“The Moon”, Paul Roden + Valerie Lueth, 2012.
- Being good can be a shortcut. There is no shortcut to being good.
- Fat: Regency Romance
- Pop Culture Advisory: Game of Thrones (nothing self-interested in this link, oh no).
- McDonald’s worker sues: Don’t pay by debit card Just like getting paid in company scrip! Awesome!
- Eve Thomas and #OneVoice
- Me, On The Screen: Race in Animal Crossing
- Are You Smart Enough to be a US Citizen? I mixed up two of the justices and totally screwed up the civic text section–I mixed up the Preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address. Since I’ve never actually taken a citizenship test, do they actually score them like that? Probationary, pass, with distinction?
- A Man’s Take on “Arranged” Marriage
- Uncovering Clues in Frida Kahlo’s Private Wardrobe
- I adore this series of pictures (and accompanying text) so much: Mercantile 1925, Dallas TX
- 28 Ways You Identify With Dorothy From “The Golden Girls” Dorothy is the best Golden Girl.
- Street Teams and Astroturfing or Reader Word of Mouth? If you want me to promote your book, you need to pay me to do so. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the ethical problems with this sort of promotional activity.
- I Can’t Handle These Feels
- A Rundown of What’s Going on with Penny Arcade Now Trigger warnings for transphobia, among other things.
- The Saga of Scott Adams’s Scrotum
- Kate Elliott on Civility in SF
- Late to the Fight “So to all those who have been rallying against this for years, decades, I’m sorry. I didn’t know the fight was going on. By not seeing it, I helped perpetuate it with lazy language and blind acceptance of the paradigm. I didn’t see that this was my fight, also. I was wrong.”
- Open Letter to SFWA Fascinating perspective from a librarian.
- The enduring influence of “academic” racism
- The Silent Majority: Fear of Sexism is a Misogynist’s Best Friend
- I’ll Bet You Think This Post Is About You
- So, Where Are the Outstanding Women in X?
- Dealing With It (also) Some of this is similar to my experience, too. After a while, you give up on complaining about being harassed because no one will do anything to help you. When I was in junior high, my classmates used to harass me in various small, subtle ways until I lost my temper and started lashing out physically (usually by throwing things). It was never their fault for driving me to that point–it was always my fault for breaking, for “giving them the satisfaction”. Looking back, I can see how it affected a lot of the decisions I made as a teenager. Some of those decisions have affected my entire life.
- What is Rape Culture? (also)
- The Bad Touch
- I Don’t Know Where to Put My Feet Trigger warnings for descriptions of physical abuse.
- Kari Sperring on Civility and Abuse–she makes some excellent points here and this is definitely something for me to keep in mind.
Finally, this sums up my feelings about people who try so hard to build community only to have it thrown back in their faces: Sad Trombone.
Also! Late breaking! Bryan Thomas Schmidt is still telling people they’re doing it wrong! (screencap) I am so glad that he is around to tell us how to do things! Man. I mean, just MAN. I love how he claims that the people telling him that he’s upholding the status quo and arguing in bad faith (as proven by his actions and his words) are “uninformed assumers with no credibility”. I think that means he doesn’t know who we are?
Bryan Thomas Schmidt: you do not get to set the terms of engagement. You do not get to tell people who have been told, in various ways throughout their lives, that they need to be nice and polite if they want you–or anyone else–to listen to them.
You think you are an authority. You are not. Authority is earned, not assumed. You haven’t earned it. The difference between us? I know I’m not an authority. I’m just an opinionated woman with a website and a low tolerance for bullshit. And I’m okay with that.
Why are you so interested in dictating terms of engagement? What do you get from it? How does it hurt you, personally, if people talk about how racism and sexism in our community make them angry? It doesn’t. It just makes you uncomfortable–and, for whatever reason, you value your comfort over justice. And I find that to be appalling.
jennygadget says
June 21, 2013 at 4:31 pmThank you for the links and your kind words!
I’m actually rather fascinated myself how many people are using words like “fascinating” to describe my post. I tend to forget that not everyone has collection development in mind when talking about books! But since I do, I tend to hear arguments or indifference to diversity as “but the library is for ME, not all those other people.”
Also, I’m still very curious what kinds of responses BTS is categorizing as “attacks” :p I suspect it’s anything short of “I agree with you and think you are the best!”
“I think that means he doesn’t know who we are?”
I think this means he’s an ostrich. Or toddler. And thinks that if he doesn’t look at us closely enough to learn our names and address us as individuals, then no one else can either.
Natalie says
June 21, 2013 at 5:16 pm@jennygadget: Well, I’m not a librarian! And while I worked in a library for a few years in high school (I was a page), I didn’t recognize until I was older and had librarian friends that librarianship was much more complicated than it looked to me when I was 15 years old. I really wish the librarians I worked for had talked to me more about it–I didn’t even know at the time that it required an advanced degree!
As for BTS, I suspect you’re right. I know for a fact that some of the comments he’s characterizing as attacks are no such thing. I thought his “circle the wagons” comment was very telling. Not quite as telling as “rabid jungle cats” but still quite revealing nonetheless.
SL Huang says
June 21, 2013 at 7:16 pmOh, man, the citizenship test was fascinating! I did almost exactly what you did — I mixed up 3 of the Justices and mixed up the Gettysburg Address with the Declaration of Independence in the quotes section (which I find rather embarrassing considering how much I’ve studied them in the past). The test seemed kind of crazy — I don’t really think being able to identify landmarks by sight or Justices by face is really all that important; isn’t knowing watershed Court decisions more important than knowing faces? And what about current laws, or the Bill of Rights? It was kind of weird to me what they chose to put on there. I also found it fascinating how many points I got for having exercised all of my petitioning/protesting rights — kind of cool that that’s considered a positive.
As for BTS: I just don’t know what to say anymore. Condescension is sometimes harder for me to deal with than anything else. Maybe I should just tell him that my inclination to write angry protests against authority apparently makes me a better citizen than he is. *snerk*