Black Sister, My Sister

So, intra-POC prejudice and racism exists. It is a thing, an actual thing. It is pernicious, in the U.S./Canada it is often a symptom of white supremacy where we all fight according to the rules set by whiteness to judge each other and find each other wanting. 

This occurs despite a long history of inter-POC cooperation, where in the living memory of our elders, Asian groups participated and helped in the Black Panther Party's activities, and Jews testify how black soldiers can to rescue them (and thus, how they knew the soldiers were not Nazis), and many other such histories which I can't recall at the moment. All histories usually unspoken of, to the point where it is such a big fucking surprise to discover they exist. All pointing to how our intra-POC conflicts are really very counter-productive. All proving how short our communities' memories are, because these stories have been so covered up into non-existence, so we'll believe anything mainstream media tells us about each other. 

There is a Global Hierarchy of Race, which follows skin tones and assimilation into Western standards of modernity. In this hierarchy, darker-skinned peoples suffer more than lighter-skinned ones. In this hierarchy, my light skin and Westernized background count me as acceptable to whiteness, as "the other white meat." If anyone followed the Tiger Mother kerfuffle, you would have an inkling of how assimilation into the white American middle-class lifestyle was, and still is, so incredibly prioritized, so the younger generation can have "a better life".... a white life. 

This system of white supremacy requires something to measure up against for superiority. And as Lance Selfa has demonstrated, whiteness needs to be measured against blackness. This has been eloquently articulated over, and over, and over, by such writers as Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., bell hooks, Audre Lordre, Franz Fanon. Blackness is a depth, blackness is the dark, blackness is the bad, blackness is the inferior, blackness is where you do not want to be, blackness is that which we do not want to inhabit.... so on and on states a variety of media, a variety of sources.

And we internalize this as a truth. As little children. And we see it repeated everywhere. In the last week alone, I've seen the following on Tumblr:

Racist Things Steampunks Are Not Immune To: Aversive Racism

I talk a lot about racism in my work, not least because, uh, part of why I get pretty fucking angry about colonialism and whatnot is because the histories of colonialism that many POC live with today are the foundation for systemic racism that exists today.

It's gotten to the point where I am kind of aggressively avoiding novels that feature straight white dudes unless it's a YA (out of the four novels I have attempted to read in the last while, the only one I could stand was a YA novel) because I am just kind of pissed off at the reminder that straight white dudes have been allowed to call the shots when they have been so utterly wrong, and have created such utterly wrong worlds, both in fiction and in reality, and continue to be accepted when they exhibit utterly wrong behaviour. It gets to the point where I want to cloister all my white friends who are wonderful people away from all this wrongness in case it's catching, like a flu.

But I can't, so instead I go about identifying Things That Are Wrong and tell any listening public (like all four of you reading this blog!) about them, so I have the satisfaction of having at least attempted to mitigate the wrongness of the world. And you will have some names for Things That Are Generally Wrong With The World that also creep into steampunk, so you can start learning how to call it as you see it and thus help in the long arduous battle against racism in steampunk! Our first term is: Aversive Racism!

Con or Bust! 2012 Auction has Opened

Con or Bust!, the fundraiser that helped me get to WisCon34 back in 2010, has now opened for bidding on its various items! I also has many items up for bidding, such as The Steampowered Globe. If you would like to get a copy of this Singaporean steampunk anthology delivered to you personally from me and donate to a worthy cause at the same time, place a bid!

You can find most general information about Con or Bust at its site but I would like to give my own perspective on why you should bid, or perhaps even donate, to Con or Bust.

ETA: It has also come to my attention that Con or Bust will now be helping fans of colour get to ANY convention of their choice! So, if you want to see more people of colour getting help to come to YOUR steampunk convention? Do pitch in as you please!

I tend to see people ask, "what do we do to help racism go away?" Or "what can we do to encourage POC participation at events?" And sometimes infuriatingly, "yeah we know racism is bad: what are you doing about it?"