Resource recommendation

[dolorosa_12]

I assume no one reading this needs a summary of recent conversations around racism and fandom, with a focus on the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), the nonprofit organisation responsible for, among other things, Archive of Our Own. I've seen various people I follow here on Dreamwidth posting about and contributing to these conversations; there is enough overlap between the people who follow me and the people discussing these issues that I'm operating under the assumption that anyone who wants to engage with them has done so.

Edited to add One of my least favourite things about the contemporary internet is people putting pressure on others along the lines of 'if you're not posting about this/aware of this terrible thing, you are part of the problem.' I believe people are under no obligation to engage with or post publicly about anything, and that public online statements are not the be all and end all of people's involvement with an issue. My statements above were intended to make this clear. Unfortunately, it's had the opposite effect, which is a failure of communication on my part, and left some people feeling out of the loop and judged. So, if my post was the first you were hearing of any ongoing conversations around racism and OTW, a couple of good starting points that summarise these conversations chronologically are loislane221 and synonymous.

I'm in the process of doing various things in the wake of revelations sparked by these conversations — the main one being to, in the first instance, import copies of all my fanfic posted on AO3 over to Dreamwidth, and to engage with fanworks by others on Dreamwidth if at all possible rather than on AO3 (i.e. if a work has been crossposted here, I will comment on it here and share a link to the Dreamwidth version when reccing it). I did not renew my OTW membership this year because I felt I couldn't in good conscience pay any money to the organisation, and so can't vote in the upcoming board elections, and feel it would be hypocritical to recommend actions in this regard. I know others have taken a different approach to this situation, and would encourage those still in a position to vote in the upcoming elections to seek out posts and discussion by others who are doing the same if they feel they need more information in order to inform their own position and actions.

However, that's not really what I wanted to talk about in this post. Rather, over the course of various discussions, I found out about a new initiative: fandomantiracism, which is (at least so far) taking what I feel is a constructive, productive, and above all coalition-building and focused approach to antiracist activities in fandom. Their introductory post lays out their goals in a clear way. Their recent post, A pattern of dismissal and retaliation: the experiences of Zixin Z. and the Chinese volunteers is a thorough and comprehensive overview of a troubling pattern of treatment experienced by Chinese volunteers within OTW — what I appreciate most is the way these events are put into their broader (geo)political context so the full extent of the damage done to these volunteers by their fellow OTW volunteers is clear. I'm optimistic that the people behind fandomantiracism will continue in this vein in their future activities. I've found them to be a useful resource so far, and hope others feel the same.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I certainly do feel the same, and I am very pleased to see this account's goals, particularly the note about evidence-based approaches. I hope to help as I can.

[dolorosa_12]

Yes, evidence-based approaches was another big reason why I feel confident in what they're trying to achieve.

[quodthey]

I really like what I've seen from fandomantiracism thus far!

[dolorosa_12]

I really hope that their approach bears fruit — they've impressed me a lot so far.

[nerakrose]

I assume no one reading this needs a summary of recent conversations around racism and fandom, with a focus on the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), the nonprofit organisation responsible for, among other things, Archive of Our Own. I've seen various people I follow here on Dreamwidth posting about and contributing to these conversations; there is enough overlap between the people who follow me and the people discussing these issues that I'm operating under the assumption that anyone who wants to engage with them has done so.

actually you and several other people on my flist have said this (though the others were much more vague about it) without linking to anything so it took me quite a while to figure out what the hell was going on and track down any information at all. I never did find any kind of coherent master post or summary anywhere (if one exists) so I'm not even sure I've got the full picture. I for one would really appreciate if people stop assuming and just drop the links !

[chestnut_pod]

synonymous

loislane221

[nerakrose]

Thank you!

[hoarmurath]

I had the same reaction when people were mentioning the anti-Asian sentiments and yet didn't feel comfortable enough going "please explain". So you're not alone!

[nerakrose]

Yeah, I’m sure it’s not intentional (at least from the people I know), but I feel like the subtext is “and if you don’t know, you should feel bad”, when in reality a lot of this is outside my control - if nobody shares the news, I can’t know. In this case, I paid my ten dollars for membership a while ago so I could vote, I received the email linking to the candidates bio and answers, and that same evening I read through their platforms and decided who to vote for. It wasn’t until several days later - through posts like this one vagueing about the whole thing - that I found out there were serious problems, but without links I couldn’t find many of the posts detailing it. I’ve now realised it’s because people have blocked google from indexing their blogs, which great given the sensitive situation, but that means I can’t easily find the information on my own (at least not with the search terms I was deploying, which I’ve now also realised weren’t sufficient because i didnt know what I was searching for), and without links to potentially find more link trails through... just a dead end.

I could’ve always asked, I suppose, but when i’m already feeling stupid for not knowing something that it seems everybody else *obviously* knows, I’m not very inclined to actually ask.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm really sorry about this. One of my least favourite things about the contemporary internet is people putting pressure on others along the lines of 'if you're not posting about this/aware of this terrible thing, you are part of the problem.' I believe people are under no obligation to engage with or post publicly about anything, and that public online statements are not the be all and end all of people's involvement with an issue. My statements above were intended to make this clear. Unfortunately, it's had the opposite effect, which is a failure of communication on my part, so I've updated the post along these lines, and included the links to the two resources that chestnut_pod shared with you. Once again, I'm really sorry, and I appreciate you for highlighting a lack of clarity in how I was expressing myself.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm really sorry about this. One of my least favourite things about the contemporary internet is people putting pressure on others along the lines of 'if you're not posting about this/aware of this terrible thing, you are part of the problem.' I believe people are under no obligation to engage with or post publicly about anything, and that public online statements are not the be all and end all of people's involvement with an issue. My statements above were intended to make this clear. Unfortunately, it's had the opposite effect, which is a failure of communication on my part, so I've updated the post along these lines, and included the links to the two resources that chestnut_pod shared with you. Once again, I'm really sorry, and I appreciate you for highlighting a lack of clarity in how I was expressing myself.

[kore]

That's a great idea about doing fandom more on DW, I should do that. Right after my second nap of the day, lolsob.

That Tumblr looks really good! I liked the post about Zixin a lot. I have swung between "I definitely want to vote" to "I feel duped into contributing to vote while these events were basically buried before the deadline" to "I am super angry about having given them a dime" to "I am going to vote for Zixin" altho Zixin was always my top choice anyway. I don't think I'm ever giving the OTW any money again, though, unless there are big permanent changes.

[dolorosa_12]

I know, right. I still haven't made much headway in moving my fic to Dreamwidth (for which I blame my mother's annual visit, and the fact that we are currently midway through the second of two major pieces of construction work being done on our house), so my actions in this regard are still more aspirational than concrete. Sigh.

I'm glad you like the Tumblr. I wish they were on Dreamwidth as well (I don't use Tumblr any more and find that it sometimes randomly stops letting you view blogs if you're not logged in), and if they hadn't made such an effort to fly under the radar (switching off reblogs on some posts, removing themselves from being indexed on Google), I would try and set up a feed here, but as it is I don't think they'd appreciate it.

The situation with OTW is really difficult, and has no easy answers. I feel pretty much any approach is justified, between paying to vote this year and waiting and seeing, or my 'burn it to the ground and salt the earth' attitude, and everything in between.

[scintilla10]

Thanks for sharing the posts about Fandom Antiracism! I really appreciate their goals and approaches as well.

[dolorosa_12]

You're welcome! I'm glad it's likely to be useful for you.

[hoarmurath]

Thank you for sharing. I had many issues with EOTWR despite agreeing with their general stance, and this tumblr sounds like a way better alternative.

OTW and most other spaces on the Internet have issues with racism, but negative admonishments and refusal to look outside American perspectives will not help ameliorate or fix the issues. I've often found a lot of language around American and fandom activisms to be fairly rebuffing and guilt trippy in assuming we should all be aware and know everything and if we don't, we suck. Or if we are too tired and underinformed, we also suck. Meanwhile, I, a random Eastern European only know so much because I have a Degree in Being Terminally Online and an overdeveloped sense of scrupulosity. Even those things didn't help the fact that I had no idea re: OTW's anti-Asian racism and before these tumblrs and DWs appeared, I had no way of properly finding out either.

I did donate for the first time and will vote, but I am looking to see what will happen next.

[dolorosa_12]

I think fandomantiracism is taking a good approach to the situation, and one thing I particularly appreciate already is their awareness that it's impossible to take a universal, one-size-fits-all approach to race/ethnicity and racism — you need to look at the regional, social and cultural context of specific instances, and contextualise them for people outside that specific context. Anything else is doomed to failure. Case in point: I'm an Australian who lives and works in the UK. Recently at work I was helping a researcher who is doing a PhD on the experiences of underrepresented groups when they're accessing healthcare/medical treatment. We found very quickly that most of the existing research was carried out in the United States — and not only did it use different terminology, it focuses on completely different underrepresented groups, which makes sense given the UK and the US have different demographics, and people of different ethnicities who are underrepresented in healthcare settings. And if I were to look into this in Australia, it would be different again.

I totally agree with everything you're saying here. One of my least favourite things about the contemporary internet is a tendency of some people to view signal boosting and being loudly outraged about a topic as the be all and end all when it comes to activism. It tends to go together with a spoken or unspoken implication that if someone is not engaging with a particular topic or posting about it publicly, they're part of the problem — whereas I feel that this leads to a superficial understanding of a lot of disparate issues, and that a deep engagement plus concrete actions on a smaller, more manageable number of issues is more productive. I also don't believe that anyone is obligated to post about or engage with anything. So what I was saying above in the post was meant to make that clear, but it had the opposite effect in some cases and made people feel like I was implying they were ignorant for not knowing what had been going on.

In any case, I'm glad you found that Tumblr helpful, and I can only apologise that I myself am guilty of failing to do the thing for which I praised them: clearly explaining the context of what I was talking about!