don't forget to watch the movie

[bantha_fodder]

So I've been reading these posts by hederahelix, parts one and two, and she's thoughtful and she's made me think about all sorts of things. She talks about privilege, and listening, and in a post inspired by race it really made me think about my own heterosexual privilege (which I'll talk about another time), but the first thing I want to talk about is this:

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my fen friends of color, it’s that I’m more likely to get listened to when I say something about race than they are.

You can't look at my lj, or at my style of typing, and tell that I am fen of colour over the internets. So I wear my colour on my sleeve: I post stories about little Chinese girls, encourage people to learn about Chinese New Year and the things that I find important, talk about racism in my life. And I'm clearly not hiding my ethnicity at all, and in fact I'm actively encouraging people to look at my ethnicity, because if I didn't, then you couldn't see it.

So now I'm wondering how much hederahelix's point applies in an internets only context. Ignoring whatever Fan A's argument is, and whatever Fan B's argument is, is either one more likely to be heard because of the colour of their skin? I want to say no, because how can you tell? But I don't want to say yes, either, because who am I to make these sweeping judgement calls? I'm just some chick on the internet.

Comments

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I have kind of the reverse reaction: I put more weight on the opinions of FoCs and wonder if, say, my issues with Firefly are me subconsciously fetishizing Asian people or something* (?) rather than reacting to a legitimate problem (certainly I've seen acceptable rationalizations of Joss's choices, although I don't agree with them). I worry that my enthusiasm for Grey's Anatomy is also some weird subconscious fetishization (and I also think it's interesting and disturbing that the white characters seems to have a lot more fic devoted to them in the fandom).

At the same time, I don't necessarily try to agree with every FoC in discussions about race because that would require a certain level of contradiction on my part. And I know that my opinions aren't representative of All Queer People (or even All Bisexual Women). Expecting one member of a less powerful group, or that member's creative work, to represent the Entire Group is a problem both from within and without (I read a lot of criticism of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior in high school, and one of the common criticism by Chinese American male critics was that she didn't represent their experience; Kingston was pretty explicit in interviews about only intending to represent a heavily fictionalized version of her own experience. Whether or not you like her book, I don't think it's fair to expect her to represent anyone besides herself).

*And I really do worry about this, since I've always been very interested in several Asian cultures. Where is the line between interest and fetishization?