About: Miscegenation

[jlh]

By the way, I made another race post just before the book came out, which some of you might not have seen while you were trying to avoid spoilers. It concerned feeling uncomfortable or unqualified to talk about race, and whether talking about race spoils the fun of being in fandom.

I'm sure a lot of you have seen pieces of the whole daily_deviant mess, but I'll try to lay out some things about it. The actual prompt is here, #4 under July 07. Now, I'm not going to get into the whole defining people as a kink; if you scroll up you'll see gay men and lesbians listed as kinks for other months. So that's just something daily_deviant does, and they're equal opportunity about it. That said, given that I'm biracial and all of the sex I've had (since I haven't had the chance to do the Lisa Bonet/Lenny Kravitz "OMG you're the exact same racial mixture I am? Let's have babies!) has been of the miscegenation variety, I share with my gay male and lesbian friends the odd feeling of being a kink through mere existence.

However, that's not the point. "Interracial" sex would have been a better term, because miscegenation does have a very specific historical meaning which I alluded to in my previous post about the Loving family and the legalization of interracial marriage in the US. The term miscegenation, as said in the wiki, is often used as a negative term for racial mixing, something to be feared. Miscegenation is the ultimate racial fear, actually, the one behind all the separation of schools and water fountains and seats on buses. Let that black man sit next to your daughter on the train, and you'll have little brown grandchildren and then where will the race be? You might remember how long it took for these laws to be stricken from the books—2000 in Alabama! So this IS a current issue, not something lost to time. By the way, other interracial marriage was also frowned upon for fear that the non-white folks would all meld and make some kind of SuperRace—odd, since the racial mixing was supposed to weaken the white race.

But let's set the specific US black-white context aside for the moment. Something that daily_deviant could have done, that would have been very interesting, would have been to keep the term but explore that original context as applied to the wizarding world, which is a mess of racial, or really magical species, hierarchies. Did Tonks and Lupin have trouble getting a wedding license? What if Parvati wanted to pursue Firenze? Rather than just using the term as a synonym for interracial sex (which it really isn't), the mods could have taken a look at something a little darker. Opportunity lost.

Now we're in the middle of yet another wank, because we can't seem to find the happy medium between "please, if you could, and if it's no bother, could you not use a word that refers to some unhappy moments?" which usually gets either a nonresponse or a good deal of defensiveness and a scolding, and "you are calling me an n-word," which always gets a response, even if it's the same old defensiveness. I don't know what the solution is to this; that might be the next post. In the meantime, a poll!

[Poll #1030673]

Comments

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

Ok, so if it's a cookie, can it also slice, dice and be sold for 19.95?

[kaalee.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've been thinking a lot about related to this issue is: what would be a positive outcome of this issue?

I think your suggestion of the exploration of the original context of miscegenation is a really interesting idea, both in thinking about something in the context of a different world, but also in effect, further examination and learning. Until very recently, I *didn't* have an understanding of miscegenation, and seeing it explored through the lens of the wizarding world, in its original context, might have pushed me farther in learning about it.

But, currently, I haven't figured out what a solution to this is, but I do know I'm still thikning about it. I'll be curious to talk more later, and when it's not nearly 2 am. :)

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

slytherincess and I were chatting about this earlier. What I find disingenuous is the the backpedaling to claim that "This isn't or wasn't meant to be racist" when, from my POV, the racism formed the basis of the prompt. Maybe more along the lines of a guy with an Asian fetish, but I don't see how it isn't racist, regardless of the term they chose.

could have done, that would have been very interesting, would have been to keep the term but explore that original context as applied to the wizarding world, which is a mess of racial, or really magical species, hierarchies. Did Tonks and Lupin have trouble getting a wedding license? What if Parvati wanted to pursue Firenze? Rather than just using the term as a synonym for interracial sex (which it really isn't), the mods could have taken a look at something a little darker. Opportunity lost.

I really like that. Another potentially interesting story would be a House Elf/human one. Given the dynamics of human-House Elf interaction would such a relationship be truly consensual, even if it were legal?

I've ranted before on the good stories that don't get written but it's unfortunately all too often the case. An example I used was gay!Ron in Hermione/not-Ron stories, where Ron is invariably gay to get him out of the way for whatever Hermione ship the author wants to write. But the far more interesting story would be how Hermione deals with Ron's homosexuality. It would be a difficult road for both, or at least I can't see Ron waking up and thinking "Gee, I like blokes. Better find one to shag." And Hermione would try to be supportive but at the same time she'd be crushed. She's already a fairly insecure person and has had moments where it looks like she doubts her femininity and might feel that Ron not only rejects her but all women through her.

[amyamy.livejournal.com]

What I find disingenuous is the the backpedaling to claim that "This isn't or wasn't meant to be racist"

Well, and the way I've taken to considering claims like that is that, really, what you do or do not intend doesn't necessarily have a hell of a lot to do with how people take it. If I'm running with scissors, trip and fall on a small child, the fact that I didn't intend to do it doesn't change the fact that someone got hurt. Saying "I didn't mean it" is the cowards way out of saying "I'm sorry" and I really think the fact that a majority don't own up to the things they do that hurt people, accidentally or otherwise, and take responsibility is a big part of the reason why the problems don't get addressed.

Which is to say, you don't learn from something if you don't face up to it.

[misscake]

Oh, wow. I've just spent the last few hours reading as much as I could of the associated posts.

Sometimes I really want to pop people on the head. It's the same thing as people taking personal affront at the criticism of the book. Instead of trying to understand the other person's POV or look at their own reasons for their actions/reactions, they automatically turn to "It's not me, it's you!"

If someone tells you that you've done something to upset them or insult them, the only possible response is, "I'm sorry, how can I fix this?" And then you treat it as a learning opportunity.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to see some reasoned, rational posts on this subject, and I'm so relieved. I was starting to think this wasn't going to have anything resembling a constructive outcome.

Thanks for this.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I voted Fuck if I know but really I think it's very funny. One day I'll probably use it myself and offend everyone within a mile. "Well, my friend Clio--she's a tragic mulatto and...no, no, it's a joke!"

Anyway, damn, when did this explode? I'm just checking my flist now and seeing fandom manages to amaze me again! And as you say, with something that seems like it could have been handled by people saying, "Sorry, I looked up the word in a dictionary and around here we use the term "kinks" to really just mean a feature in the story...I'll change the word right now!"

But it would be interesting to read about wizard races actually dealing with laws like that.

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

Saying "I didn't mean it" is the cowards way out of saying "I'm sorry" and I really think the fact that a majority don't own up to the things they do that hurt people, accidentally or otherwise, and take responsibility is a big part of the reason why the problems don't get addressed.

I'm reminded of "apologies" along the lines of "I'm sorry you feel that way" or "I'm sorry you're hurt" which, again, aren't real apologies because the person clearly isn't sorry for their behavior, only that they got called on it.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I also voted "Fuck if I know" but I think it's hilarious!

This post (and your other one) made me think of when I went to the JKR, John Irving, Stephen King thing at Radio City, and I dressed up in some kind of Slytherin schoolgirl outfit bc I am an enormous dork, and all these people thought I was (literally) one of the Patil twins from the movies. They seemed to want my autograph. It was pretty weird.

The whole race thing is not, I feel, something that fandom handles well; which is tragic esp. in fantasy.sf fandoms - because so much of this stuff used to be worked and teased at in these genres.

I find the whole magical being thing intensely fascinating not as a plot device (Suddenly!Veela!Draco etc...), but with the legal & societal ramifications as you mention, and also because it seems like there is "deviant sex" right at the very hearts of these creatures - think Pasiphae + Bull = minotaur, the origin of the centaurs. The veela, for example, in book really clearly are Other, and then you find out that Fleur is part veela, but also uses a part of her grandmother in her wand, the way other people use dragon (heartstrings! that dragon isn't living after that), unicorn, and phoenix bits. The whole border between sentience and non-sentience becomes really troubled in this kind of fantasy novel, and that ties to race so intrinsically, because humans have this nasty habit of tying difference to non-sentience. The other funny thing about it, is that [it seems to me] we have a tradition of being disturbed by the mixing of species, race, whatever, but we seem really attracted to the result in literature or reality. Light colored eyes and dark skin, for example, is thought to be really beautiful by many. Maybe it's evolution's way of telling us: This Is The Future.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I'm doing proper replies later, but I wanted to say to this: The veela, for example, in book really clearly are Other, and then you find out that Fleur is part veela, but also uses a part of her grandmother in her wand, the way other people use dragon (heartstrings! that dragon isn't living after that), unicorn, and phoenix bits.. I once read a post-GoF Remus/Sirius story in which Remus goes to buy the hiding Sirius a wand, and Ollivander is like, what core should it be? and Remus says, well, I have some werewolf hair here, and Ollivander says, if it's a werewolf core the hair has to be freely given, and they exchange a look. It's a romantic gesture, in that book, for Sirius to have a wand with Remus literally at the core, and I thought an interesting way to explore that idea.

I wonder if Teddy Lupin might use a wand with his father, in canon?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the way to really say that is, "I'm sorry I hurt you." That takes the responsibility for the pain--"I hurt you"--rather than putting the responsibility for people being hurt on the injured party, in other words, blaming the victim. Because there is almost always a way to present your idea that isn't offensive to someone.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

oh christ. wtf, man.

Yeah, I think they could have salvaged this by taking that term in all of its many meanings and applying it for reals. What would that really mean in an HP context? I think that's an interesting idea, but it certainly needs some context to make to clearer. That wouldn't be about "interracial" sex at all, it would be something more interesting, frankly.

I'm glad you've broached this subject here. Otherwise I would have missed it! But also, you always have such a rational take on things.

*rubs noses*

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh this is fascinating, I totally didn't pick that up. And why are the veela okay to hook up with? They're very blonde, aren't they? Dude. How disturbing. And Hagrid having to hide his ancestry too...

Hmm. This is such an interesting topic. :D

[evil-erato.livejournal.com]

I'm with you - I think the icon would be terribly amusing, but I doubt that many people would get the joke. Hence my response to the poll. ;)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

(via (http://likeawoman.livejournal.com/391592.html))

[jlh.livejournal.com]

No. But it is also a chile (http://www.foodsubs.com/Chiledry.html).

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I teach about miscegenation—it's a huge part of post-civil war race relations, especially during and just after reconstruction. What's interesting is that once the concept is introduced, the kids can immediately see it as the big fear behind all the stuff that happens after that.

Anyway, the learning part is why seeing people get angry about "censorship" of the word gets me so confused. I'm not sure that d_d was the place to use it properly, and so zvi was asking them to change the word to match the definition, rather than enlarging the definition to match the word. But no one is saying don't use the word; they're asking it be used properly.

I saw your entry about it—thanks for doing that. It's things like that, that make me hopeful that I'm not doing this for naught!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Another potentially interesting story would be a House Elf/human one. Given the dynamics of human-House Elf interaction would such a relationship be truly consensual, even if it were legal?

I've seen slavefics that asked the same question—those AUs where Rome never fell, or something, so there's a Romanesque slave society in the US—and the answer is often, not really. Which makes it an interesting thing to explore.

As for the whole girls coming to terms with the gayness of boys, that's never realistically portrayed, either because there are no girls in a story, because the girls in the story are standins for the slasher and therefore are "hurrah for gayness" (or, less problematically, are fag hags who weren't romantically interested in the boy), or the women are shrews that stand between the OTL of the gay boy and some other boy. A lot of slash isn't particularly interested in women, unfortunately.

That said, I think the scenario you propose would be really interesting and certainly realistic, especially for Hermione.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your posts. I've friended you because you've done more to change my mind than all the angry posts put together, about the race issues in fandom.

I agree with you about the potential for exploring the miscegenation theme. I have a bunny right now about a Black Death-Eater Wizard having a kink for blonde muggles, and then killing them. And the blonde muggle he picks up happens to have a kink for Black men, accusing them of rape and then either killing them or getting them lynched. No "good" character involved, just two bad ones. I don't think I could do it justice, but the idea is intriguing. Certainly if his actions caused more issues for other black men in cities.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, at least they eventually came to that conclusion. What worries me is how much in the meantime folks criticized the tone that ziv used, which is such a common thing to say and so obnoxious. And it's not like we're not all learning, like the PoC's don't have to watch out for sexism or heterocentrism or ageism or whatever.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Half of you voted that way so I sort of didn't get an answer, alas.

This thing went through the news cycle so fast that by the time metafandom posted the links it was over. It was pretty insane, but at least the mods came down on the right side in the end.

Yeah, I really feel like there was an opportunity missed, though something like that would take a LOT of careful thought from the writers involved.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

man, people are NO FUN.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, thank YOU for talking to me about it before I posted and explaining why you were troubled, and then eventually posting when things cooled down. The unfortunate thing about reasoned and rational posts is that they don't garner much attention and sometimes don't start much conversation, so I understand why they come later, rather than leading the charge. But thank you so much!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

PoC cosplay? And are enormous dorks? Surely not!

I think that there was a period when race could be looked at in metaphor, like the way that Star Trek TOS used to do, but for lots of reasons that era is over and you have to be a bit more careful. And when things get hard, I think people just don't want to do them at all. It's tricky when you have, esp in the case of fantasy, a genre that hasn't moved that far from its founding text, and certainly not far enough to try to correct the problems that were inherent in it. But genre fiction is deeply conservative because of the way folks read it; there's still an entire romance variant devoted to recreating Austen. The only reason the mystery genre could get past the Sayers and Christie is because at the same time there was Chandler and Hammett working very directly against them, but there remains a "boy" sort of hard-boiled procedural that usually features a PI or a cop, and a "girl" sort of puzzle mystery that usually features an amateur. Anyway, until SF/F moves from a short-hand of essentialism—all people from X planet or Y kingdom are like Z—it won't be able to deal with race in a thoughtful way. Add television with its own race problems, plus fandom, and you have a perfect storm of entrenched racial hierarchies.

When I'm feeling my racial oats I do tend to refer to myself as The Future of Mankind. The other day a friend and I were talking about a third friend's book, which was set in a future where fertility had been greatly reduced, so those who were fertile were paid to basically have as many babies as they could for adoption by the many childless couples and try to keep the race going. My friend pointed out to the writer how odd it was, in this scenario, for everyone in the story to be not just white, but northern european, as with such a set up there would be a lot of racial mixing and cross-race adoptions by necessity. But this hadn't occurred to the writer, and AFAIK she didn't change the book—even though it was set in an American city that has a high population of blacks, hispanics, and the decendants of southern european immigrants.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

The person who went public with her protest regarding the term was accused not only of the usual tone problem (whatever, yawn) but also of arguing for censorship. She was asking them to change the word to match the definition, rather than the definition to match the word, but I think that was a realistic view of what a kink porn community like d_d was really capable of; also, some stories had already been written to that faulty definition.

Thank you! I can't tell you how I appreciate that. ^_^

[jlh.livejournal.com]

This is my new favorite thing! Thank you so much for posting this!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate that, thank you!

Yeah, i think that's an idea that would be really tricky to pull off. Lynching doesn't really happen any more, so you'd have to set it in the past, and the whole "fake rape" thing leads you into a thicket of sexual and gender issues that are difficult to work through. Not to mention, of course, that you'd have to be careful not to reinforce the damaging and unfounded stereotype that black men are running around raping white women—the majority of rape happens within racial groups, and the history of sexual violence at least in the US is the reverse, with white men using their privilege to take advantage of black women, which during slavery had the happy (for the white men) bonus of creating more slaves, giving their rape an economic motive as well as a control motive. As for black men in cities, their problems are a lot bigger than some white women thinking they're potential rapists, mostly because that is pretty much already true. But I am not really one for dark stories, anyway.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about 40 years back, and the premise is based on the fact that the sex was entirely consensual, however it suits both parties to pretend it was rape for power-trip reasons.

The power dynamics work at two levels. Black-White and Wizard-Muggle. Both could kill and get away with it - I'm assuming that late-50s the Wizards were as cavalier about killing muggles, as some whites were about killing blacks. (And still seem to be).

There's all sorts of ramifications in the plotting - the effect that it would have on those around, assuming the deaths of the central characters - hence me not wanting to write it. Part of the ramification is that expectation can breed the fulfilment of that expectation.

There would also be the effect of having a Muggle-born in the family as well, were I to leave the characters alive and let them procreate. The flip-side of both characters could well be that both of them had rape in their past, along the lines of the dynamics you've mentioned.

Part of me wants to write it though, just so the miscegenation prompt would have a deeper, darker fic in it. I think I'll resist.

[pfeffermuse.livejournal.com]

Came here via the Meta and F_W.

The only good thing for me to come out of this whole DD debacle is the discovery that there are PoC in fandom. When I've gone to Media and Eclecticon, I've so often been disheartened by the lack of any ethnic/racial diversity in fandom.

Thank you.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

This post was linked on F_W? Really?

I went to Nimbus, the HP con, about four years ago and then just this spring to Phoenix Rising, and I noted with pleasure that there were more PoC this time around. I think that metafandom allows us to be more aware of each other and also to chip in on race wanks even when they aren't in our own fandom, as we saw some months back with SGA and recently with DW. There isn't diversity in the canon sources, which I always thought was a reason for the lack of diversity in fandom, but I'm sure it's much more sociologically complicated than that.

No, thank YOU, so much!