(no subject)

[netmouse]

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"
- Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so, I grew up in a very mixed race, international community. Quite a number of people of color are "of my tribe/pack" as far as I'm concerned, so race is not a differentiating characteristic on that point for me. And my base assumption is that people who are involved in and interested in sf are even more likely to be "of my tribe/pack"(despite the fact that, as you well know, there are members of the sf tribe who have severely hurt me. None of them were people of color, however). So I didn't say I don't have any "legitimate" reason to start into the discussion on a distrustful footing, I said I don't have any reason to start out that way, other than the sort of generic understanding that people can hurt other people.

Now, I do have a legitimate reason, especially based on recent experience, to believe that a fair number of sf-interested people of color might also have been exposed to academic and other fields of thought and culture that I *haven't* been, and so I fear misunderstanding them and being misunderstood by them. But for me that is different than distrusting the person. That is distrusting that we have a common language - distrusting, in effect, my own ability to translate my good intent into positive results. It is that kind of distrust that I think it is especially valuable to try to validate and then find ways to eliminate.