(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

[dawnwolf.livejournal.com]

This is the quote I was referring to: ""Despite the fact that the black population in America has a natural common cause with the genre of speculative fiction as a tool for imagining and envisioning massive change and a different future, the genre is not one that many black americans read or write in."

As for "distrust," I was working from the "logical and understandable" definition nicegeek refers to under this comment. Additionally, I was applying it in a general, societal context. I believe the "logical and understandable" distrust exists to a greater or lesser extent in most individuals who have grown up in this country (I can't speak for other countries). A lesser extent for people like yourself who has had positive experiences growing up in mixed-race neighborhoods; a far lesser extent for any POC who has been stopped for "Driving While Black," for example.

Given that fandom has its own set of operators, this societally-instilled distrust may not even be an issue in your conversation. But (referring to President Obama's address on race during the campaign) if the President's own grandmother told him she crossed the street to avoid other young black men, I believe it's necessary to at least be aware of the issue.

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

ok, can you deconstruct for me what in the statement

"Despite the fact that the black population in America has a natural common cause with the genre of speculative fiction as a tool for imagining and envisioning massive change and a different future, the genre is not one that many black americans read or write in."

caused you to say that if the statement comes from a white person, "that statement becomes rather patronizing by definition"?

How would you interpret it differently if it comes from a POC?

[dawnwolf.livejournal.com]

It's the first clause in the sentence. I would never make a strong blanket statement about the needs, desires, or "common cause" of "the black population in America." What makes me, or any other white American, qualified to do so? For that matter, how could a single POC speak for all black Americans, Native Americans, etc.?

That clause needs qualifiers, particularly if the quote is coming from a white person. "While the genre of speculative fiction as a tool for imagining and envisioning massive change and a different future would seem to be one with which black Americans have a natural common cause, the genre is not one that many black Americans read or write in."