Diversity, of the good
Mar. 9th, 2009 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been thinking about diversity in fan and media texts, in conventions, in conversations, and I've been trying to pin down why I value it. I think it boils down to the same reason I participate in conversation at all:
I know what I think, please tell me what you think.
Otherwise the inside of my head is like a teeny tiny echo chamber. It's loud in there, but it's all just me. Blah.
This is why I read and watch and try and interact with humans. This is why I study. And this is something that I have to be on the alert for when I study, because a lot of writers are talking about the same writers, their thoughts have the same roots, and they're kind of just echoing back at each other.
The temptation when you've got a lot of people saying the same thing is to see it as The Truth, which Obviously will Win and create a Consensus.
... Consensus is scary. Like saying reality has only one side. Do we live in a flat universe?
I'm several kinds of minority. Or majority with the short end of unequal treatment. I'm a woman, I don't share the religion of this Christian country, I'm bi, I'm disabled, I'm mentally ill. I'm also white. Some days that feels weird, like, how did I get to be a majority over there? I'm all these minority things over here! I don't know how to think majority!
Except of course I do, I just haven't had to be as conscious about it as I have about the other things. In all the minority things I've had to form an opinion despite and in reaction to what I've been told. I've had to consciously decide that actually I am just as smart and equal and worth just as much as the person who isn't carrying around those labels. I've never really had to worry about that with the being white. Hello, privilege. And hello to opinions I haven't been pressured to examine.
And this is why I want to talk to more people, different people, people who have other angles on life. Because if I only see it from my side I'm going to miss so much, I'm going to walk right into danger, walk right into harm, walk right into causing harm. Do not want to do that.
So I want to talk to people who aren't much like me, so through their words I can see around corners I'm not currently perceiving.
That being the case, I have to wonder, how come so much of what I read, that I thought I chose for being about Buffy or Torchwood or whatever it was that day I was reading, shares these same labels? How much is really so different than me? What am I missing?
There's things I do want to filter out. I don't want to hear another word about how women are secretly out to invert patriarchy and rule the world, or how they already have and all the rules are set up in their favour now. I don't want to hear from people who go on about reverse racism and the discrimination against white people in the UK. I've severely had enough of people who'll go on about how gays have too many rights. All those opinions I've heard from fellow students, or from people I have to work with. No more.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that doesn't impoverish my mental toolbox.
I think those opinions are about stopping listening, about dismissing evidence and not counting. All the numbers, all the lived experience I've heard tell of, they say we're still living in an unequal world where the dominant groups are measurably better off. How do people persist in their beliefs when everything measurable says contrariwise? I guess that's worth studying so we can fight it, but I don't think I'll find out much about it from listening to that really annoying same speech again.
I want to listen more.
I want to read more widely, watch more shows with more diverse writers and actors, read LJs that reflect different experiences of the world.
And when I go to conventions or clubs and chat with fellow fans, I want to be hearing new things from them too.
There's this way of categorising fanfic, so there's some that's trying to be more-of, and there's some that's trying to get more-from.
Friends lists can easily be more-of. We look for people who see the same cool things and want to talk about them. Fun.
But I think we can also all get more-from, if we work to find it.
I know what I think, please tell me what you think.
Otherwise the inside of my head is like a teeny tiny echo chamber. It's loud in there, but it's all just me. Blah.
This is why I read and watch and try and interact with humans. This is why I study. And this is something that I have to be on the alert for when I study, because a lot of writers are talking about the same writers, their thoughts have the same roots, and they're kind of just echoing back at each other.
The temptation when you've got a lot of people saying the same thing is to see it as The Truth, which Obviously will Win and create a Consensus.
... Consensus is scary. Like saying reality has only one side. Do we live in a flat universe?
I'm several kinds of minority. Or majority with the short end of unequal treatment. I'm a woman, I don't share the religion of this Christian country, I'm bi, I'm disabled, I'm mentally ill. I'm also white. Some days that feels weird, like, how did I get to be a majority over there? I'm all these minority things over here! I don't know how to think majority!
Except of course I do, I just haven't had to be as conscious about it as I have about the other things. In all the minority things I've had to form an opinion despite and in reaction to what I've been told. I've had to consciously decide that actually I am just as smart and equal and worth just as much as the person who isn't carrying around those labels. I've never really had to worry about that with the being white. Hello, privilege. And hello to opinions I haven't been pressured to examine.
And this is why I want to talk to more people, different people, people who have other angles on life. Because if I only see it from my side I'm going to miss so much, I'm going to walk right into danger, walk right into harm, walk right into causing harm. Do not want to do that.
So I want to talk to people who aren't much like me, so through their words I can see around corners I'm not currently perceiving.
That being the case, I have to wonder, how come so much of what I read, that I thought I chose for being about Buffy or Torchwood or whatever it was that day I was reading, shares these same labels? How much is really so different than me? What am I missing?
There's things I do want to filter out. I don't want to hear another word about how women are secretly out to invert patriarchy and rule the world, or how they already have and all the rules are set up in their favour now. I don't want to hear from people who go on about reverse racism and the discrimination against white people in the UK. I've severely had enough of people who'll go on about how gays have too many rights. All those opinions I've heard from fellow students, or from people I have to work with. No more.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that doesn't impoverish my mental toolbox.
I think those opinions are about stopping listening, about dismissing evidence and not counting. All the numbers, all the lived experience I've heard tell of, they say we're still living in an unequal world where the dominant groups are measurably better off. How do people persist in their beliefs when everything measurable says contrariwise? I guess that's worth studying so we can fight it, but I don't think I'll find out much about it from listening to that really annoying same speech again.
I want to listen more.
I want to read more widely, watch more shows with more diverse writers and actors, read LJs that reflect different experiences of the world.
And when I go to conventions or clubs and chat with fellow fans, I want to be hearing new things from them too.
There's this way of categorising fanfic, so there's some that's trying to be more-of, and there's some that's trying to get more-from.
Friends lists can easily be more-of. We look for people who see the same cool things and want to talk about them. Fun.
But I think we can also all get more-from, if we work to find it.