PersuadeFail
I read RaceFail09. Not all of it, of course-- who could? But I clicked through the link roundups, and the funny thing is that I found post after post of reassurance, hand-holding, tears, group hugs, and validation of feelings among writer-workshop wannabes. I also saw a lot of uses of "safe" and "unsafe" as a hyperbolic exaggeration of "comfortable" and "uncomfortable". After an hour of searching for the good and useful comments that we were all assured were out there, I found nothing educational, so I quit trying to get to the bottom of it. The only concrete criticism I found was on the topic of cultural appropriation, which confuses skin color with culture.
I also saw some white authors and editors on the other side of it feeling defensive. So a bunch of your readers think you're a racist. OK. I recommend some more emotional distance. Here, watch me: If cultural appropriation is racist, I'm racist. See how easy that was?
A few months ago I encountered Derailing For Dummies. This laugh-fest says, among other things, that white people shouldn't ask for more than the sort of anecdotes that support quack medicine. Why? Because evidence is white. Ugh. I'll tell you what: Here's some evidence of racism collected for you by the priviledged oppressors at OKCupid.
After I got done with that, I listened to The Folk Song Army (YouTube link) by Tom Lehrer, because it perfectly captured what I think of RaceFail. So I updated the lyrics.
Oh, we are the Novelist Army, every one of us cares.
_
We all hate poverty, war and injustice, unlike the rest of you squares.
There are innocuous novels, yeah, but we regard them with scorn.
The folks who write them have no social conscience-- why, they don't even care if "black literature" is shelved with porn.
If you feel dissatisfaction, just write your frustrations away.
_
Some people may prefer action, but give us a novel any old day.
Today I came across Xtranormal, a text-to-movie site, and wrote a short film I call PersuadeFail. Here it is. Enjoy. Or fling spittle, but I hope you enjoy flinging spittle.
EDITED TO ADD: Apparantly my movie no longer exists on Xtranormal. I don't know why. It's just gone. I have the transcript from my movie below the cut of this LJ post.
You are racist.
What?
You are racist. Also sexist, whorephobic, transphobic, classist, homophobic, ableist, kinkphobic, and fatphobic. Basically you are not enlightened enough.
What did I do?
It's not my job to educate you.
PAUSE
Well, I wish I could say this has been nice.
Sure, you get the priviledge of ignoring me. The white, heterosexual, cisgendered, cissexual, upper-class male priviledge of not even listening to me.
OK, I'm listening.
It's not my job to educate you.
FACEPALM What do you want?
I want you to research it for yourself.
What, racism? Sexism?
And also homophobia, fatphobia, ableism, transphobia.
Homophobia, fatphobia, ableism, transphobia, I have
... and whorephobia.
... whorephobia, right, I have plenty to do already, solving problems that I encounter in front of my eyes. If I'm contributing to this, I don't see it.
Of course you don't see it. It's like a fish can't see water.
A fish also can't solve water.
Oh yeah, you don't care at all. You're so uncaring. You just don't care enough.
Of course I don't care about you. Am I supposed to? I don't even know who you are.
But you know what group I'm in! Don't you care about my group?
I care about individuals. And my entire experience of you as an individual so far has consisted of you toying with me for your own amusement. You know what I don't care about? I don't care which group you're in.
Oh, you had to bring witches into it.
PAUSE
You said part of my priviledge is being able to ignore you, right? That sounds more and more appealing all the time. I'm going to exercise my priviledge now.
What? What? How dare you?
Why isn't my priviledge working? You made it sound like I was really powerful. I guess I'm not.
How would you like it if I were priviledged and said that to you?
I don't know, maybe I'd tell you some words and actions I'd like you to do and stop doing. But most of all I'd give you some reason to believe the actions I'm asking you for would lead to the outcomes I want.
Do you know how much time it would take to do that every time I'm oppressed?
Just do it every time you tell someone else to change. You have to justify it. Otherwise I get to ask you to change and I don't have to justify it either. And the change I want to ask for right now, without justifying it, is for you to get out of my face.
YOU EVIL, HEARTLESS REPROBATE! You obviously don't care enough.
One thing I don't care about is whether you consider me sufficiently progressive. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever you can do about it. I'm willing to lose jobs, marriages, friends, customers, and lawsuits rather than take it on blind faith that I have to do and believe whatever you say just because you say it.
YOU... YOU... Just wait until my writer workshop hears about this! We are going to give you such a blog post! We are going to use "other" as a verb. Just you watch. We are going to use loaded words like "love" and "truth" and you know what we will do? We will capitalize them! Then, to show the poetic beauty of each other's tears, and wounds, and struggles, we will end a sentence with a dozen adjectives, without conjunctions or punctuation. And then... and then... we will... uuurrrrrrrrggggggh... *deep breathing*
OK, go ahead to the internet and spend the rest of your life wailing your impotent outrage into an echo chamber. Have fun with that!
Comments
amanda_lodden on Oct. 6, 2009 3:32 PM
"You said it was my privilege to ignore you. That sounds more and more appealing."
Love it. Is there a direct link so that I can share it with others?
matt-arnold on Oct. 6, 2009 3:50 PM
Sure! Here you go. http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20091006055247144 I have also added the link in my post.
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