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Because I said I would give more context
a post explaining the context of a couple other posts recently...
There was this thing. At least, most of us are hoping it is accurate to use the word "was" because it seemed a rather toxic thing, such that it was easy to look at from the outside and dismiss as LJ Drama, or "a bag full of angry cats" or some other thing that apparently made various people who did not read it choose not to read it and some people congratulate themselves on the wisdom of staying far, far, away.
There are a couple names for it, but the one I've heard most often is RaceFail '09. There is a short summary here, and a linkety guide here including a link to a timeline and another summary of events (she calls it "Writing The Other/Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of DOOM '09" which is more descriptive in some ways, but doesn't have the short quick impression of total morass 'o doom that "RaceFail '09" does). Another comment people should read before diving in, with a lightly shorter link list, is here.
And yes, somewhere in there is evidence that there are certainly people who believe SF (as a written industry, and as a fandom) is not a safe place for people of color. Now, of course, many people will just point at RaceFail '09 itself to prove that point. I don't know how many people will listen to them. I know fandom is certainly both wider and deeper than this particular debate. I also know it is distinctly lacking in characters of color in writing by white people, authors and editors of color in the industry, and fans of color at literary sf cons. There are a few, but not enough.
(apparently there was another discussion last year that was slightly more sane. I remember reading Bear's post on it at the time, but otherwise didn't see much of it. )
If you are going to read any of it, I also recommend you read this essay on the definition of racism and also google "race theory" or "critical race theory" so as to avoid having the "what the heck are you people talking about and why are you mangling this corner of English so no one can talk to each other sensibly on this subject?" reaction in public the first time (like I did).
I have not read it all yet, but I plan to explore further, since the short summary (and other comments I've received) indicate "there have been many interesting and thoughtful posts by fans of color" and those are of interest to me. I hope to post a guide pointing to those later.
In the meantime, one thing some people point to as a positive !fail coming out of this is the creation of a new small press called Verb Noire. They are taking donations now to help them get started.
There was this thing. At least, most of us are hoping it is accurate to use the word "was" because it seemed a rather toxic thing, such that it was easy to look at from the outside and dismiss as LJ Drama, or "a bag full of angry cats" or some other thing that apparently made various people who did not read it choose not to read it and some people congratulate themselves on the wisdom of staying far, far, away.
There are a couple names for it, but the one I've heard most often is RaceFail '09. There is a short summary here, and a linkety guide here including a link to a timeline and another summary of events (she calls it "Writing The Other/Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of DOOM '09" which is more descriptive in some ways, but doesn't have the short quick impression of total morass 'o doom that "RaceFail '09" does). Another comment people should read before diving in, with a lightly shorter link list, is here.
And yes, somewhere in there is evidence that there are certainly people who believe SF (as a written industry, and as a fandom) is not a safe place for people of color. Now, of course, many people will just point at RaceFail '09 itself to prove that point. I don't know how many people will listen to them. I know fandom is certainly both wider and deeper than this particular debate. I also know it is distinctly lacking in characters of color in writing by white people, authors and editors of color in the industry, and fans of color at literary sf cons. There are a few, but not enough.
(apparently there was another discussion last year that was slightly more sane. I remember reading Bear's post on it at the time, but otherwise didn't see much of it. )
If you are going to read any of it, I also recommend you read this essay on the definition of racism and also google "race theory" or "critical race theory" so as to avoid having the "what the heck are you people talking about and why are you mangling this corner of English so no one can talk to each other sensibly on this subject?" reaction in public the first time (like I did).
I have not read it all yet, but I plan to explore further, since the short summary (and other comments I've received) indicate "there have been many interesting and thoughtful posts by fans of color" and those are of interest to me. I hope to post a guide pointing to those later.
In the meantime, one thing some people point to as a positive !fail coming out of this is the creation of a new small press called Verb Noire. They are taking donations now to help them get started.
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Anyway, that was a long-winded way of saying "thanks for the pointers".
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Oh, trust me, me, too! I don't want to put myself forward as some sort of model of dealing with this situation, because I'm very much not. I'm a clueless white person, and my knee-jerk reaction is also to look away and not deal with anything I find uncomfortable. And I think that I've only been able to read as much of this debate as I have (which I admit is not all of it) because I've cringed and looked away from so many similar debates in the past, and I've finally seen enough on the subject for some of it to actually stick. (ETA: I'm not saying this because I'm proud of it in any way - I'm saying it because I'm deeply ashamed of myself, and to show that I do understand how tempting it is to hide from what is going on, but I believe that hiding is still the wrong choice.)
There are important things being said! (ETA: And I strongly believe that these issues are important not just for the people involved in the debate, but for everybody who reads science fiction.) The fact that our first reaction is to try to hide from everything that is going and and avoid listening to it is our failure, not the failure of the people leading the discussion.
If you are serious about looking for more interesting posts about race, here is a post I just found (http://handyhunter.livejournal.com/166574.html) that has some of the links I included before, plus a lot more, some of which I haven't read yet either. And, since this current round of RaceFail has certainly not been the first time this subject as come up, this tag (http://delicious.com/starkeymonster/forcluelesswhitepeople) has quite a few very useful and interesting Racism 101 for clueless white people posts from previous debates, as well. (ETA: Also, this post (http://logophilos.net/blather/?p=1162) that I just found has a very useful summary of events that shows why I so firmly believe that this is primarily a discussion about race that has been purposefully derailed by people not wanting to listen, rather than just another LJ flamewar.)
And, since you mention book recs, there are a lot of very interesting book recommendations showing up in the comments of quite a few of the posts, as well! This post in particular (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/901816.html) has a treasure-trove of cool recs in the comments, because there are ten pages of comments and the great majority of them include some book recs along with other reactions to events. Apparently, some people are making a spreadsheet of all the book recommendations in that post. I am really looking forward to seeing it, because my sense is that there are literally hundreds of book recs there! :)
(But as I said, I'm hardly an expert on this subject! These are just some links I personally found interesting and thought-provoking, reading from the sidelines as I have.)
ETA: edited to add a few things, and edit a few typos.