(no subject)

[ang]

I stayed up way too late talking about that spn_j2_bigbang fic set in post-earthquake Haiti with solookup and caruso last night. At this point I feel like really posting about it would just be piling on, and there isn't much I have to say that hasn't been said elsewhere. (Via devilc: a post on how a racist culture contributes to stories like this being written by facetofcathy)

I do want to say that I am getting so sick of "But s/he didn't intend to be racist" as a defense. A lot of racist things are said and done unintentionally, especially when we're talking about racist tropes showing up in fictional works. That doesn't make those things somehow less hurtful. Intent doesn't really matter. I understand why people who have said something hurtful want to make clear that they didn't mean to hurt anyone, and there is arguably a place for that in a proper apology, but a lack of intent is not a magical get out of jail free card, you know?

Comments

[the_wanlorn]

I always want to stab those people in the face, and then when they're like ">:( YOU STABBED ME IN THE FACE ASSHOLE >:(" be all ":) But I didn't intend to stab you in the face, so what are you getting all het up about? :)"

[ang]

I also feel like "I am not a stabber" wouldn't go over very well.

[hot_tramp]

Intent matters when all you care about is proving that you are a Good Nice Sweet Person.

[ang]

The intent argument really does tie back to that whole "it's so much harder to be called a racist than to actually experience racism" thing that seems to keep coming up in discussions of people doing racist things.

[gloss]

"it's so much harder to be called a racist than to actually experience racism" thing
OH MAN THIS. This is the crux of so much of my rage these days.

[liviapenn]

a lack of intent is not a magical get out of jail free card, you know?

Yeah. And the other thing is? "I didn't intend to be hurtful, so I'm sorry if I hurt you" is not a free pass to KEEP DOING the hurtful thing. "Oh, I didn't realize that this word was a racial slur...! Yeah, I'm gonna keep saying it, though." No. It doesn't work like that.

The story is *still up*. I mean I totally understand being resistant to taking this story down, especially since she apparently made it this far without hearing any criticism, but come on. If you really, actually understand why it's so gross to take a real life tragedy that happened so incredibly recently and play with it like a toy, if you really understood that you had written a story where all the supporting characters were a collection of racist cliches, how could you possibly leave that story up, open to positive feedback? If I had done something like that, and *really* understood what I had done and was sorry for it, that story would be taken down SO FAST.

[ang]

Yeah. It's really hard to take an apology seriously when there's no real attempt to fix the wrong-doing. I know sometimes people leave up their questionable decisions because they want the commentary people were making on it to stay in context/don't want to privatize the comment threads on a post, but I'm not really getting the feeling that this is what's going on here.

[liviapenn]

Yeah... I get that not everyone is totally familiar with all the different LJ options for locking/freezing/hiding posts or threads, etc., and that a lot of times while panicking people will just delete the whole post, which can be unfortunate. But in this case, most of the angry commentary is on the master post, so the story itself could be deleted (either by deleting the posts, or editing them) without erasing any of that. I just feel like any reasonable person who actually was engaging and understanding criticism would be too damn *embarrassed* to leave that story up.

But apparently all she's done is locked comments and added an author's note "Please note that some readers have found offense in both the setting and characterizations in this story" -- which is a breathtaking blame-the-offended faux-pology I'll have to remember next time I'm completely not sorry for something.