I was supposed to start with something nicer, rounding up my Continuum 13, but all I can really think about is the racial micro aggressions PoC experience at Australian conventions, particularly the micro aggressions experienced by our PoC Guests of Honour, and the ways in which con goers can prepare to have our backs (our own, and the backs of others).
And so, beneath the fold: some racial micro aggressions, and some ways to prepare to call them out.
Aren’t you tired of this already? I’m tired of this.
I’ve spent more years of my life than not going to the Anzac Day Dawn Service.
On Friday, Steph went to a symposium on the urban politics of food. How on brand! Today she’s talking about some of the main themes (food as diversity, labelling as tool of racism, urban planning) and her feelings about them.
Continue reading “food, culture, and the personal instead of the political”
What a gift this month is! We have not one but two racist and/or whitewashed media adaptations being released — Iron Fist and Ghost in the Shell — and they’re both getting terrible press.
What a shame. We shall sip our tea and nibble at a dark, bittersweet pie and try not to disturb others with our cackles of laughter.
Hidden Figures tells the story of how African-American women helped put the United States in space. Margot Lee Shetterly’s book was optioned for film before it had even been published, so clearly I’m not the only person who was very excited by this concept. (Things I’m into: the space program; feminist history; the corners of history which are overlooked or obscured.)
I loved the book a lot, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie when I saw it on Friday. It was a lovely portrayal of excellence in the face of oppression, of female friendship, and of some of the nuances of racism as expressed by middle class white women. And, of course, SPACE.
But the second I saw a Tumblr review promising it had no white saviours, I knew it would have a white saviour. And I was right.
Continue reading “No Award goes to the movies: Hidden Figures”
Australia’s super racist Immigration Minister, mouldy cabbage Peter Dutton, has a long documented history of gross racism. There’s the time he laughed about people in the Pacific losing their homes due to rising sea levels, literally everything he’s ever said about refugees ever, and, this week, he was pretty offensive to Lebanese Australians. Please read on for details and action points.
Continue reading “Dutton is a racist cabbage + action points for Australians”
Does it even matter what inspired this? The sad truth is that all this has happened before, and will happen again, for as long as agents keep repping racist books and publishers keep buying them.
There’s hope for change, in that the massive outpouring of criticism in this instance has persuaded the publisher to move the release date so that the manuscript can be revised, and the attempts to destroy Justina Ireland’s career have been unsuccessful — but this is an extreme case, and meanwhile, how many microaggressions are slipping through?
The world doesn’t need another white lady with an opinion here, so instead, I have made a bingo card for use whenever a pasty-faced writer responds to a call out.
Today, let’s talk about your favourite topic and mine, colonialism.
I spent three days at Ubud Writers and Readers Festival last week, and it was lovely! And currently the Singapore Writers Festival is on, and I am attending that as I’m able. I have many thoughts about many things, and I’m going to spread them out over a few days, actually probably a couple of weeks TBH, because Liz needs space to talk about classic boarding school novels and Star Trek and things like that.
[Liz: YOU DON’T KNOW ME.]
But today: colonialism.
no-award.net 