Think Galactic Panel Report: When Someone you Love Fails

[sasha_feather]

Facilitator: Mary Anne Mohanraj AND Tanya DePass

This was a very good discussion. Some of the incidents outlined briefly at the beginning: Racefail '09; the Open Source Boob Project; that time when Harlan Ellison grabbed Connie Willis' breast in front of a huge audience; and MoonFail. Briefly mentioned later: Jim Butcher has been accused of whitewashing the Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago; a list of YA books on Jezebel Bitch magazine where some books were asked to be removed. Mary Anne talked about an incident involving Heather Ross, a crafter. She also talked about an incident involving herself on a "fail" panel two years ago at WisCon, when she was called on something and apologized. She said that her first instinct as a "nice Asian" is to want to smooth things over, and have calm, reasoned debate. She had to be taught the tone argument, had to learn that being upset can be very productive and that sometimes the upset may need to be escalated. During RaceFail she posted to John Scalzi's blog, posts that got over 1000 comments, which were heavily moderated. How would you handle such a situation? She pointed to other resources, including Jay Smooth's brilliant video on how to react when being called on racism.

We talked about trust and relationships and how we should talk about what is wrong because we care. There is a family aspect to WisCon and many of us have social capital there. We hope to "fail better next time."

I wrote down "safer, contentious, and learning spaces" but I am not sure what that means.

It is good to couch criticism in praise, but we all know that sometimes tone does not matter at all, and the person will feel yelled at.
"We're all swimming in a sea of racism, some of it will stick to you." --Nalo Hopkinson.

Try using a mediator: If you can't talk to the person who is failing, maybe someone else can.

I brought up the concept of forgiveness, or one might say acceptance. I don't want to hold grudges, and I want to forgive people even if they don't apologize, because I don't want to be a bitter and angry person. We can accept that sometimes people aren't going to get it, or it may take them years. (Not at all surprising, that I wanted to talk about emotional work!)

Mia said that sometimes ability and age get left behind in these discussions of social justice and in representations in SF/F.

What if you are the first one to notice something wrong?
How do you balance community needs vs. individual needs? Public vs. Private?

It would be great to model disagreements. Have people who know and trust each other a lot, yet who disagree strongly, be on a panel. Model this behavior for people who have not seen it!

Comments

[trouble]

Oh, that YA books thing was Bitch Magazine, not Jezebel.

[sasha_feather]

Thanks! Fixed.

[tanyad]

psst I was paneling :)

Great notes.. and definitely something to think on.

[sasha_feather]

Thanks! Fixed! (You weren't credited in the program book, ack.) It was a good panel; it just felt like such a relief to talk about these things with other people who get it.

[tanyad]

Yeah it was too late to add that to the print publication. Don't mind me, I'm just all aflutter about being on a panel finally and with Mary Anne to boot!

It was amazing and great conversation. Thank you for your comments, they gave me quite a bit to think about.

[owlectomy]

This panel is relevant to my interests (bitter chuckle, sigh.)

It's hard when you want to have the backs of people you care about who are legitimately angry and also have the backs of people you care about who are the targets of legitimate anger.

It's hard when you have context and history there but don't want to turn that context into excuse-making.

For me, it's hard to resist the urge to try to smooth everything over.

Some of this stuff I had to learn by being tossed in the middle of it and I still feel a sense of failure and responsibility for some stuff that happened at WisCon this year.

This is a really good write-up, this is a panel I'd have loved to attend!

[sasha_feather]

If it's what I'm thinking of, it wasn't your responsibility. And these lessons do come hard.

This panel brought to my mind several painful incidents where I saw things differently than friends of mine did-- I was a lot angrier and they pissed me off, or we disagreed more mildly, etc. The ones I'm remembering right now, I was in the right, but if I think further back in time, I've been that clueless asshole and have argued the other side. I've been the hard audience. Now I'm the angry activist.

I keep coming back to forgiveness, because to me it's a useful framework for thinking about emotions. If I can decide I want to forgive those people, it will eventually happen. And I can also forgive my younger self for not getting it.

[jesse_the_k]

...I'm beginning to understand your take on forgiveness: I think you're talking about an active process. For many folks "forgiveness" is a passive, "female" response; abandoning the struggle. But I think you're talking about forgiveness as an engagement with the other -- moving into a shared space together, instead of pulling down a tan curtain to block off the painful experience.

Forgiveness is a life 207 skill.

[sasha_feather]

Yes, yes, absolutely! It's a difficult, active process, a muscle than can be exercised.

Some people might be more comfortable with talking about acceptance; accepting that the past can't be changed. Accepting what is. The stages of grief also works as a framework for emotional work.

[holyoutlaw]

Thanks for these notes.

[sasha_feather]

Thanks for reading!