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[Link to fanfic "The Flash and the Sort-Of Vampires" Chapter 16]
Welcome to a blog post where I cheerfully (or not?) explore social justice issues! I'm excited about this. Let's go! ᕕ( ⁰ ▽ ⁰ )ᕗ
So early on (while noodling around with this story), I had these thoughts:
"You know what I want to see? Vampires of color talking about how vampire stuff intersects with their lives. And how white men vampires would definitely still have white men privileges. Also... I'm pretty sure women of color would immediately start pulling together solutions if this vampire stuff happened. They already have the experience and networks from having to work together and fight for their rights."
"You know what else I want to see? Can we please show that characters of color have identities as people of color? The canon TV show writes colorblind at best; maybe a few crumbs of acknowledgement that people have a non-white background or experience. Entire universes and swaths of colors, unexplored and ignored!"
Anyway, that's how Ch.16 "Steam" came to be written.
Of course, if I was being a little more real in Ch. 16: so the characters of color might not feel comfortable chatting about their lives (including structural racism etc they have to daily navigate), with white people around. Having to tiptoe around white fragility is a thing. This includes close friends and family who are white -- it's potentially even more painful to watch their reactions :( But, with the mix of Ezekiel’s character being there, hopefully as a buffer to the white folks -- and because I just really wanted to write the scene -- the scene happened anyway.
A few notes --
Shout out to Blasian and mixed-race women!
Also shout out to: when other people decide they really need to categorize mixed-race people's ethnicity; when other people just decide one's ethnicity (Surprise! Today you are X ethnicity, apparently!); narrative tropes where mixed-race women are considered to be objects of pity before they are considered to be natural leaders (like how mixed-race men are portrayed); and other fun times. Actually, not really all that fun. Never mind, I'm keeping the first shoutout, I'm canceling the shout out to the tropes. A few more articles.
Plug: sister-hood is a digital magazine written by women of Muslim heritage.
The story of the man setting fire to a Muslim woman’s clothes is from a 2016 incident in the US. Washington Post article (for those concerned, she wasn’t physically injured.) Actually, every anecdote I mentioned comes from at least one news article.
More recently, there was the March 15 2019 white supremacist's attack on Muslim mosques in NZ. Here's Sarah J's essay at sister-hood and cartoonist Girl in the Red Hijab Comic's take on media coverage of said white supremacist.
Some links: An essay about being a British-Indian woman; Ek Aasha, a film about an Indian transwoman who wants to be a teacher; and an article about the Indian women scientists who put a satellite around Mars and had that viral photo (that I just really like).
Info about British policy causing famine and the death of 35 million Indians is taken from writings by MP Shashi Tharoor. Here’s a short article. Different sources report different numbers. I decided to use the number given by a representative from the colonized country. Buzzfeed India and Utsa Patnaik have words about British colonization. Radhika Parameswaran writes about colorism in India, including influences of colonialism, and how women are affected more then men.
Story about the "TRUMP 4" license plate: loosely lifted from my own life.
*Deep breath*
The SPLC reported a 50% increase in white nationalist hate groups between 2017 and 2018, with white supremacists committing the largest number of extremist killings in 2017. In 2019, white nationalist groups continue to spread globally. Meanwhile (among many other things), in 2017 the Trump Administration defunded a U.S. organization that works to de-radicalize white supremacists. Please notice my super-clinical tone, because the actual amount of roiling feelings and fear and would be overwhelming to describe.
I remain optimistic that we can do better, but we need systemic changes and active allies. Or, actually -- there's people who spend their career studying this and who do the work to make changes. I'm deferring to their expertise on what to do. (Though I'm pretty sure "systemic changes and allies" gets an OK.) Quick google searches on changing systemic racism and changing systemic inequality.
Speaking of social justice, I want to give a shoutout (an actual shoutout, not a sarcastic one) to economic justice, environmental justice, reproductive justice, and other areas which are all interconnected. These areas are touched on in articles like how white people benefit from racism or a short article about the Akwesanse Mohawk community by Dr. Elizabeth Hoover. Also, I wanted to squash some persisting narrative tropes about racism, especially when I see it in speculative fiction, which include: racism being limited to an odious blip of personality; racism solved by being colorblind; racism magically appearing out of nowhere; racism being a mystical immutable force which people (esp. white people) can never change. 'Cause these tropes are convenient to IRL people with power who want to maintain the status quo and they should definitely be challenged.
Oh, speaking of the active allyship I mentioned earlier -- The end scene in Ch. 16 of the fanfic:
So, in the story, Ezekiel kind of threw a handful of info about allyship at white people and then the scene wrapped up. Mostly because the writer (me) wanted to drop a few notes on this and then move on. I've got other parts of the story to get to, move along now!
In real life, I think, effective outreach from allies would include more back-and-forth and active listening. For instance, even as I was typing the scene out, I was thinking, "Hmm, we are making some sweeping assumptions about people's genders etc." Still, the general sentiment* of that scene remains the same.
* The sentiment of, "White men, white people, people with privileges and power -- please go take care of your own, don't put your workload on more marginalized people".
* Or maybe it's, "No, I'm not writing the characters of color having to deal with reactions from white characters. Let the PoC say what they want and have the white people sort their feelings amongst themselves."
Anyway, there could be more addressed with how other identities, privileges and oppressions intersect within the cast of characters. For instance, Caitlin's identities as a white person and a woman, Cisco's identities of a PoC and a man, or other elements with other characters. For here, though, I've kept the focus more on people of color's experiences and how white men figure into it.
Quick google search on allyship.
PS: My hope is that Ch. 16 did not catch readers off-guard. Too much. I did try and tag "intersectionality" early on and add other tags later, and started to bring these things more visibly to the surface in the chapters before. Actually, even in Ch. 2, the latter vampire parts were (for me, anyway) kind of written with overlaps of colonization and women's experiences (with descriptions like "taking" and "feeling like one's body no longer equated a person").
And on that note, back to the fanfic!
Where were we? Right, we confirmed that the major U.S. attractions are Washington, D.C. (The National Museum of African American History and Culture), Atlanta, Georgia (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and Plains, Georgia (The Jimmy Carter Smiling Peanut). Additionally, pinky-promises are the new version of the bro-shake; eating mosquitoes for dinner might be a no-go; and white people are probably not all vampires (?).
The story is taking a bit of a shift in the upcoming chapters, just FYI.
Peace out!
*Did you know all these attractions are free? The CDC has a museum.
.... Sorry everyone, once you work in outreach, that switch is never going to fully turn off. 乁། * ❛ ͟ʖ ❛ * །ㄏ
Welcome to a blog post where I cheerfully (or not?) explore social justice issues! I'm excited about this. Let's go! ᕕ( ⁰ ▽ ⁰ )ᕗ
So early on (while noodling around with this story), I had these thoughts:
"You know what I want to see? Vampires of color talking about how vampire stuff intersects with their lives. And how white men vampires would definitely still have white men privileges. Also... I'm pretty sure women of color would immediately start pulling together solutions if this vampire stuff happened. They already have the experience and networks from having to work together and fight for their rights."
"You know what else I want to see? Can we please show that characters of color have identities as people of color? The canon TV show writes colorblind at best; maybe a few crumbs of acknowledgement that people have a non-white background or experience. Entire universes and swaths of colors, unexplored and ignored!"
Anyway, that's how Ch.16 "Steam" came to be written.
Of course, if I was being a little more real in Ch. 16: so the characters of color might not feel comfortable chatting about their lives (including structural racism etc they have to daily navigate), with white people around. Having to tiptoe around white fragility is a thing. This includes close friends and family who are white -- it's potentially even more painful to watch their reactions :( But, with the mix of Ezekiel’s character being there, hopefully as a buffer to the white folks -- and because I just really wanted to write the scene -- the scene happened anyway.
A few notes --
Shout out to Blasian and mixed-race women!
Also shout out to: when other people decide they really need to categorize mixed-race people's ethnicity; when other people just decide one's ethnicity (Surprise! Today you are X ethnicity, apparently!); narrative tropes where mixed-race women are considered to be objects of pity before they are considered to be natural leaders (like how mixed-race men are portrayed); and other fun times. Actually, not really all that fun. Never mind, I'm keeping the first shoutout, I'm canceling the shout out to the tropes. A few more articles.
Plug: sister-hood is a digital magazine written by women of Muslim heritage.
The story of the man setting fire to a Muslim woman’s clothes is from a 2016 incident in the US. Washington Post article (for those concerned, she wasn’t physically injured.) Actually, every anecdote I mentioned comes from at least one news article.
More recently, there was the March 15 2019 white supremacist's attack on Muslim mosques in NZ. Here's Sarah J's essay at sister-hood and cartoonist Girl in the Red Hijab Comic's take on media coverage of said white supremacist.
Some links: An essay about being a British-Indian woman; Ek Aasha, a film about an Indian transwoman who wants to be a teacher; and an article about the Indian women scientists who put a satellite around Mars and had that viral photo (that I just really like).
Info about British policy causing famine and the death of 35 million Indians is taken from writings by MP Shashi Tharoor. Here’s a short article. Different sources report different numbers. I decided to use the number given by a representative from the colonized country. Buzzfeed India and Utsa Patnaik have words about British colonization. Radhika Parameswaran writes about colorism in India, including influences of colonialism, and how women are affected more then men.
Story about the "TRUMP 4" license plate: loosely lifted from my own life.
*Deep breath*
The SPLC reported a 50% increase in white nationalist hate groups between 2017 and 2018, with white supremacists committing the largest number of extremist killings in 2017. In 2019, white nationalist groups continue to spread globally. Meanwhile (among many other things), in 2017 the Trump Administration defunded a U.S. organization that works to de-radicalize white supremacists. Please notice my super-clinical tone, because the actual amount of roiling feelings and fear and would be overwhelming to describe.
I remain optimistic that we can do better, but we need systemic changes and active allies. Or, actually -- there's people who spend their career studying this and who do the work to make changes. I'm deferring to their expertise on what to do. (Though I'm pretty sure "systemic changes and allies" gets an OK.) Quick google searches on changing systemic racism and changing systemic inequality.
Speaking of social justice, I want to give a shoutout (an actual shoutout, not a sarcastic one) to economic justice, environmental justice, reproductive justice, and other areas which are all interconnected. These areas are touched on in articles like how white people benefit from racism or a short article about the Akwesanse Mohawk community by Dr. Elizabeth Hoover. Also, I wanted to squash some persisting narrative tropes about racism, especially when I see it in speculative fiction, which include: racism being limited to an odious blip of personality; racism solved by being colorblind; racism magically appearing out of nowhere; racism being a mystical immutable force which people (esp. white people) can never change. 'Cause these tropes are convenient to IRL people with power who want to maintain the status quo and they should definitely be challenged.
Oh, speaking of the active allyship I mentioned earlier -- The end scene in Ch. 16 of the fanfic:
So, in the story, Ezekiel kind of threw a handful of info about allyship at white people and then the scene wrapped up. Mostly because the writer (me) wanted to drop a few notes on this and then move on. I've got other parts of the story to get to, move along now!
In real life, I think, effective outreach from allies would include more back-and-forth and active listening. For instance, even as I was typing the scene out, I was thinking, "Hmm, we are making some sweeping assumptions about people's genders etc." Still, the general sentiment* of that scene remains the same.
* The sentiment of, "White men, white people, people with privileges and power -- please go take care of your own, don't put your workload on more marginalized people".
* Or maybe it's, "No, I'm not writing the characters of color having to deal with reactions from white characters. Let the PoC say what they want and have the white people sort their feelings amongst themselves."
Anyway, there could be more addressed with how other identities, privileges and oppressions intersect within the cast of characters. For instance, Caitlin's identities as a white person and a woman, Cisco's identities of a PoC and a man, or other elements with other characters. For here, though, I've kept the focus more on people of color's experiences and how white men figure into it.
Quick google search on allyship.
PS: My hope is that Ch. 16 did not catch readers off-guard. Too much. I did try and tag "intersectionality" early on and add other tags later, and started to bring these things more visibly to the surface in the chapters before. Actually, even in Ch. 2, the latter vampire parts were (for me, anyway) kind of written with overlaps of colonization and women's experiences (with descriptions like "taking" and "feeling like one's body no longer equated a person").
And on that note, back to the fanfic!
Where were we? Right, we confirmed that the major U.S. attractions are Washington, D.C. (The National Museum of African American History and Culture), Atlanta, Georgia (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and Plains, Georgia (The Jimmy Carter Smiling Peanut). Additionally, pinky-promises are the new version of the bro-shake; eating mosquitoes for dinner might be a no-go; and white people are probably not all vampires (?).
The story is taking a bit of a shift in the upcoming chapters, just FYI.
Peace out!
*Did you know all these attractions are free? The CDC has a museum.
.... Sorry everyone, once you work in outreach, that switch is never going to fully turn off. 乁། * ❛ ͟ʖ ❛ * །ㄏ
