(no subject)

[magistrate]

Years later, I was at a con with Chip when a young man asked him a question. That young man, gay and black, as Chip is, had just attended a writing workshop where he'd found it very difficult to get recognition about why the things he was writing about were important. He asked Chip how a black gay man could find his voice in science fiction. Almost before the words were out of his mouth, a white woman overrode him with, "Well, I just don't see race in my life. I don't make it a problem. I don't see race. It just doesn't exist as an issue."

Very gently, Chip replied, "If you can't see something that threatens my life daily, then you can't help me fight it. You can't be my ally."

–Nalo Hopkinson, Looking for Clues

Comments

[yetregressing]

That is.. fascinating. And awesome. And I don't really know what my response as a highly privileged white person is at this moment in time, but it... part of it resonated, somehow. I'm not sure how yet, but... I think this will be helpful.

[magistrate]

Kyriarchy is a weird thing. And for all that different axes and avenues of privilege aren't the same, a lot of the ways of talking about them are really similar. So, "I don't see gender." "I don't see sex." So on.

It's this sort of "Really? Do you at least see how much of society is built on those things? Do you see how you're so much more likely to die of violence as a black person or so much more likely to suffer sexual assault as a trans person?" People feel noble and egalitarian by saying "No! People should be seen without these things," but just refusing to see those things without undoing the societal crap that does so much damage actually does more harm than help, because it contributes to those things continuing unchecked.

In any case, that was one of the most eloquent ways I'd seen it put. Way to go, Samuel R. Delaney. (How one gets "Chip" from that name...)

[yetregressing]

Exactly. That's a problem I'm running into with the GSA at school--kids want to be like 'that isn't what people should see--we shouldn't care if people are gay, lesbian, or trans' and while I understand where they're coming from, I have to bite my lip to keep from telling them they're wrong, that we sort of have to care if people are like that, because we have to be alert. You can't just not see those things, because there are people that do see those things and see them in a way that may eventually be harmful to the people who are LGBTQ (throwing in Q at the end of the acronym is something else entirely, but none of the students have asked me about it yet and I don't look at the teachers (who are more likely to cringe or question my use of it) when I say it).

Which is a roundabout way of totally agreeing with you. In terms of race, it is important to acknowledge the histories of underprivileged (less privileged? Language is failing me here, plus I'm totally exhausted).

But yeah. It really resonated with me on some fronts and made me go 'I have to be more alert and aware' on other fronts, I guess. I'm probably rambling at this point.

[dchan]

I unfortunately cannot find you a link for a direct quote (despite going through most all of the interviews & essays on her website), but this sort of pings me on something Lois McMaster Bujold once said about being frustrated that her focus on how how advances in reproductive technology affect society and advances in biological engineering were a lot of times not perceived as "real SF" by a lot of male readers, or something like that. I'm unfortunately quite fuzzy on the details.

BTW, if you haven't read Lois McMaster Bujold, I quite recommend her. Her work does a lot with the intersectionality of class, gender, and disability (both physical and mental). I lent the first several books to L, so poke her for them. (In terms of reading order, you can either start with Cordelia's Honor--please read both halves of the omnibus at once, despite the large gap in publishing dates of the original novels--or The Warrior's Apprentice, found in the Young Miles omnibus. I prefer starting with WA and circling back to read the "prequel", but your tastes may differ.)

[dchan]

I realize that because I was writing this comment at 4 am, I managed to make very little sense, even to myself

The points I was trying to make are:
*Biology is sometimes seen as unimportant (or less important) in SF because it is not People Shooting Each Other With Lasers.
*The effects of changing reproductive technology on society are a foreign concept to a lot of male readers, causing them to sometimes dismiss Bujold's work.