Diversity at conventions

[beccaelizabeth]

Yesterday I looked up % of white people in Cardiff for TV watching purposes. About 9/10 white would be accurately reflecting the city.

Today I look up the UK and White British plus White Other is once again around 91% in 2001.

So if you're at a UK convention, out of every 100 fans, 9 of them would be people of color if they're the same mix as the UK population. If there's 1000 people at a convention, that's 90 people of color.

I strongly suspect we're a long way short of that at many conventions.

I haven't the first clue how to improve that, but it would seem of the good.

Flip side, figuring out the numbers involves keeping track of people just like the census and all those government documents do, and that never seems very friendly. I'd worry about a convention that asked when you signed up. It would even seem rude to run an LJ poll asking. But not asking ends up with no useful numbers.

Hopefully someone has done more thinking than me about this one, because my thinking is *useless*.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

These are interesting questions and I don't know the answers. I do know that I feel someone disenfranchised from asking the questions - that is, as a white person of European descent, any perception I have of race may be skewed and/or officious. However good my intentions, as part of a majority in my country I'm on the outside of any racist question. (It's different when it comes to sexual orientation issues, where I am part of a social minority.)

Basically I see two approaches: (1) be colour-blind. I like that one; it's easy (natural, in fact) and doesn't cause problems.

But it doesn't help them either, and it doesn't get us information.

It's actually rather like Captain Jack Harkness' approach to sexual differentiation: Ignore the 'quaint categories' and take each peson as they come.

The other approach (2) study and try to understand the situation. But that in itself is dangerous because it calls attention to the differences and hence reintroduces it as a circumstance. Is this valid? It would seem so, at least if we want to minimize rifts.

I was thinking about this as I watched The Sarah Jane Adventures yesterday. It was "The Day of the Clown", the episode that introduces Rani Chandra. Whom I liked. But my perception was that, though Rani and her family looked Indian and had Indian names, they were so British (in ways that are culturally unlike the Canadian) that it was their pristine-pure Britishness that stood out like a beacon and their Indian heritage was invisible.

Nothing wrong with this - I love British customs and it would be racist to think any Indian family has to "act Indian" in any specific way. Just an observation. A case where culture recreates the picture.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Rani's family defnitely have a middle class British Asian feel to them to me, although I can't say why without being able to rewaych (which I can't right now).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good! I liked them a lot. I didn't think they were unrealistic or anything. I just noticed that I was reacting to their Britishness rather than their Indianness.

[beccaelizabeth]

Wiki has, surprisingly, some actually useful stuff to say about Color Blindness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race-blind
short version: color blindness is easy and natural for white people.

Taking each person as they come, as an individual, doesn't see the systematic inequalities that individual has in their life.

I had an example typed up about institutional racism in the UK mental health care system but it's deeply depressing so I'll leave it out.

Studying and trying to understand does not reintroduce race, because only white people can get away from paying attention to race.

So I want to try and understand race, especially in the places and organisations I'm involved in. But I don't really know how to start without giving the wrong signals about why I'm asking.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

color blindness is easy and natural for white people.

Yes. Just as heterocentrism is natural for straight people, and it's easy for men to overlook and dismiss the female point of view. We each are what we are. And I think it's good for us, all of us, to try to see the world from another other point of view.

But it can be difficult to do it accurately, and to do it inaccurately can be more damaging than to not do it at all.

Communication is always a good thing, but sometimes I feel paralyzed for fear of getting it wrong.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
*nods*
*nods*

[louiex.livejournal.com]

If it's of any interest to you, although I do live in America and not the UK, of the group that I'm in that goes convention hopping (of let's say, 12 of us is our usual headcount thereabouts), only four of us are specifically 'White'. The rest are of Spanish, African-American, or Asian ethnicities. :D

[beccaelizabeth]

cool.
what kind of conventions do you go to?
Anime, F&SF, book, media, comics, actor cons with signings, signing fairs, fan cons with mostly panel discussions?
Seems like some cons are more diverse than others, and I'm wondering what the lines are.
I reckon there's more con attendees of color at conventions with more diversity in the guests.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

Mmm let's see... We attend anime, media, comic, and cons that have people we're fans of that might be there for panels/signings. Like, I ran like my pants were on fire to the NYCC for both the comics AND for Eve Myles XD But a con we usually attend in the summer gets more of us out there when say, a Japanese voice actor who's work we enjoy will be there for panel/signings.

A friend of mine who's of Puerto Rican decent actually runs specific anime panels and gets into cons for free if he's invited~

I think, having grown up in New York, where I still live, there is an element of color-blindness to me unless I find myself lacking that diversity. When I travel and don't see the blend of races around me, I notice it and feel almost.. I don't know, off-kilter in a way. Which is strange to say XD But I've traveled to the mid-west in this country and could count the people of other non-white ethnicities on one hand in almost a week's time spent there. It was a very strange experience for me~

[doire]

via metafandom

How does that work out if you, as the UK does, count Spanish in our 91% white & white other?

[beccaelizabeth]

How does what work out?

The USA is not 91% white, it is 80.0% white according to Wiki, plus 15% 'Hispanic or Latino of any race'.
(I'd love to not rely on wiki, but I'm getting up for college right now).
The UK would count white hispanics as white and other hispanics as other.

I have been told that Spanish in Europe doesn't mean at all the same thing as Spanish/Hispanic/Latino etc in the USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans
has a long article about it.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

I'm going to agree with the OP here about it not counting as 'white and white other'. Personally? I would consider myself 'white other' (I love checking off 'other' and writing in PALE, on forms) but if I told my friends that, they'd laugh until they were blue in the face then start swearing up and down in Spanish XD

Perhaps statistically people would put people of Hispanic/Latino descent into 'white other' but I mentioned it here because it'd never cross my mind to do so. Considering the various countries that Hispanic/Latino already umbrellas over in the US (South America, Spain, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Cuba, etc), it's always come up on forms I've seen pass by me as it's own category of definition apart from 'white/white 'other''.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Telophase talked a little about this too, (http://telophase.livejournal.com/1454573.html) on the other side of the pond.

[beccaelizabeth]

thanks for the link.
hmm, seems to go quickly from 'we should talk about race!' to 'we're good at talking about ablism'.

I can talk about ablism and come up with concrete improvements.
I cannot think of similar helpful ideas in anti-racism.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was hoping more good stuff had come out of it since the last time I'd checked (not that the ablism was bad).

[beccaelizabeth]

*waves hello to metafandom people*

[morganmuffle]

About 4 or 5 years ago I had the incredible shameful (on my part) experience of a friend having to point out to me that she was the only non-white person at a convention. Since then it's something I've noticed a lot and (anecdotally and on a REALLY small scale) I think it might be improving? But I don't really know what to do either other than encourage my friends to come to things and make sure I'm there to support them if neccessary?

[beccaelizabeth]

I go mostly to cons for single shows, and I suspect that one of the things likely to vary between shows is % of PoC. But I haven't numbers.