Steampunking: Inclusivity, Not Merely Acceptance

One of the themes that crops up at the Racialicious essay I posted runs like this:

"In my experience, steampunk accepts all races!"

Usually, this will be said by someone who's, well, white. Occasionally it will be said by someone who's not, and thus, clearly not my audience, who are PoC and feel all the attendant baggage.

So, in my fucking experience, as a person of colour who will definitely be affected by race issues, it could do a hella lot more.

This is what I'm emphasizing. Do I see that steampunks can be very accepting of various races? Hell yes I can see that. Most other subcultures are the same.

Being accepted is not the same as being actively welcomed. Especially in a subculture that has roots in what is something coded as exclusively very white. Whether or not you mean for the subculture to be exclusive doesn't matter - here's another 101 for you: Intent doesn't matter.

Here's another 101 for you, when you say "in my experience" and you are a member of the default culture, speaking in a discussion which is centered around the experiences of someone who is not part of the default culture, you automatically imply that my experiences - which are at best dismissed, at worst silenced - are an aberration to the norm. Which they are, because they are different from the default culture's, and thus, yours! And, oh, you know what? I don't like that! And here I am telling you how we can make it better! Bigger! More inclusive! So I, and people like me, don't feel like freaks anymore!

This whole fucking noise about acceptance when I'm talking inclusivity is like you saying, "the sky is blue! Of course it's blue! Scientific fact shows that when light bounces off the particles in the sky, it will show up as blue!" when I am pointing out gray clouds on the horizon.

FFS.

Cross-posted to the Redux Edition

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 4, 2009 at 2:38 PM

    Here a couple of interesting experiments to try...
    1) Ask a white person to describe ten traits about themselves. I guarantee (or your money back) that the word 'White' will not be in there. Why? Because we are never reminded of the colour of our skin. "I see it as a good thing that I don't define myself by racial stereotypes" (actual quote), well of course you won't, when the hell is it ever an issue for us?

    2)Have a conversation (behind closed doors of course) with a group of white people about "positive discrimination". See how many think it's unfair to actively seek to employ people with non-white heritage (if it's less than 75% then +1 internetz to you).
    In my mind that's like playing football with the field tilted towards one goal up until half time when you then level it off again then proceed to look astonished that the team that's currently 38-0 down doesn't feel things are now fair.

    I don't know much about steampunk but it absolutely does not surprise me to hear that "accepting of all races" boils down to just not actively (or rather, visably) discouraging anyone on account of their heritage.

    You know what's worse though? White guys who spout off like they have the first understanding of what it is to be institutionally and actively discriminated against on account of their heritage, background or culture :P

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Pidgin Does Not Signify Lack Of Intellect

I recently received in my inbox an email from my father, who likes to forward me a lot of things that he thinks will interest me. Except of course, he never really realizes just how easily antsy I can get, and how willing I am to pick apart an article. (I used to hit Reply to All whenever he'd send me an email to let all and sundry know what I thought and all the problems with whatever he sent me, so now he wisely BCCs people instead.) This article was about Miss Singapore, and I can't find the original article, but hree's another one about the same issue . While at the Miss World pageant in South Africa, she inadvertently slipped into speaking Singlish, the Singaporean creole that mixes English, Malay, Chinese and god knows what else. And this was a huge fucking deal because apparently, all beauty queens must be able to speak perfect English, the standard of which is probably set by the English-speaking world that is the UK and North America, I guess. And because Miss S
Read more

Race in Cartoons

So I was moseying on to work this morning when I started hearing the theme song to 6teen in my head, and I was reminiscing on the time I used to have cable TV and I watched cartoons and the SciFi channel just about incessantly (okay, I also watched TLC). 6teen was an interesting show to me. The basic premise is that of six teens who hang out at a fancy lemonade stall one of them works at, and it follows their trials and travails as they figure out how to get by on their own, holding their jobs (or not) and how they work through their problems. It also happens to follow a very smart comedy formula, with multiple storyarcs within a single episode. The creators did a good job realizing that yes, a younger audience could indeed appreciate smart shows. The characters, being cartoon characters in themselves, are not exactly what one might call nuanced, but the creators certainly did try to explore different aspects of their characters. Jen, for example, works in the sporting goods store. She
Read more

May 13 Blogswarm Links Post

This is where all Malaysians and residents of Malaysia are welcome to leave links to their participation in the May 13 Blogswarm. For more information, check out LiveJournal and Facebook . Comments Policy:  Please note that moderation is turned on for comments older than 7 days. I try to check in regularly, but this may be hard as I will be traveling. Do not use this place to debate what others have said. If you do and you crash my site in due process, I'll get very irritated at you. That shit is rude. Don't do it. 
Read more