Happy Anniversary to El Investigador!

El Investigador, a Spanish-language steampunk magazine, recently released its 12th issue! There's steampunk in French, and in Portuguese, and now steampunk is growing in Spanish-speaking communities! 

Given the ethnocentrism that can occur in steampunk (and a recent Facebook kerfuffle involving some "opinion" that invited a great deal of racist raa-raa-USA nonsense), #steampunkchat hosts, of which I am one, have decided to join forces with @VonMarmalade of El Investigador to bring you a Spanish-Anglo session of #steampunkchat on Friday, Feb 17th, 8pm Mexico City Time!

So come join us  for Festival Anglo-Español! And don't forget to check out El Investigador... they'll have a special surprise for us in a few days! 

Link of Interest: Slavery and the Origins of Racism, by Lance Selfa

Via Tumblr, an article at the International Socialist Review on the origins of racism in capitalist-driven slavery. The article tackles a few misconceptions:

1) That Marx's analysis was only about class and ignores race. (I've been guilty of assuming this, having read bits and pieces of his writing.) Marx very insightfully pointed out the links between racial division and capitalist accumulation.

2) That racism has always existed. And is natural. (It is not.)

3) That slavery in Africa and ancient Greece can be compared to U.S. slavery. (The basis and conditions of slavery in Africa and ancient Greece were very different.)

4) Racism ended after slavery was abolished. (Look, I get that facts make you feel guilty, but telling black people to "get over it, slavery was 200 years ago" is highly counter-productive. And racist.)

5) Multiracial spaces automatically promote racial equality. (Not really, for a variety of reasons.) 

If anything, reading this should remind us that just thinking we're not racist isn't good enough; we have to be actively anti-racist in what we do and say, and even how we think. We need to keep listening to these stories of racism and heed them. We need to keep interrogating any knee-jerk "but I'm not racist!" reactions we may have. 

Steampunk POC: Stephanie Lai (Australian-Malaysian-Chinese)

I do not actually remember how I got to know Stephanie! We have, however, frequently exchanged words about being Malaysian, and being Malaysian-Chinese. We both vied for a spot in Crossed Genres' Eastern issue (she won with The Last Rickshaw!) and now we both have stories in Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories! She hails from Melbourne's SFF scene, which I know pretty much nothing about, so I will let her talk about it.

Stephanie! How did you get into steampunk?

Jaymee! I just kind of fell into it. I’ve always been into SFF, and I love alternate realities, and science and technology, and steampunk appealed to me as a way of combining all of my favourite things, so I started dabbling in it. Then I think I found your blog and it sucked me all the way in to steampunk.

What is steampunk like over there in Australia? Is it big? Is it small? Growing? Is it a literary trends, are there gatherings for me? Tell us o stranger from an arcane land!

Let me tell you, it is HARD WORK being an antipodean, way distant from everyone else, and needing to get people to proof and say whether my story is too Aussie to be understood. HARD WORK INDEED.

Steampunk is growing in Australia. There are a lot of readers and writers, and as a community we are definitely growing, if the number of panels being run  at cons (and the number of people attending) is

anything to go by. There’s nothing separate happening, mostly it’s just a handful of panels at Swancon and Continuum, but I think we’re moving towards maybe a specialised gathering or two.

I think within the SFF community it’s gaining greater traction, but I’m not super sure it’s growing at all outside the community.

However there is not a lot of Australian steampunk set in Australia, and that’s something I’d like to see change.