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Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

yeah, I will be spending lots of time at this journal this summer

Thank you all for your comments re: antlerfail2009.

I understand it's IBARW. Let's play cliff-shag-marry, v. CoC/PoC.
[List three people of color, real or fictional and I'll choose one to toss over the cliff, one to shag, and one to marry. Then I'll give you three people, and it's lots of fun.]

(In case you're wondering, the thing I'm procrastinating on is writing a sermon. I'm preaching and presiding at worship this coming Sunday; I've preached and led services plenty o'times but just realized I've never presided over Communion. That's kind of exciting.)
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Thursday, August 7th, 2008

[ibarw3] privilege

Following links from IBARW posts, I ended up looking at James Loewen's Sundown Towns project (there's an associated book):

From Maine to California, thousands of communities kept out African Americans (or sometimes Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, etc.) by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called "sundown towns" because some of them posted signs at their city limits reading, typically, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In ___." Some towns are still all white on purpose. Their chilling stories have been joined more recently by the many elite (and some not so elite) suburbs like Grosse Pointe, MI, or Edina, MN, that have excluded nonwhites by "kinder gentler means." When I began this research, I expected to find about 10 sundown towns in Illinois (my home state) and perhaps 50 across the country. Instead, I have found more than 440 in Illinois and thousands across the United States. This is their story; it is the first book ever written on the topic.


There's a list of suspected Sundown Towns on the site and -- sadly unsurprisingly -- the town I lived in for the last six months -- and its nearest neighbor; we lived right on the border -- are on the list. They're probably not still Sundown Towns, but as recently as twenty years ago, within my lifetime, there are anecdotes about African Americans being driven out of town.

But the thing is, besides my absurd and awesome gladness to be back in an urban area, that this doesn't terrify me. It sickens me, and and it saddens me, but it doesn't terrify me to think about doing the grocery shopping in, driving in, fetching the mail in, taking a walk in, just LIVING IN, Anytown Kansas. Because I'm white. And I have privilege.
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Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

[ibarw3] drabbling against racism, third verse same as the first

I never wrote last year's drabbles, 'cos life intervened, but I thought I'd offer again this year, to supplement thinkier, linkier posts.

So. Choose a character from the list! Choose a pairing for hir if desired! Give a prompt word. And go.

( this year's list, longer and more colorful than ever before -- thanks Shonda! )
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Monday, August 4th, 2008

(in)visibilities: race and trans*

[IBARW caveat: I'm a white cisgendered able-bodied lesbian USian English-speaking middle-class college-educated Christian]

[Today: links to and discussions of articles about trans* PoC in the U.S. and Thailand, with bonus musings on identity, visibility, alliance, and privilege ( are all under the LJ cut )
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it's ibarw!

Morning Afternoon, flist. I am awake and theoretically jobhunting, which apparently means sitting on the couch reading the flist and drinking coffee in my pajamas. Ohmygod I don't even. Anyhow, this is all apropos of nothing. I should post about church and such (and maybe take pictures of our awesome apartment) at some point, but in less personal news:

+2010 US Census Won't Count Same-Sex Marriages. I read that and tried not to cry.

+It's [info]ibarw [International Blog Against Racism Week]! Not that it's not always, but this is a time when fandom and friends traditionally focus our attention more closely on racial issues, both in fandom and outside of it.

Guidelines:
If you would like to participate, here's what to do:

1. Announce the week in your blog.

2. Switch your default icon to either an official IBARW icon, or one which you feel is appropriate. To get an official IBARW icon, you may modify one of yours yourself or ask someone to do so. Here's a round up of IBARW icons.

3. Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of color, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc. (Linking back here is highly appreciated!) The optional theme this year is intersectionality.
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Thursday, August 9th, 2007

IBARW II - second verse, same as the first [drabbles on demand]

Drabbles-on-demand (still working on last week's, too.)

Choose a character from the list! Choose a pairing for hir if desired! Give a prompt word. And go. [In which I likely accidentally spell many characters' names wrong.]

( cut for the pretties )

As last year, I am pretty sure that I can write all these characters, but am not making any promises about when fic will get done.

As always, het, boyslash, girlslash, threesomes, and gen, as well as crossovers, are perfectly acceptable requests.
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Friday, August 25th, 2006

commentary track - "Nine Rules for Living in a Broken World"

This, then, is the promised commentary on Nine Rules for Living in a Broken World, my International Blog Against Racism Week drabble set. I get much flailier writing meta about race than I do about writing characters of color, because many characters of color (especially the ones I wrote about!) are very pretty, whereas racism is very ugly, and while I have some knowledge of how to write fiction, I have no real coherent vocabulary for discussing race. But I will try!
( nine rules )
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Thursday, August 24th, 2006

further reflections/ on my reflection [commentary track, IBARW]

I will comment on the drabbleset next; first I wanted to reexamine this, since I've been meaning to do since I wrote it. The pieces work in a weird kind of tandem for me. This piece is very internal, because Ducky is very internal, because even in the Diaries-series, Ducky is the most self-reflective character and so much of his arc happens inside his own brain. "Nine Rules" is an external piece, not reflective at all, very physical in ways that I'll talk about more when I discuss that. "Nine Rules" is about characters I don't feel especially resonant, at least not in surface ways; none of them are characters I write very often or feel very confident about writing. "Reflections" on the other hand is about a character I identify with a great deal and always have. "Nine Rules" is not about race; only one of the nine drabbles even mentions race as an explicit issue. This piece is all about race; writing a canonically white character as black and not talking in detail about race would be counterproductive.

With that in mind, line-by-line commentary. This will spoil through CA Diaries book 15.

( reflections on reflections on my reflection )
music: Rhett Miller - Four Eyed Girl
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[IBARW] drabbleset: "Nine Rules For Living in a Broken World"

Title: "Nine Rules For Living in a Broken World"
Fandoms, Characters, Spoilers: various. See individual headers.
Rating: PG-13.
Notes: These nine drabbles are responses to International Blog Against Racism Week prompts. They are all set in the Dark Angel universe, but can be read with no knowledge of that world beyond this: In the future America is a third-world nation, and almost everyone is terribly poor. Each drabble can be read individually. I will probably comment on the IBARW context of these drabbles upon request at the drop of a hat.
Summary: How we endure, survive, thrive, spar, fight, and emulate squirrels.
Do they (want to) have sex (with each other)? All subtext is definitely, one hundred percent on purpose.
Words: 900.
Disclaimer: Created, owned, and copyrighted by people other than me.


I. Dance alone.
[Dark Angel. Original Cindy. For [info]webbgirl]
( one )

II. Dance with your head held high.
[Dark Angel x Angel. Original Cindy and Gunn. For [info]malnpudl]
( two )

III. Dance together.
[Angel. Gunn, Wesley, and Fred. For [info]callmesandy]
( three )

IV. Dance in the snow.
[Stargate: Atlantis. Ford. S1 continuity. For [info]sweetcommunist]
( four )

V. Dance like fighting.
[Stargate: Atlantis x Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Teyla/Faith. For [info]thelastgoodname.]
( five )

VI. Dance; don't cry.
[Stargate: SG-1. Sam and Teal'c. For [info]ctorres.]
( six )

VII. Dance through your tears.
[Firefly x Stargate: SG-1. Zoe. For [info]rydra_wong]
( seven )

VIII. Dance with the enemy.
[Veronica Mars. Weevil/Logan. For [info]amerella and [info]mosca.]
( eight )

IX. Dance.
[Baby-Sitters Club. Jessi. For [info]sangerin.]
( nine )
music: Dar Williams - February
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Saturday, July 22nd, 2006

ficpost/thought experiment - ibarw - "Reflections/on my reflection" - CA Diaries - Ducky

Title: "Reflections/on my reflection"
Fandom: California Diaries
Featured character: Ducky.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Ann M. Martin owns the copyright and Scholastic owns Ann; Peter Lerangis wrote him, and I just love him way too much.
Notes: A thought experiment in sympathy with International Blog Against Racism Week. And yes, I will write the drabbles eventually. But now it's way past bedtime.
Summary: What if Ducky were black? or Ducky thinks about race.
Wordcount: 706

( you look in the mirror and you see someone who is: )
mood: exhausted
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Friday, July 21st, 2006

[fic-on-demand] IBARW

It is socially responsible drabble-on-demand time.

Choose a character from the list! Choose a pairing for hir if desired! Give a prompt word. And go. [In which I likely accidentally spell many characters' names wrong.]

( girls of color )

( boys of color )

I am pretty sure I can write most of these characters! I hope! Keep in mind that I am still five or six episodes behind on VMars and half a season behind on the Gates.

(What about characters who are blue, green, or purple, but played by white actors? What about actors acting under so much makeup and rubber that you can't tell what color their skin is? What about shows where "race" has a different meaning, and what does it mean when members of all races are played by white actors? [Farscape, I am in fact looking at you, unless someone can remind me of someone I've forgotten.])

Drabbles guaranteed to the first five respondees, will do my best after that.

[ETA] AND DONE! Nine drabbles can be found here!
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