And there you go

[yeloson]

delux_vivens linked a great interview with Chrystos:

You know, the world is not an all-white place. And anyone who doesn't want to acknowledge that has an investment in white supremacy.

It's good to be reminded how stunted our dialogue is.

White supremacy shifted to racism (because, you know, "anyone can be racist") shifted to aversive racism, shifted to prejudice, shifted to unconcious bias, shifted to cultural upbringing. It's like collateral damage being the new term for mass murder.

We are often presented with a false choice: either talk at this stunted level or don't talk about it at all. Another friend of mine brought up the issue of "good faith discussions". When you're talking about stuff like this, and someone steps in at this stunted level, how can you assume good faith? ("You cannot call this abuse. Please PROVE to me that the high velocity cranial treatment via digital application was undesired and undeserved, and then we can have a reasonable discussion.")

Are those people worth talking to? Can there be a "dialogue"?

And are these the discussions we want to have?

Comments

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

I feel like there's this nostalgic racism going on in the literary world at the moment. In nostalgic racism you have books like the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells. You have Fannie Flagg. You have a whole bunch of really popular writers who are essentially writing about all white worlds in which there is no recognition that they ARE that white world.

So I call that nostalgic racism or nostalgic white supremacy. It's a way of recreating a world which actually doesn't exist anymore. Most of the literature that is considered "important literature" in the United States is white supremacist literature. By that I mean there are almost no people of color in it and if there are, they're literally the maid mentioned in passing. John Cheever's like that. John Updike is like that. Norman Mailer is like that. All of those people that I call the dead white men have this nostalgic white supremacy going on in their work. And the publishing industry itself has a sort of quota system happening where there can be four Asian women writers, there can be four Black women writers and two Indian women writers. So I look upon the publishing industry as a white supremacist organization and a lot of people flinch when I say things like that because they think I'm over reacting or I'm not being nice.

Clearly, she's a sock puppet!

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

"Facts only count based on who says it. That's what makes it rational!"