oh *fandom*

[mimesere]

sometimes you make me want to cry. and/or punch people.

but hey! On the other hand, now I totally know who to avoid in fandom! So...that's a plus. *tries to look on the bright side*

(god, it JUST KEEPS GOING and horrifies me more and more).

ETA: the posts in question
In which Teyla and Ronon are white! No, really! - I swear, the more I hear about race relations in, um, England/Ireland/Wales/Scotland/what-have-you, the less likely I am to ever ever go there.

and!

In which the reason there's not more fic about characters of color is because they are not leads! or not hot enough! or interesting enough! Because when they *are*, there's a lot of fic! No, really!

Comments

[jennyo.livejournal.com]

Okay, but if you turned around and said, "Oh, J.Lo, only in America would you get treated as not-white! Because in Britain, you are white!" she might say, "Okay, so I'm the whitest-looking girl in my family. Look at my aunties. Look at my cousins. I AM NOT WHITE." I don't think Jennifer Lopez would call herself white, even if she's probably from a white/native mix that was higher on the white. And I further don't think she'd exactly be down with "Oh, I don't think of you as not-white!" There's sort of this quiet, "well, doesn't everyone want to be white?" assumption in there, or why not assume "mixed" (which is still 'not white') instead of tanned Mediterranean?

I know that it's a different context and I know you're not going to assume "Puerto Rican" or "Mexican" of the person walking along the street in the UK (I've seen the numbers. Utah is less white than the UK. UTAH), but there is that hint of white privilege in assuming that the tanned person is white, or even wants to be assumed white, unless there's a seriously visible marker, like 'undeniably' non-white features or skin tone, or say, something that marks the person as Middle Eastern.

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean - sort of like the heteronormativity involved in assuming a given person is straight unless they act gay. But on the other hand, I'm very unlikely to turn around and say 'come here so you'll be treated as white' :) I'm not denying that she is a Latina and that that is a vitally important part of her identity which she wouldn't want to part with at any cost.

I'm just saying that in the UK, if you saw someone looking similar to that on the street you would be much more likely to be right if you thought 'French or Spanish exchange student' than if you thought 'mixed'. It would take talking to her to find out for sure. But being part of Europe and with open borders we are simply more likely to see Mediterranean people, and it is equally disrespectful of a person's heritage to assume 'mixed' when they are in fact French (like the fellow in my icon).

But having said all that, I do see what you mean - that the assumption that someone is white because they look white is just as annoying as the assumption that I'm German because I'm blonde and blue eyed. There's nothing wrong with being German, but I'm just not.