I am almost ready to hand in my fandom card. Thank God I'm not in SPN.

[silverflight8]

I was going to post a feel-happy, look-a-pretty-book, isn't life wonderful? sort of post. I suppose not. I bring this to you because the person in question was ignorant, and that's the last time I ever want anyone to use that excuse for racism again.

If you're not in fandom, you might've missed this. An author posts a story set in Haiti during the earthquake, accompanied by really, really cringe-inducing portrayals of actual Haitians, many of who are still suffering. This is, apparently, to further the relationship between two of the characters. See link lower for context (the round up has a large number of commenters, as well as the link to the original.)

A lot of people, most more eloquent than I, have already gone through and processed this, torn it open and looked at the racism and the bad taste, and have offered their own commentary. I was going to sit on my hands and read, but then there was a sentence in her apology that really, really ticked me off.

' [I see how the] portrayals can be seen as unflattering,"

No. NO.

Unflattering connotes vanity, self-image, trivial, skin-deep. Unflattering is used to describe clothes: "Oh, that dress really doesn't flatter your figure, dear." 

People are not objecting to the fact that all your characters aren't saints. Excuse the capslock, but THEY ARE POINTING OUT THE RACISM THAT IS INHERENT IN THE INTERACTIONS THAT YOUR PROTAGONIST HAS WITH HAITIANS. These are people, they are living through an immense tragedy, and a decency to understand that their pain is not OK for you to exploit for your story--you're missing that.

Semantics? Maybe. But I think it shows what the author truly thinks, and that word--"unflattering portrayals"--is indicative of their attitude towards this. I don't think they get it.

amazonziti has a beautiful round-up of links, but warning: if you value a rage-free day, avoid the direct quotes. It is bad. Very, very bad. Don't look.

Comments

[azuire.livejournal.com]

Pretty much handed in my fandom card after I went to investigate said author and found out that she wrote a problematic spy story (about fighting terrorist. Guess which race the terrorist was!). Just jumping from fail to fail. Not to mention none of her betas picked up on it (one of her betas wrote a racefail fic about J2 saving people in Nigeria), and the artist for using actual photographs from the earthquake. Just. NO.

Writing is awful imho but what's more awful is the number of people telling her it's "respectful" and "engaging". Nope, this fandom learnt nothing from The Killing Fields (were you here for that debacle?)

Grrr. [fingers flamethrower]

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

It seems like everywhere I look, there's another clueless someone who's being offensive and says: "Oh, I didn't mean it!" and it's necessary to go through the whole mess again.

Of course domestic terrorists don't exist! They're just lunatics if they're one race, terrorists if they're another!

Not to mention that even if you're completely insensitive to race (ha), it's still not exactly acceptable to write about a tragedy right after it happens. I mean, why?

No, thankfully, I wasn't there. Really? We get flamethrowers?

[azuire.livejournal.com]

Er, I keep a flamethrower for such occasions. Sometimes I put it down and fetch my chainsaw. ;)

I'm always torn between amusement and horror when I see someone defending his/her/zie's privilege. Hypocrisy makes me miserable. (Especially that recent bullshit about racism being part of evolution. WHAT THE BLOODY HELL.) Anyway, there was a Pinto Haiti fic and the author saw the SPN fail, realised her own, apologised, and deleted said fic. Small victory?

Haha. Those terrible hijackers have a) made it impossible for me to get a US visa on the first try and b) near impossible to get on a plane without extensive security measures. As a frequent flyer, this is more than a little irritating.

P.S. Do you live in the US?

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Pet peeve--people taking scientific words and mangling them. Especially evolution, which is already in this quagmire.

Small victories keep me from being a complete misanthrope xD--and I'm heartened by the fact said author didn't have to be told. :D

No, I'm not American, but I might as well be, as far as flying goes; I'm Canadian.

[azuire.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I had half a mind to send an angry message saying GOOGLE EVOLUTION: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Bleh. But providing a counter argument would imply there was an actual, rational argument to start with (and there wasn't). So, ignoring it forthwith. Do not feed the drama llama.

Some of said author's fans were throwing the usual entitlement whatsits around, but glad the author realised it. Yay.

Happy Canada Day, by the way!

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

That's true--propping up the flimsy arguments doesn't help.
Thank you! I'm not sure where you're from, but...uh...if you have an independence day, happy __ to you, too! :)

[azuire.livejournal.com]

haha. I think you missed my Showcase. I'm Indian; our independence day is 15th August.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Probably. On occasion, I forget to check my friends page and brigits flame. *fixes date in memory and goes to Wikipedia the independence day events*