signal boost

[loveflyfree]

I am fairly certain that you all know this already but it's important so I'm posting about it as well.

there's a J2 fic set in Haiti. yes, right after the earthquake. but don't worry our white heroes are here to save the day.

*SIGH*

honestly I could only read a couple of quotes before I had to close the window because I don't understand how people could look at that and not see the problems. I just don't. there are so many things wrong with this concept that it boggles my mind. actually you know, it's not really the concept. (well, her concept I have problem with because she was all BEST IDEA EVER about the earthquake in Haiti. the fuck?) but the concept of using tragic events to tell a story can be done with respect. but the execution here is just unreal. I'm sure it's well written, but I can't get past the blatent racism and exploitaion of a nation of people that are still suffering from an event that was used in a way that makes me ill.

but people waaaay smarter than me have talked about this and I'm going to link you to them because I think this issue is important and I don't want people to have to sift through my babble to get to the heart of the matter.

- a summary of the issue and links to discussion - this has been my main source of information. if you read nothing else, READ THIS.
- a collection of quotes from the story in question - Maggie collected quotes from the story and posted so that people could get an idea of what was going on. yes these are out of context. no it does not make a difference. I actually couldn't read this whole post because it made me too angry. but if anger is what it takes to make people speak out... then that's what it takes. and the thing that really struck me is HOW MANY there were. we're not talking about one or two lines of dialogue. this is all through the fic and again begs the question how it got through writing, beta, and read throughs without anyone going "um.... there's a problem here."
- onelittlesleep talks about white privilege and the failtastic arguments - Heidi breaks apart the same arguments that come up again and again and again and oh yes yet again.

- and finally, not about this issue specifically but an excellent place to get educated and maybe someday this same issue can stop happening over and over. sparkymonster's delicious collection For Clueless White People - white people just deal with it. you have no idea what it's like for non-white people. shut up and read this. (I include myself in this as well.)

Comments

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

*sighs* The fact that this whole story happened at all is just...JFC. Wanting to write fiction set against the Haiti earthquake at this point is SO WRONG OMG SO SO WRONG, and then everything from the main characters being American white dudes on is just deeper and deeper colonialist fail. (Allowing that this is a slightly lighter shade of crap...I would still have a very different reaction to the author, probably, if her first thought in response to the Haiti disaster was to send Clark Kent or Buffy Summers down there to lift rubble and try to do the right fucking thing, rather than "what a great scene in which the Js to fuck!" One at least shows me that the author is capable of empathy, if not good judgment, the other...pretty much the opposite thing.)

[loveflyfree.livejournal.com]

have you read this (http://2-perseph.livejournal.com/14904.html)? like I realized this story was full of fail all over but this just brought it all into focus.

is it just me or is fandom getting an early start this hiatus on the mind-blowing crazy?

(and agreed. although I would still probably going TOO SOON because good god she got this idea when these images were all over the news and how on earth can you look at that and think of porn! *sigh*)

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for giving me that link, the OP hits exactly why I had to rage-recoil from the screen when I got to "gibbering." Gibbering is not a human sound (save for, maybe, being sub-linguistic out of terror, but the author ascribed this to language). It's a monkey noise. The author ascribed dialogue to black people as she would to the noises of monkeys, and no one fucking thought anything of it. I mean: this fic is a layer-cake of fail, but re-routing that particular racism would have been one of the easiest edits of all, and that really gets to me. (I haven't seen any meta from any of her betas responding, I don't know if they tried to stop or ameliorate this and she just wouldn't listen, but fine-line editing, JFC. How do you not give a shit enough to do even that?)

[loveflyfree.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen anything on the betas responding either. I really want to believe that they said something and she just went ahead and posted her story, mostly because I can't deal with the thought that multiple people thought it was okay. (even though I know that's not really the case, given the amount of positive feedback.)

[frisbyg.livejournal.com]

this whole situation just hurts my head.

[loveflyfree.livejournal.com]

mine too. it's frustrating. the fact that people just DON'T GET why this is wrong, why they need to stop and think before they post, write, comment is just. argh!