asterroc | Entries tagged with racefail

I was recently talking with

calzephyr77 about how so few SF pieces include people with disabilities. The only book/series I could come up with, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey has the same problem with disability as her other novels have with feminism, in that although she puts the disenfranchised individuals in the limelight, she does nothing to challenge the discriminatory nature of either present day or her fictional society. The only movie I could come up with while thinking then was Avatar, though Daredevil could also do.

I'm currently rereading Heinlein's "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls," my intent being to examine his treatment of women with my current understanding of feminism, rather than how I thought about the issue when younger. I have been pleasantly surprised when ever half hour or so something reminds me that the main character uses a prosthetic leg. It's an unavoidable part of the narrator's life and affects fro the little things like his walking speed to his choice to live in a low gravity environment, but it's not something that permeates every moment of his (or the reader's) thinking.

Can anyone make any other recommendations of SF books with characters with disabilities for me to read? The overall read needs to be good, but I'm curious about both good and bad treatments of disabilities.

I just reread Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (first read in high school). The edition I had included two afterwords, one of which discusses some letters he received from readers in this and other books of his. A number of these letters, he says, criticize his treatment (or lack thereof) of blacks and women. Bradbury harshly rebuts that this is the first step of censorship, and that changing his works to appease the many different minorities present in a large and populous society such as ours would be changing the essence of his pieces and would destroy his artistic creation. Unfortunately the afterword is still under copyright so I'm not easily finding the relevant text - anyone happen to have a link?

I'm disappointed by this attitude. Bradbury lumps underprivleged minorities (such as blacks and women) with privileged or neutral "minorities" such as dog lovers. He doesn't show understanding of the distinction between elective special interest groups, and minority status imposed upon one by society, and he also doesn't show understanding of the privilege/status/power involved in the involuntary minority statuses. He also doesn't show any interest in increased inclusivism in future works, applying the criticisms only to past completed works - altering completed works wouldn't be right IMO, but I do feel it is worthwhile to portray a more ideal society in pieces one writes in the future, without as many boundary lines of privilege between different members of society.

If were pissed off about Racefail, you'll want to promote this. If you write, you'll want to at least think about this. It's a contest for the best science fiction short story about "a world where universal access is a shared cultural value." Deadline Aug 15, word limit of 5,000, prize of $300 or 6c/word.

http://redstonesciencefiction.com/contest/

I sympathize with those of you talking about Racefail and other instances of racial minorities in SF fandom. My own issue along these lines is women/girls in gaming, especially as it has many parallels to women in science.

Waaay back in 2006 I went to PAX (a con for video gamers) (back when it was only in Seattle) and had some quite uncomfortable experiences (REDACTED IDENTIFYING INFORMATION, summaries available to my friendslist here and here) including both blatant sexism from employees/volunteers working the con, and from other women/girls attending. (My point being that sometimes when the atmosphere is the most sexist, women respond by becoming our own worst enemies.) Well I'm going again now that there's another one in my neck of the woods, and Jonathan Coulton is one of the musicians playing and the tickets for the whole thing were the same price as a Coulton concert usually is alone.

In case you are not familiar with it, PAX is a gaming con centered around three or so things: (1) webcomics and specifically the Penny-Arcade webcomic and its creators nicknamed Gabe and Tycho (PAX stands for Penny-Arcade eXpo), and any panels with Tycho and Gabe have a are HUGE audience; (2) the keynote speech is always some hugely famous geek, Wil Wheaton being this year's and a previous one as well; and (3) another major draw is the concerts, one held on Friday night and one on Saturday night, of "nerd-core" and other geek-centric music, this year MC Frontalot is the star of Friday's and JoCo is the star of Saturday's. These three events are majorly important, like (if I'm getting my analogy right) Arisia's Masquerade is majorly important to that con.

When reading through the schedule for PAX East this year, I was happy to see that there's a panel on girls in gaming:

Girls and Games: The Growing Role of Women in the Game Industry
Manticore Theatre
Friday, 8:00pm

According to the ESA, more than 43% of video gamers are female, making women the single largest untapped market segment in the gaming industry. Look at the milestones crossed and the hurdles to come as developers and publishers reach out to this previously overlooked demographic. Are current strategies effective? What does this mean for the game industry as a whole?
Panelists Include: Brittany Vincent [Editor-in-Chief, Spawn Kill], Julie Furman [Founder, SFX360], Jeff Kalles [Penny Arcade], Alexis Hebert [Community Relations Manager, Terminal Reality]

When I first saw this, I was relieved to think that PAX had apparently made some progress from their gaffes of 2006. And then I realized something I'd missed on the previous line.

Friday Night Concerts!
Main Theatre
Friday, 8:30pm

Break out your cell phone and handheld gaming screens to welcome our musical acts to Boston! The Protomen, Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal, and MC Frontalot will all be rocking for the first night of our Nerdcore Concert Series. The first 4,000 attendees at PAX Friday afternoon will receive wristbands for guaranteed entry, with the remaining seats being distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Yes, the Girls and Games panel is running against the Friday night concert, not only guaranteeing it a low turnout and showing that the people who made the schedule don't give a shit that it'll have a low turnout and revealing that they don't give a shit about the plight of women/girls in gaming, but also guaranteeing that anyone who attends the Girls and Games panel is unable to attend the concert and showing that the people who made the schedule don't give a shit that we can't attend the concert and revealing that they don't give a shit about including women/girls in the larger gaming community.

This pisses the hell out of me. Am I overreacting?

Edit: If your response is "yes, you're overreacting" and you're not yourself a member of a minority within a fandom please first (1) try viewing it from my point of view, then (2) if you still think I'm overreacting I'd appreciate it if you explained your viewpoint but be prepared for me to not respond. As usual, my rules for my journal are no bashing or insults or expressions of anger. Any such comments will be frozen at a minimum or potentially deleted.

Current Music: No Doubt - I'm Just a Girl

CNN has an article up about Disney's new black Princess. While the article leaves some to be desired (as do most CNN articles), it's still an interesting read.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/11/princess.frog.parents/index.html

Working on my primary NaNoWriMo story since I finished the short story. I realized my brain was dry and I wasn't coming up with good names for my characters, so I turned to online name generators. All the names sounded too bland, so I picked Irish from the dropdown menu. Then I realized I'd only been picking white names, so I found me a nice Hispanic name. Then I wanted something else for my last character and decided I wanted part of the name Asian, and part Islamic, mostly for variety. I could retcon that this hodge-podge fits her do-anything character, or that it demonstrates the genetic mixing that takes place in a fixed population, but really I just wanted something new. I posted to the NaNoWriMo forums b/c I was having a hard time finding an Islamic name generator online, and the Asian names I found were either androgynous (to American me) or else were stupid anglicisms like "Beautiful Tree" or "Strong Wind". I got a bunch of helpul replies too, and then I got this one.

( Racefail cut for the sensitive )

Among various other achievements, Elsie B. Washington (1942-2009) is credited with being the first African American to write a romance novel with African American characters. She was also a friend of my mother's from childhood through college. They had grown apart in more recent years not through any dislike, but these things sometimes just happen.

Her brother called my parents today to say that she had passed away. It's a shame, I don't remember much about her except that she was a very vibrant woman and I was always glad to see her. I seem to recall my mother and I getting together with her a few years ago, I think when I was in grad school, and learning then that her health was poor, but I may be reconstructing something that didn't happen. I think it's a shame that my mother and her drifted out of touch, for my mother has few true friends these days.

If I am remembering my stories correctly, Mom and Elsie were fast friends throughout most of their childhoods as the two non-whites in the class. It's interesting to see how these experiences shaped them after both earned degrees in English from City College: Elsie becoming an editor and writer credited with being the "mother of the African-American romance", and my mother becoming a high school English teacher with a favorite class of Asian Literature and going to many Asian nations on a Fulbright and other such scholarships.

NY Times Obituary
Wikipedia page

I wonder who will have touched more lives in the end? I want to think my mother, out of loyalty, but in the end it's not a contest, and they both have made contributions in their own ways.

Current Mood: morose

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this is not a journal title

hyuk

Entries tagged with racefail

Disability in Sci Fi

Ray Bradbury's take on censorship and inclusivism

SF short story contest about disability

minorities in fandom

CNN's take on the Frog Princess

Racefail in NaNoWriMo forums

RIP Elsie Washington

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