きっと僕らは輝きたくて生きる意味を探している
I've been up to a lot of stuff, including TRYING TO GET TO JAPAN. It's hard, man. Which is why, even though I've been keeping up with my dramas, I don't have any kansous for you today. Other then ASFKSDJNKSJN VOICE. Because, uh, yeah.

OH, COMPUTER WOES. So, I want a desktop, right? Because my laptop is sad and likely to die in a year and also not able to handle my obsessive multitasking. But. I don't want Vista. *shakes fist* VISTA! On the other hand, I'm not too enthused about switching to Mac and/or Linux. Why can't I just have XP!? I'll pay for it (even though I shouldn't have to)! Just give me XP! I guess I'll just have to wait until Windows 7 comes out and cross my fingers it's not HORRIBLE like VISTA. (Because that's happening.) ALAS.

Went to Ikea with Kate yesterday. We of course partook of the meatballs of my people, but then I bought a snake (shoehorn) and two more octopi (clothespin hanging things), since they had two new colors and my mom needed one since Mr. Tako-san is coming with me.

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And while we are talking about "my people". I've made a few comments in passing over here and and twitter and in other people's comments about "Racefail09," but I've mostly kept out of it. The reason why would be: the last time I got involved in a discussion of racism on LJ, there weren't any insults, or any angry words (I don't even think there were any grudges), but I started a conversation that was not relevant to the discussion, and. I learned not to do that. (Incidentally, I was able to contribute constructively in a different way, so: don't ever stay silent because you're afraid you might mess up; even if you do, like I did, that doesn't mean you can't contribute something valuable as well.) My experinces with racism are not relevant to the discussion, and I can't appropriate PoC's experiences in this country (and in others when it is brought up but that is a different discussion). It isn't my fandom, but it is my fight. And right when I'd decided to say something, the first post about it actually popped up on my flist.

If you don't know what I'm talking about (many of you probably don't, since we all play nicely in Toku/Arashi fandom (have I told you guys lately that I love you?)), I direct you to metafandom and rydra_wong. I urge you to read it, as much of it as you can. And then, if you feel like having all those powerful words followed by my disorganized thoughts, most of which is just a restating of points already made, come back.

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This all comes back to writing PoCs, in the discussion and in my current Racial Issues Conciousness. There was a post on metafandom I don't even remember how long ago (so I'm sorry, no OCD linking) talking about the numbers of PoCs in fiction. IIRC, it was before the "Racefail" started, but I could be wrong.

I looked at the post and thought, as the post intended for me to do, "Am I portraying CoCs well?" And then I realized something: there was not a single person who looked like me in my fiction. (I have since written one fic with White People, making my current stats (out of 100 fics): 1% White People, 98% Japanese People.¹) And then I figured.... This post did not apply to me, really. Because I didn't have any CoCs (Japanese people are not minorities in Japan), but I didn't *not* have any CoCs, either.²

It was a weird place to be. It *is* a weird place to be. To me, East Asians are not "Other," have never really been "Other," because I was so young when I started this, and then I went to a high school that was 60/40 White/Asian-American. It is physically jarring for me to think of Asians as Different from me, yet I am hyperaware of how I am Not Japanese, Outside Person. And as I prepare to willfully put myself in this situation again, I think of how I felt last time. How there was this giant, gaping, oozing wound in my chest that people were constantly digging their nails into and gouging further. And no one could see they were doing it.

But do you know what? After three weeks, I went home. I went back to my 60/40 high school with all my pleasantly pale friends, where the lines between White and Asian(-American) blurred and I could surround myself with comfortable things and people.

This has been said before, but I want to say it again: Racism does not disappear because you decide to stop talking about it. Just because you can "go home," it doesn't make the problem disappear. And a whole lot of people can't just "go home."


¹That last 1% is Numbers, in case you were wondering. Why yes, I have written some weird things.
²You could argue that there are minorities living in Japan (Ainu, Displaced Koreans, Foreingers who've come to work, US Soldiers, Organized Criminals, etc.) and that I *am* ignoring them. But then please realize that there are littrally none in most of my canons. The ones there are are extremely minor chracters who exist only to speak English into a headset and look futuristic. And unlike the US, Japan is Not My Country.

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When I was in Japan, part of our program involved talking to two Ethnic Albanians living in Macedonia. They faced very real, very severe discrimination in Macedonia. And I remember thinking at the time, looking at the map, "Why don't they just emigrate to Albania?" I didn't know their particular financial situations, but Albania was close enough that they could have made it on foot if they had to go that way. My American, Army-brat perspective told me, freedom is more important than a specific bit of land, that in their situation I would have moved.

Discarding the fact that that is not taking into account their cultural specific perspective and the feelings of someone whose lived somewhere their entire lives, it wasn't a realistic solution to the problem. Because the problem was, "We want to eliminate the institutionalized racism in Macedonian society." Because even if all the Ethnic Albanians left, I bet there would be some other minority to oppress. My solution treated the symptom, not the disease, which was why it was no good.

The day before yesterday, my father engaged me in a discussion on Africa. He was saying how appalling it was that elected officials were not thinking for the good of their country instead of the good of their pocketbooks. And somehow it strayed into, "People need to see other people as other people," blaming tribal affiliations for the problems in Africa. Now aside from the fact that *that* problem has more to do with that time when drunk White dudes decided to draw squiggly lines across the continent at random, I couldn't really believe what I was hearing. How could you ask someone to give up their identity like that? Is that even really possible? And I think it is hard for him, because we are not Hypenated Americans, but. Just because "people should be perfect" is a solution, it doesn't mean it's constructive to the discussion.

"Can't we all just get along?" is not a valid solution. Because it treats a symptom, and not the disease. And that is never a great way to avoid a sudden death.

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I had a very surreal experience. I was expressing hurt due to a (different) -ism, and a friend got very upset, saying I had no cause to be offended by the particular thing I was offended by. At the time, I didn't recognize that was the reason for the hurt in my chest (I instead explained *why* I found the thing offensive, since the initial expression had been a sentence that was almost a throw-away), but the more I thought about it, especially as she proceeded to express to me how hurt she was I had taken offense to that thing, the more I didn't know what to feel.

Had I hurt her feelings? Yes. It doesn't matter that she wasn't listening to what I said, about how this was a cultural context that didn't include her, because when people get hurt they tend not to. Maybe that's not the best reaction, but it's the human one. And I felt bad, because no one wants to hurt their friends.

But. I was also angry and hurt myself. Why was her hurt valid but mine wasn't? Why wouldn't my own friend listen to me? Why wouldn't she give me the benefit of the doubt? Is that what she really thought of me?

I decided not to say anything. And I'm still not, in the sense that I still don't know how to feel about it, and I do not want it referenced or brought up in the comments in case you are somehow aware of what happened. But I do want to use this story to make two points:

You may not dictate someone's feelings or thoughts to them. Because you're not them, you can't know what they're thinking. This is a problem people tend to have when arguing, attacking the persons's feelings/thoughts (i.e. themselves) and not the actions and consequences of those actions. Don't do this. Please, don't.

This is not a clean, clear-cut battle of good and bad. Because while concepts can be "good" or "evil," it is very rare you find a real, flesh-and-blood person you can characterize that way. And I'm not going to say "let's all give each other the benefit of the doubt," because PoCs have enough to worry about without having to consider the feelings of White People, clueless or malicious. (Besides, the PoCs-and-their-allies side is already 25x politer and better at citing things to make well-reasoned arguments.) But if you're on the privileged side of the debate especially, you need to stitch this on a sampler and hang it above your monitor. Because swinging your privilege around wildly will hurt people. People.





And so that is what I have to say on the subject. Again, I urge listening to the people linked on metafandom and rydra_wong over me. But, silence was not an acceptable option. It never is.

If this is unacceptable for you to have someone on your flist saying, remember it's always defriending amnesty day. And friending amnesty day, for that matter.