Otter's Rock

GO. READ THIS. RIGHT NOW.

This entry was originally posted at http://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/141846.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

So, I didn't post anything about/during Racefail '09 because I'm pretty much generic whitebread middle-class American and had nothing to say on the subject that other people weren't saying far more eloquently and didn't want to add to the signal/noise ratio. Also because I'm lazy and don't like conflict.

But you know what? Racism and productive/constructive ways to deal with it and (as much as possible) prevent it are ordinary, everyday situations that should be thought about constantly, not just whenever it happens to blow up. That way, hopefully, we can make things better instead of worse. I still don't have much to say on the subject that others haven't said better, but I do have a rec: Go read the Spock/Uhura Racefail Prevention Post. It's concise, it's positive, and it's got good advice for how to talk and think about issues of race particularly in the fannish realm but also in general.  With links you can follow which lead to lots of other places where racism in life and in fandom are discussed in helpful ways.

For those of you who don't know, in the new Star Trek movie Spock and Uhura (a character of color) have a romantic relationship. This has led to a whole lot of fiction and fan attention for Uhura and to the creation of a community dedicated to the pairing. Within two months of its creation, spock_uhura has had at least one major incident of racefail.  The mods then publicly apologized on behalf of the community to the person who'd gotten attacked, put together a post on how to prevent such things from happening again (and then on how to respond appropriately when they inevitably do), and generally serve as an example of how to be responsible human beings.

I swear.  If the anti-racism training they'd given us in school had been even 1/4 as sane and reasonable and reality-based as the stuff you can learn through fandom ...</user> This entry was originally posted at http://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/134942.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Interesting discussion of Uhura's role in the film: Warning: unpopular fannish opinions ahead.

Also, for humor, Shatner comments on the new Star Trek trailer:

There are those who complain about the romantic relationship in the new movie, saying it's not true to the original series. I present here a clip from TOS to the contrary:

( Spoilers for new movie! )

Basically, while they weren't in a relationship in TOS there was definitely chemistry ... and I can look at these scenes and believe they have a history.