alexseanchai | (no subject)

(no subject)

...just for the record, if the Kickstarter for People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction And Horror doesn't get at least to And Fantasy (they're ~$2500 away at the moment, with five days to go), preferably to 1000% of their goal like Women Destroy Science Fiction And Horror And Fantasy and Queers Destroy Science Fiction And Horror And Fantasy (they're ~$12,500 away), I am going to be very disappointed in speculative fiction fandom for being racist.

Not surprised, mind you. But disappointed.

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One reason for it getting less may be people going in at the $5 level though they they went in at $20 for Women or Queers because they don't actually need two Destroy Megapacks. That was certainly my thinking. You would need to look at numbers pledging at each level in all of them to see what's happening (which would be an interesting exercise, but I don't plan on doing it).

Personally, I'm dropping hints for Crips Destroy SF every chance I get ;)

HAH WIN

(though there is a thing I wish to quote you, hang on let me go see if I am allowed to quote it)

Neurodivergent K of Radical Neurodivergence Speaking, in a locked Facebook post:

A reminder that using "crip" as a blanket for "disabled people" might be supposedly meaning all of us but really it means physically disabled people whose Minds Are Fine.

Kind of like, sure, "American"/"USian" means everyone living in the united states but no it fucking doesn't. If it did there'd not be "american" and then "hyphenated-american".

the root of it is in Our Minds Are Fine attitudes, that people with physical disabilities deserve rights bc they aren't like those (r-slurs) over there.

I'm extremely uncomfortable with it. It's another way the broader disability community makes sure people with invisible disabilities, especially neurodivergences, know we don't really belong.

Which is to say, all for the concept you propose, just not all for the title you propose for it.

Edited (email comment reply doesn't play so nice with html, who knew) 2016-02-15 19:33 (UTC)

I take their point, I just don't agree with it.

When I say crip, and I'm very conscious of it being a reclaimed slur with specific constraints on acceptable usage, and I know that there are people who don't like it, I mean all disabled people.

I might be most voluble about being physically disabled, but I'm also invisibly disabled, neurodiverse, and I just had to see my GP and say my anxiety is out of control. I'd be stupid to use crip and have it mean just physically disabled, because my own disabilities are so much wider than that.

Nod.

Well, geez, you don't think it could be because we're tired of kickstarting things? Or haven't heard about the project (first I've seen)? Or any number of things that have more to do with money than race?
(Seriously, I kickstarted Pangea, 6 months later I start getting emails asking me to kickstart Pangea 2.)
I know I backed the Veronica Mars kickstarter and I'm more accountable than most, but I'm just really sick of crowdfunding requests right now, and to be branding an entire community as racist for failing to support one is maybe a little much.
/cranky
I missed that this was part of a series, but do consider kickstarter fatigue as a possible cause. After all, if there are multiple crowd funding projects for similar things, one starts to wonder why they don't just print the issue under the assumption they will make money on it once other kickstarters are a success?

Edited 2016-02-16 13:47 (UTC)

My thinking--and take all this in light of "the PoCDSF Kickstarter hit the And Fantasy stretch goal forty dollars ago", so my initial statement is hella less applicable now than it was when I made it--is that the people who back the X Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarters are numerous enough to be a reasonable, if not necessarily wholly representative, sample of speculative fiction fandom as a whole, and therefore we can perhaps look at that Kickstarter series and draw conclusions about speculative fiction fandom. On the individual level, there are stacks of reasons not to back any particular crowdfunding project, a lot of which have nothing in particular to do with the project itself. Insufficient money, as you said, is certainly one, and insufficient give-a-shit about crowdfunding generally, as you said, is certainly another.

It's fundamentally the same reasoning as "there's not a whole lot of Tony/Rhodey in MCU fandom, nor much Shawn/Gus in Psych fandom, but the dynamics between Tony and Rhodey and between Shawn and Gus are basically the same dynamics as Insert Highly Slashed White Men Here--hm, I wonder what Tony/Rhodey and Shawn/Gus might have in common that the Highly Slashed White Men don't?" That thing is of course that Rhodey and Gus are black. That's not in any way an indictment of any specific MCU fans who ship Tony/Steve and not Tony/Rhodey, or any specific Psych fans who ship Shawn/The Next Most Prominent White Guy and not Shawn/Gus. It's just...commentary on how society-wide racism can exist without anyone involved behaving in an individually or consciously racist manner.

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