ve heard it over and over again, even from supposedly intelligent people — “If you would just stop talking about it, racism will go away!” Which makes me wonder whether aliens have kidnapped a large percentage of our population and secretly replaced their brains with Taster’s Choice. Yes, racism is a social concept, not a biological one. Yes, it’s an invention from a bygone era, when it was vitally important to a number of global powers and institutions to establish a ranking difference between Us and Them (and Them and Them and Them). And yes, theoretically, ending racism is as simple as shedding all those racist ideas and treating everyone equally. But before we decide that racism no longer exists, it needs to actually no longer exist, and right now that’s not the case. Right now racism is alive and kicking, thriving even, and y’know what? This whole “stop talking about it” attitude? Protects it. Enables it. Blinds those who would otherwise see it. Lulls those who would otherwise be vigilant against it, into complacency.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt; denial keeps racism going strong.

So. For one week, I charge every one of you to join IBARW, and become your own Angry [insert ethnicity] [insert gender]. Talking about racism isn’t the only way to fight it, or even the best way, I’ll admit. But talking about it damn sure helps.

So get to it. =)

International Blog Against Racism Week, the Sequel -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

This is a very media-heavy edition, mainly because media issues are very interesting to me. The summer movie season is starting to heat up and this season’s television shows are coming to an end, allowing us to examine them completely. There’s plenty to talk about in the realm of literature, too. So, get comfortable, grab a drink, and settle in. There’s a lot of great stuff to read.

Writing and Reading

In the past month, there’s been a lot of talk on this blog about diversity in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror genre. It started with a post by my guest blogger, N. K. Jemisin, called No more lily-white futures and monochrome myths.

Speculative fiction (SF) has been, historically, one of the most racist genres in American literature. Oh, it hasn’t had as many Stepinfetchits or Uncle Toms as the mainstream, but there are few more powerful ways to wrong a people than to wipe it out of existence, and this is precisely what countless SF novels have done. If the crew of the Space Navy Vessel Whozimawhatsit is all white; if a vast medieval epic spanning several continents contains no chromatic folk; if the scientific accomplishments of ancient nonwhite empires are dismissed as alien leftovers; if China is the only continent toasted by an invading space warship; all of this is a kind of literary genocide. (Yes, genocide.) And it’s something that SF has not only done well for years, but continues to do.

Author Tobias Buckell weighed in:

…I keep seeing the same repetition. Someone says SF/F isn’t diverse, people respond by chanting “Hopkinson, Butler, Delany, Barnes” like it’s a magical phrase that dispels the +10 diversity attack spell.
[...]
Is the cadre of writers in the field diverse?

No.
[...]
This could be a larger societal issue, an issue of fandom, the technical nature of SF/F, or that readers don’t see their faces in SF/F and don’t read it and therefore don’t write it, whatever your theory is (and I’m making no accusations or forwarding theories of my own here, that isn’t the point of this particular entry), it still doesn’t change the fundamental fact that is not a racially diverse field.

One way to address this issue is to encourage diversity in fiction markets, particularly the top tier markets. I offered some suggestions on how editors and publishers could achieve this:

• Make sure a wide range of people know that your magazine accepts unsolicited submissions by reaching out and posting notifications in venues frequented by non-white and non-male individuals.
• Put your money where your mouth is. Publish more stories by established authors that feature non-default people and non-default settings so that newer authors (and readers) will see your market as open to diverse views and ideas.
• Update submission guidelines to very clear statements of what the market is looking for or lacking.
• Get creative with ways to attract more diverse subjects, settings, characters, and writers.
• In the fiction selection process, think carefully about the stories you choose. Publish stories that reflect a true balance (but don’t lower your standards to do so).

Some editors are listening, so we’ll see what may come.

Matthew Cheney over at The Mumpsimus gives a detailed analysis of a story in the latest issue of Weird Tales.

The question (problem? issue?) of how Third World countries get represented in First World fiction is one that has interested me for some time, mostly because I’m hyper-aware and perhaps hyper-sensitive to my own status as a First World reader.* My ideas about such representations have run quite a gamut over the years, and continue to shift and change almost daily.

Today, my thoughts returned again and again to Will Ludwigsen’s story “Faraji” in the April/May Weird Tales…

The central failure of the story is in its representation of Africa. The story is set in the future, it seems, or at least an alternate present, because there is a “President Russell” in the U.S. By not naming the African country where the narrator is imprisoned, the story unfortunately plays off of “Dark Continent” stereotypes that set all of Africa up as a mysterious, primitive, and brutal Other. It could be argued that the narrator is someone for whom the continent is, indeed, that, but I think such an argument utterly misses the point. The point is: Why tell this particular story in this particular way at this particular time?
[...]
Africa in such a story is not a place at all, but an idea, and that idea is the same damn one that Conrad and so many lesser writers used. There is a difference between setting a story in “Africa” and setting it in a particular place at a particular time. There is a difference between using the idea of “Africa” as a prop for your plot and actually writing about Africa. I think those differences are vital, particularly when writing about places that have suffered so much stereotyping in First World readers’ minds.

There is a lot to chew over in that post, and many more good points than I can quote without making this carnival far too long.

Novelist PL Logan talks about examining prejudices in the context of the writing life:

The reason why it’s important to get at your prejudices (your ‘isms’ if you like), other than the part about everyone else being able to see them, is that unless you plan to write solely about someone exactly like you, you’d better be able to understand the Other (those who are Not You), at least a little.

If you can’t even understand the person sitting next to you on the bus or on the freeway or at your school or job, how in the world can you understand someone living in the fourteenth century, or in Tau Ceti, or in the Unicorn Kingdom?

Does the superhero genre of film and comic books speak to people of color? While comics have explored race and superheroes with more nuance, the films lag behind in their portrayals of African Americans. I am entertaining the idea, of course, that a “superhero” does not have to be white and male. My motivation for writing this essay, then, is to stretch the notion of what a super or action hero should look like. Because “hero” is ingrained with a specific image–an American white male, usually a firefighter, infantryman, or doctor–we need more diverse models for heroism.

Thomas Sowell has an interesting article on Bookstore Ghettoes that, oddly enough, has nothing to do with genre fiction. Unless you count ‘being a black author’ as a genre.

If Rachael Ray had been black, there are bookstores where her cookbook would not be displayed in the same section with all the other cookbooks. It would be displayed off in a special section for black authors.
[...]
The notion of honoring black (”African American”) writers with a special section in bookstores is just one of innumerable fashionable symbolic notions that ignore consequences.

In other situations, the negative consequences of mindless symbolism can be far more serious.

Movies & Television

Pam Noles has an excellent post about the casting decisions surrounding the film adaptation of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Quoting the New York Times:

When [HBO] broadcasts its two-hour adaptation of the book… at its center will be a new character: a man who was part Sioux, was educated at an Ivy League college and married a white woman.

“Everyone felt very strongly that we needed a white character or a part-white, part-Indian character to carry a contemporary white audience through this project,” Daniel Giat, the writer who adapted the book for HBO Films, told a group of television writers earlier this year.

Pam goes on to say:

Can we guess the cultural composition of “everyone” in this case? See, this pale and monolithic “everyone” needed a protagonist for their adaptation of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee… one of the touchstone works about the expansion of the West from the point of view of the people who lost out big time.

And the question that always floats to mind around here when I see these types of stories? Is the contemporary white audience truly as dumb, ignorant and xenophobic as the green light guardians at the Hollywood gate assume them to be? (To be honest, quite often my answer is yes. But lots of times my answer is no…)

…it comes down to we’ll never actually know if the contemporary white audience is not being given enough credit as long as the overwhelmingly pale Hollywood People who make the decisions continue to pull this crap.

Well said.

M H Ayinde gives us an interesting take on a possible interpretation of Spider-Man 3’s use of dark vs. not-dark Spidey.

During the course of the movie, Peter Parker does indeed seem to be transformed into a strange stereotype of a black man. He becomes a sexual predator. He plays jazz piano. He struts down the street while classic soul plays, Shaft-like, in the background. He hits women, and he has to battle his own raging anger. Sounds like a black stereotype to me.

If Spider-Man’s suit had turned some other colour when he was “evil”, I might not have cared so much. But it turned black and, unfortunately, the connotations are far to obvious to be ignored. Aside from this, throughout science fiction and fantasy, dark is used as a lazy shortcut to mean something bad. How many dark lords are there? And even the word itself is used when a writer is stumped to come up with something more creative – the usage of the word really is a prime example of that old literary transgression: telling rather than showing. If we are told something is dark, we know it is bad, without ever needing to be shown why.

…being “underrepresented” in TV shows and commercials means that corporate America hasn’t learned how to exploit you yet. If you watch a TV show or a commercial and you find absolutely nothing in common with anyone, you have no desire to be like any of the people that you see; you are in a good spot.

You have an opportunity to have a future. A future not tainted by subliminal messages.

I’m not sure I agree with her thesis, but it’s an interesting view.

Kevin on SlantTruth takes a look at a few movies and TV shows and what they reveal about America.

New Jack City – Black culture in its entirety. Notice all the Hip Hop played in the movie? This is all that is wrong with the United States of America.

The Godfather – Definitely not white culture in its entirety. A socio-economic metaphor for the difficulties involved in making it in the U.S.

The Blogosphere

Donna, at The Silence of Our Friends, comes to an uncomfortable realization about discussions concerning race on the Internet (and, really, anywhere):

My mistake was thinking that white liberals who blog and especially white feminists were ignorant about the way society and culture affect people of color, if you explained it, then they would be more supportive of our ideas and causes. It took me awhile to see that unity and solidarity were only for their ideas and causes and that for the most part it is all about them. This is what both Nezua and BA are talking about in their posts and how they are rejecting those who are users for only their own goals. I’m not so dense that I didn’t figure out long ago that this is true for a few, but I didn’t want to see the bigger picture and how true it is for many.

This came in the context of an excellent post about White POC – “those who are harmful to us collectively and are as self-serving as many white people.”

…there are POC who will tell white people what they want to hear in order to get ahead, and there are POC who have been socialized and acculturated to believe in the all-American racist stereotypes. [...] This is the unfortunate person we hear about when white people want to contradict our truths with their “NDN, black, asian, latino etc friend” who thinks that racism isn’t a problem and that we’re just making a mountain out of a molehill. [...] It’s also what we are talking about when white people tell us “Not you. You’re one of the good ones.” They mean we are assimilated and they notice we are white POC, or as Archie Bunker says, “You’re a credit to your race.” A white POC will think this is a compliment, instead of seeing it as an extension of racism.

In a sort-of related essay posted on Jesus’ General and other blogs, nezua limón xolagrafik-jonez, The Unapologetic Mexican, writes about The True Front of Progressivism:

SOMETIMES YOU WONDER if blogging is a component of Real Change, done for distraction, provided as a social experience, or is just a game. And of course, it is all these things at different times. In their better moments, blogs can affect people and their views profoundly, just as a Great Book might, when dropped into your hands on a crucial day.
[...]
But we are all selective. And we all have blind spots. That is why situations like JC’s here are good. He has many guest bloggers, and they all bring their points of view. He does not edit, he does not pressure, he does not in any way censor inflammatory posts, and he lets the Whole work its business when he brings in those voices. This is a good way to avoid blind spots and evidence of a true progressive nature in action.
[...]
Yes, I burn hot, as many of the “brown blogs” do. Just as the feminist blogs do. Just as the anti-ablist blogs do. But change and truth are not lukewarm entities or processes, and nobody has to agree with all I write. I am sure JC doesn’t, and I’m sure Glenn Greenwald doesn’t, but they both read and blogroll me. It doesn’t mean we haven’t had rough moments, adjusting viewpoint pangs, or disagreements. But—to me—it means they earn the name “progressive” if only for their effort and willingness to move outside the mainstream boundaries. [...] I have plenty of exposure. I am happy at my place, and happy to guest post here, and happy that my words get out there.

I am not happy, however, to see how contained these points of view and discussions are in the “mainstream” blog world. My point is that there are many who are connected to this struggle. You want to talk about race? You want to talk about eliminationalist rhetoric? You want to talk about LEFT vs RIGHT….but that leaves no room for others, does it? Is there only Left and Right? Is it really so simple?

An excellent, excellent post.

News and Current Events

Jenn and James at Reappropriate take exception to something Pat Buchannan wrote about the mass killing at Virginia Tech. They decide to take him on point by point, delivering a solid smackdown:

James: While I concur with your point about safety in classrooms, the most insulting part of this argument, to me, is that America already has an ongoing experiment where we allow thousands of unregulated, uncontrolled small arms to infiltrate small, closed-in populations. These small arms contribute to thousands of unsolved and ignored homicides every year. We call this experiment the inner city. If you want to know what happens when everyone gets to carry a gun, go to the hood.
[...]
Jenn: While it is important to remember what it’s like to be a 1.5-genner, and the isolation that such an identity entails, the association of Seung Cho’s actions with all Korean American immigrants is ludicrous! The 1965 Immigration Act opened this nation’s gates to countless talents and skills from around the globe; we can’t conflate one person’s actions with an entire race of people, based solely on skin colour and pathway to citizenship.

In We Are All Criminals, Brownfemipower keeps the real issues surrounding the immigration debate up front:

Right now, although anti-immigrant aggression still centers on economics (the dirty spics are stealing jobs/making us pay for their welfare), the driving force behind the debate, the issue that really triggers the debate, is the “war on terror.”

Some of the first anti-immigrant organizations in the U.S. to capitalize on anti-Arab “war on terror” policies were the hate organizations the Minutemen Project and the American Patrol Report. Both organizations were classified as hate groups by the U.S. government pre 9-11. [...]But all of this was conveniently forgotten by politicians, government officials, and universities in a post 9-11 world.

Rachel (of Tavern fame) feels that Racism is the Problem and Shooting the Messenger Promotes Racism, a reaction to a news story about a teacher disciplined because of something published in the school paper she oversees.

The article in the May issue of the Blazer included anonymous comments from students questioning the intelligence of blacks and expressing disapproval of interracial dating.

Some of the anonymous quotes accompanied an editorial by a student staff member who called those attitudes appalling.

Rachel says,

It is difficult from the article to tell if the administrators were more concerned about how black students would feel after reading the bigoted comments or if they were more concerned about how it would make their school look. But if school administrators think that these types of comments are not made on a regular basis, they need to get real. Racial abuse is not uncommon in schools; bigoted remarks are also common. They may be said only amongst racial peers or close friends, but they are there nonetheless.
[...]
Should these students and their advisor be punished for exposing racism? Should we shoot the messenger or attack the message? I think we should attack the message without white washing it, and punishing the messenger only puts a lid on the problem.

We, As Individuals

One of the reasons I love this carnival is that it never fails to bring home to me that Erasing Racism is not just the work of groups of people, but of individuals. People who live in the world and do individual things with other individuals to combat and eliminate racism. Whenever I find the world too overwhelming and it’s problems insurmountable, I remember that I don’t have to take on the world, I just have to deal with what surrounds me every day. With that thought, I leave you my final carnival offerings:

MissProffe muses on one of the side-effects of being a teacher of color:

We chatted about TOCs being role models – not just for students of color, but also for majority students – at a predominately White independent school. S.G. remarked how there is added pressure on TOCs to project a positive image with respect to appearance (dress) and manner (language).
[...]
Is it fair that my colleague and I must cross every proverbial T and dot every proverbial I in the words we choose and in the clothes we wear? No. However, Life isn’t fair, and This Life presents a double-standard for people of color, regardless of our level of education, an impeccable wardrobe, or ability to speak the Queen’s English.

And finally, Rachel S. writes about Things You Learn About Race From a 7 Year Old on Alas, A Blog:

A few weeks ago my partner’s son B was here for the holidays, and as usual he and I spent a great deal of time together. I’m often curious about when and how kids learn about race, and I always observe how B discusses race. He is a dark skinned black child, and I am a very fair skinned white person, which makes it fairly obvious to any on-looker that I am not his biological mother.
[...]
B: “Were [those people looking at us] because I’m black and you’re white? They want to know if you are my mommy.”

Rachel: ”Why do you think that?”

B: (very matter matter of factly) “Because black kids have black moms.”

Rachel: “Can black kids have white moms?”

B: (laughing at what he thinks is a joke) “Black kids can’t have white moms.”
[...]
I found it interesting how conscious he was of other people looking at him and me. He very clearly connected it to race.
[...]
These are the kinds of issues that frequently come up in mixed race families. They are also faced by monoracial families even if they don’t realize it. …I do wonder if it would be different if I was the black one and he was white. Given that we live in a fairly rich area, where many upper middle class and upper class white parents have women of color as their nannies, it is not too uncommon to see black and brown women taking care of small white kids. However, a white women taking care of a black child is almost unheard of, which is why we probably get some many stares.

Thanks to everyone who submitted (even those I could not include) and everyone for reading. Don’t forget to submit posts for next month’s Carnival, hosted @ white anti-racist parent.

Also, if you’re interested in reading more stuff about race in the SF/F genre, keep an eye out for the People of Colour SF Carnival. The first one is due out next month.

Erase Racism Carnival, Carnivals, media, literature, television, movies, Spider-Man 3, comic books, black superheroes, White POC, Progressives, progressivism, immigration

May 2007 Erase Racism Carnival -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Erase Racism Carnival – Last Chance! -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Because Lt. Uhura should have had more lines. (ST: TOS)

Because Kevin Sorbo was jealous of Keith Hamilton Cobb and wrote him out. (Andromeda)

Because among other butchery, the SciFi Channel made Ged white. (EarthSea)

Because Forrest was a plot point and Graham was an extra. (Btvs)

Because Ronon Dex is not a savagely sexual wild man. (SGA)

Because Ford deserved better. (SGA)

Because Goliath showed up only to get killed. (Marvel: CW)

Because Vixen should have been more than the other woman. (JLU)

Because it can feel isolating among other journalers and bloggers.

Because it could encourage other People of Color to speak up more.

Because Carl Lumbly should be remembered for MANTIS.

Because Milestone Media deserved more love.

Because there should be more shows like Afro Saumrai

Because there should be more heroines like Jade and Juniper Lee.

Because Bianca Lawson tried out for the role of Cordelia Chase instead of Kendra. (BtVS)

Because Pete Ross drowned in a sea of nothingness (Smallville)

Because there are illustrators of color who don’t get to put faces like theirs on the front of a SF book.

and so many more you guys obviously know all about. Submission Guidelines, Deadlines, and other explanations here. I definitely plan to submit.

Speaking of Carnivals -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

Erase Racism is a carnival dedicated to ending racism, White Supremacy, and unearned privilege

There’s no particular theme this time around, but since the topic of race and racism in the SF/F/H genre came up lately, I’m particularly interested in posts exploring that.

Anyone can submit, and folks can submit one of their own posts or a post by someone else. Submit here. You can also leave a comment on this entry, if you like. But the submission form is cool and fun to use.

May Erase Racism Carnival – call for submissions -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman