My thoughts on RaceFail '09: I have a keen eye for the obvious

[varadia]

I've spent most of this conversation/imbroglio/failboat listening to other people talk, paying attention to who is saying what, commenting where I either had something I really wanted to say or felt I had something to contribute, and just trying to take it all in. I'm not the best communicator in online media, and I don't really use this journal as a platform to talk to an audience, because I'm not really a blogger.

But in the past couple weeks I've started to really want to say something, except I didn't know what it was. I still don't. Here's what I've got anyway:

I think I'm getting tired of people being dismissive of conversations that don't make them comfortable, putting their heads in the sand and going 'la la la I can't hear you and furthermore why are you still talking?'. I'm tired of people having the opinion that if they don't approve of a conversation's direction, or its origins, or the 'tone', that it's worthless for everyone and clearly wankery.

I'm really damn tired of people missing the point and letting themselves get distracted from conversations about race and racism, in genre fiction or not, that need to happen.

And I think verb_noire, 50books_poc, and fight_derailing are good things to engage with. I certainly appreciate them.