#wc41

[peripateticmeg]

✨💋✨ #wc41

[alexandra-erin]

On The Throwing of Parties

On The Throwing of Parties

Last year we made the decision to host a party at this year’s WisCon. At the time we did not know what all that would entail or how to go about making it happen, but we were willing to learn. And we did. And there were some bumps along the way (for instance: we not only ordered more of certain materials than we needed on the principle that if we could fit it in the budget it would be better to…

View On WordPress

[sophygurl]

Beyond the Fix or How do I Live This F***ing Life? - WisCon 41 panel write-up

These tend to be long and only of interest to specific segments of folk so click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

Beyond the Fix or How do I Live This F***ing Life?

Moderator: R. Elena Tabachnick. Panelists: Kate Carey, Shayla D, Jesse the K, Lenore Jean Jones

#BeyondTheFix - for some good livetweets and resources

The panel started out with some good-natured joking about the moderator being late for reasons having to do with the panel topic and how they’d just get started. 

Jesse introduced herself by saying “I’m a loud mouth”, as well as talking about how she’s been coming to WisCon for a long time and worked with others on improving access at the con and has watched how WisCon has improved and embraced better understandings around disability over the years.

Kate introduced herself by saying this was her 4th WisCon and that the membership assistance fund is what allowed her to get to her 1st one. She’s a champion of talking about invisible disabilities, and as a larger woman she gets especially tired of people who say “well if you exercises more...” [hear hear Kate!]

Lenore introduced herself by telling us this was her 20th WisCon, that she is Hard of Hearing but passes as hearing, and also that she is depressed. She touched on how depression is often co-morbid with other disabilities, or is often exacerbated by other disabilities.

Shayla introduced herself as someone who is both disabled and taking care of her mom who is disabled. Shayla talked about how she is just blind enough that she can’t drive but not blind enough that anyone gives her any money for it. When her pain symptoms were growing, she had doctors tell her it was all in her head, and once it was diagnosed, she was like “why yes, the cause was in my pituitary gland which is in my head thanks!” 

Elena came in during the intros so was able to give hers at the end of this - she has a rare genetic disease, but insurance won’t pay for the genetic testing to confirm this. She never thought of herself as disabled, as she’s had this since she was a kid. She didn’t have a diagnosis, so everyone just thought she was weird. She kept getting more disabled, and had to keep giving up more things. 

Right now she can’t leave her house for long, she can’t wear shoes or socks. It took her a long time to call herself disabled, but now she loves the identity - it helps to be able to say this about herself. 

Jesse talked about having had mental health issues “since jump”, but that she didn’t know it was something that could be dealt with. In her 20′s, she started having pain everywhere and was diagnosed with fibro and cfs. Eventually, she stopped working and got to have the Disabled label. 

She has also worked with Blind and Deaf communities and realized how much assistive technology and community can help. She applied that to herself, and realized how much using a wheelchair could help her. She was waiting for some authority figure to give her the Disabled label, but finally just took it and claimed it for herself. 

A big change came when Jesse realized she didn’t have to be independent but could be interdependent.  [I have a buncha stars and underlines in my notes right here - thanks Jesse!]

Kate talked about struggles she’s had because when she was “just fat”, she didn’t want that identity to define her life or limit her. Then she became sick and wanted to feel the same way about that but her symptoms included being unable to breathe and she had doctors telling her to lose weight. She felt like fatness was seen as a moral failing. She felt ashamed and at fault for her own sickness. 

She realized she was willing to go to bat for friends, for example, who smoked and had COPD - but when it came to defending herself, it was another issue. At first she took on the label of “sick” but not “disabled” because sickness was something you could get better from. WisCon has been helpful to Kate in accepting disability. 

Shayla talked about how her first neurological disorder was something that happened primarily to fat people. She found her family blamed one another for making her fat, and therefore causing her blindness. Her stance was - who cares how I got this way, this is now, let’s deal with it. 

Shayla likes to pop out her white cane because her other disabilities are invisible, but when she uses the white cane, she’s more visible as disabled. When people tell her “you don’t look blind”, she replies “you didn’t look like an asshole...” (general laughing from the audience).

She talked about wanting something like a “crip card” to be able to show to people to prove she’s really disabled. Much laughter and discussion ensues on this topic.

Lenore talked about having impostor syndrome around disability; being “not disabled enough” or “not Deaf enough”. 

At this point, a funny conversation happens around the live captioning of the panel and how other panelists are reading over Lenore’s shoulder in fascination as their own words scroll by.

Lenore continued with a story about talking with Jesse and apologizing for not being able to hear her and Jesse telling her not to say sorry about that and how much it meant to her. She didn’t know she was Deaf until she was 15, so she had subconsciously learned to lip read. 

Shayla said - instead of apologizing, say “thank you for being patient with me” and referenced a comic online on the topic (check the hashtag - it’s linked to a couple of times). 

An audience member brought up that all of this apologizing in regards to our disabilities has to do with the social model of disability.

Elena talked about having to say no to things and how adopting the Disabled label helped to give her permission to do that. Before that, she was broken and felt at fault.

Kate talked about how our self-worth is based on our ability to work and contribute something to society. She stated that she could work under some very specific circumstances, but even then she would lose much needed benefits. She gets told “if you just had more gumption!” We apologize because our disabilities are seen as a moral failing. 

[Kate then made some comments comparing abelism to racism which felt a lil oppression olympic-ey to me in regards to wishing people could see disabilities as just a part of who we are the way race is. My personal thought on this is that there absolutely are people who see poc as having a moral failing due to their race, as well, so I get where Kate was trying to take this analogy but I feel like most analogies of this kind tend to fall apart on further inspection. Another comment was about how she strives to do colorblind reading so she isn’t taking the author’s race into account when choosing a book or while reading it, which again, I think is a very well-meant intention but that taken in practice as a whole would end up with many poc authors not being read because publishing and marketing practices are already set up against them so if we don’t specifically make attempts to read more books written by poc - we won’t be finding as many of them to read. 

I discussed this with Kate afterwards and she agrees that the analogy falls apart and wishes she’d phrased things differently, just FYI.]

Somewhere in there, Shayla made her patented case against kale-pushers and I jumped in to add “well if you Deep Fry the kale...”

(Either Elena or Lenore, my handwriting is not clear here) said that if people blame us for our disabilities, it allows them to believe that it won’t happen to them.

Jesse brought up the role capitalism plays in all of this, and how it’s not a good system. Also the failure of the medical system - it doesn’t work for people like us, so we annoy them. Additionally, some spiritual traditions have the idea of health as being a gift from God, so what does that mean for those of us who don’t have it?

Shayla talked about social issues involved when you have to cancel on friends so many times that they give up on you.

Elena talked about her dislike of the Paralympics - not the people who do it, but the cultural stuff around it as “inspirational.” This allows people to think that even if they do become disabled, they can be one of those ones who can do all this other stuff. 

Often, even if fiction, you only know a character is disabled due to the occasional mention of their wheelchair - otherwise they’re described exactly like the other characters. They never get tired, need downtime, require help with transfers or bathing, etc. It’s not a realistic portrayal of disability.

She added on to what Shayla had said above saying that she has difficulty socializing because she can’t leave her house. 

Kate talked about how online gaming helps her - she can interact with people on her own terms. She talks about “painsomnia” [ha! yes! great word!] and how she is often up at random times and being able to socialize online at those times helps. 

Kate and Lenore both agree that the word “should” is toxic. 

Kate said another helpful aspect of the gaming was that she found games she was good at. She was good at her job and losing that was hard, so finding something else she could feel proud of herself about has helped a lot. The fact that this is something that isn’t valued by society is frustrating.

She revisited the topic beforehand about inspiration porn and said it’s not even about the disabled person really, but about the abled people around them. 

Kate talked about giving herself a gold star some days just for getting out of bed, or getting dressed, etc. She talked about her “standing skills” as another thing society doesn’t value enough.

Jesse discussed how she has coped over the years by waving her hand up and down. She defined herself as a brain in a jar who could learn things - and then that was the last thing that she lost. She has coped in part by splitting herself somewhat mentally from past selves and can look back and say that she is so glad to know that person that could do those things without that being a judgement on who she is today. [my notes at this point read “me: crying” because I was sobbing my eyes out at the wisdom of this that I desperately needed]

Lenore said she is still working on that whole gold star thing. She is trying to reframe things from “I ought to be able to...” to “this is what I can do now.” [phew! yea.]

Elena talked about still doing the grief thing and how depression is connected to not being able to do things. [my notes: the grief never fully stops]

She talked about being in an online writing community but how she isn’t writing now, and re: Kate’s gaming thing - she is still seeking that thing that she’s good at and can do.

Kate said it’s okay to grieve it the same way you would the loss of a family member. Grief continues on but it’s not always as hard as it is at first all of the time.

An audience member talked about how all they can currently do is work and sleep and how to survive if they can’t get disability. They are worried because they need insurance but can’t work full time - when do they reach a point where they can apply for disability? The panelists all answer pretty much together that it sounds like they already ARE at that point - it’s time to start applying. Fill out the forms for your worst days, not your best - that’s a common mistake.

The audience member said their doctor tells them “well you’ve managed so far...” I and other audience members and the panelists all agree - then they need a new doctor! 

Jesse emphasized that the system has failed us, not the other way around. 

Kate brought up the ticket to work program and told the audience member to start the disability process now so they don’t get stranded. [v. good advice]

Elena talked about getting a geriatric doctor if you can because they’re less concerned with issues around weight loss and about fixing you - they know you’re going to die anyway so shrug. (big laugh)

There’s a moment where everyone sings Jesse’s praises as someone who is both a good resource on how to manage this stuff on a personal level and as someone who has good resources for others. I nodded emphatically through all of this and here’s another great thing about Jesse - instead of deflecting, she just smiled and took the compliments. What a good role model! 

Shayla talked about her struggles with being able to work for awhile, then crashing, being homeless, being able to work for awhile, rinse repeat and having people say “well you can work...”

(Edited to add at Shayla’s request that she also said “I COULD work... If it was at a job I could do in the dark, on my back, *legally*. (Hell, illegally has crossed​ my mind many a time.)”)

Kate talked about how applying for disability is work. 

Shayla talked about the difficulty in not knowing how she’s going to feel day to day, even minute to minute. 

Lenore stressed the importance of asking for things that we need. 

I added from the audience that to add to the list of toxic words - “burden”. Thinking of ourselves that way makes it hard to ask for what we need. 

Jesse talked about how giving is a help too. So asking for help allows other people to give in that way. 

Kate said that love is asking for help, because it shows that we’re putting our trust in them.

An audience member talked about The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability as being a beneficial resource to reclaiming their sexuality.

Another audience member talked about a youtuber - ability powered - a disabled gamer who likes to help other disabled folk in gaming.

Someone else from the audience talked about having a sister who is disabled who she lives far away from and wants to know how to help. 

Kate stressed listening and acknowledging. Ask what she is doing not how she is doing. Sometimes the best thing is getting to vent to someone who isn’t the same three people she talks to everyday [yes, this!]. It can be really helpful to be asked if you want to vent or need help problem solving - or even do you just want me to do the talking for awhile. 

An audience member offered that arranging for things like prepared meal deliveries and cleaning can be of use.

Kate said framing things like the above as “I want to do this for you” so they feel better about accepting it. She also added that she enjoys skyping with people she doesn’t get to visit with so she can actually see them.

Kate talked about having to skype to her mother’s funeral and how at least she was able to be part of it in that way. She also brought up FB live as ways to take disabled people to things they couldn’t otherwise go to.

An audience member also stressed the importance of knowing the people in their lives WILL say no if they can’t, which makes it easier to ask them. They can trust them to be honest about their limits.

Lenore emphasized offering to just hang out with someone and not talk if they don’t have the energy to talk - just be there with them.

We hit overtime for the panel and Kate said “I just have a few more things” - at which point I lol’ed (having paneled with Kate before) and closed my notebook so I don’t recall what those few more things were - sorry!

But do check the hashtag for this one, as folks did add many of the resources that were brought up during the panel. 

[sophygurl]

Rebel Scum: Finding Hope in Resistance - WisCon 41 panel write-up

These tend to be long and only of interest to specific segments of folk so click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

Rebel Scum: Finding Hope in Resistance

Moderator: Anika Dane. Panelists: Becky Allen, Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, William Paimon

#RebelScumResist - for the livetweets and other thoughts on the panel

Anika introduced herself and talks about how she fell in love with Vader early on and said that Star Wars saved her sanity. She has the tumblr politicalpadme.

Sandra introduced herself and talked about doing Star Wars costuming for charity and said she is “a part time Jawa”. She shows off her Leia T-shirt which reads “A woman’s place is in the resistance”.

Becky introduced herself as a YA author who is heavily influenced by Star Wars. Rey is her favorite, but she aspires to be Leia.

William introduced himself as a psychologist. Han is his favorite rebel - not as a good person but as a piece of shit who stumbles into being a better person. 

Anika said starting with the middle stories - the first 3 - as being most about rebellion. How do these movies inspire you as ways to rebel?

Becky talked about Rogue One - specifically Bodhi Rook and how he became a rebel from having been a mercenary for the other side. Also Finn from The Force Awakens. 

Sandra talked about the animated Star Wars Rebels series - small groups of rebels who became part of the larger movement. 

William also noted Rogue One - Baze and Chirrut specifically. There were so many relevant characters in RO who were mostly side or background characters. Their moments of sacrifice in RO were intense and beautiful.

Anika asked about cautionary tales, for example - a character who goes too much to one extreme. (At this point, someone in audience’s phone goes off and it’s the Star Wars theme lol)

Becky talked about RO and how it took place in a larger world that we didn’t get to see much of. We’re not sure, as the audience, what the extremists did that the other rebels didn’t like so much. Another example is in Luke’s training - finding out he could go dark and deciding not to, even though doing so could help him win and save more people. 

William said RO shows the toll resistance can take - the costs and damage. Again, with Luke, he killed millions of people on the Death Star. “There’s no way there’s not a day care center there.” [IDK about that but ok...]

Sandra brought up an earlier panel at the con - These Are Not the Stories We’re Looking For. In RO, there were all these discussions within the rebellion about what actions to take.

Anika mentioned the line in RO that is said twice - “Rebellions are built on hope.” This idea was passed from one character to another and then finally to all of them. Jyn and Cassian are both fairly jaded - so why is hope such a big part of their rebellion. 

Sandra answered that if there is no hope of change - what is the point of resisting at all?

Becky talked about the election in November being followed by RO in December. It was so resonant because she had been feeling so scared and hopeless. The characters in RO don’t know that their sacrifices went anywhere. It helped with the idea that she can do things and not know the affect she’s having - but those things can be doing something; the idea that if we know we’re all together in this - we have a hope of winning.

William talked about the characters in RO being very different people with different values and not always liking one another - but they were held together with their hope and with their need to fight.

Sandra emphasized that the final word in the film was the word “hope.”

Anika brought up how hope is passed on with the Death Star plans and passed on through Leia. How is hope passed on through the generations? No major character in the series is raised by their birth parents, so how is hope passed on through family, friends, and loved ones?

Sandra answered that the mentor-trainee relationship is one big way it’s passed on. Also mentioned how C-3PO and R2-D2 are in all the films - how do they pass it on?

Becky said that in TFA, the new generation doesn’t have any clear living memory of what had happened before. Is Luke real, is the force real, etc.? The search for Luke is the search for hope. 

Anika brought up Bail Organa who raised Leia. While there is a lot of Vader in Leia, we can see how Bail raised her to be a shinning hope for the entire universe. 

Becky talked about the different ways those familial relationships affected things. Jyn was raised by extremists and ends up pretty jaded. Poe is raised in victory and has a very positive and plucky attitude.

Anika mentioned the end of Empire, the celebrations, and the statue of Palpatine being taken down. It’s unrealistic - we’re still fighting about confederacy statues here!

Becky talked about how the stories told affect us. Luke was raised believing his father was an important rebel - the clash of discovering the truth and how that affected his decisions going forward.

Sandra brought up the problems of people being so surprised about what’s happening in these stories. Why is there so much disagreement about it? Well, some of them (Rey and Luke for example) were raised on backwater planets. The questions about if the resistance is even needed are because messages aren’t being spread far and wide.

William compares this to us today - people voting against obamacare but loved their ACA. An audience member asks if the SW universe has no internet. William suggests that perhaps literacy is not even widespread in this universe. People don’t know their own history - they only have oral storytelling. A member of the audience says that disinformation can be very hard to fight psychologically. 

Becky said she is studying her own family history and it’s difficult to go back further than a generation or two. 

Anika brought up the prequels. Padme’s line about this war represents a failure to listen. This represents the entire series, really. No one is communicating with one another or listening much when they do - even when on the same side. Only one talking to everyone ... is Palpatine. How do we combat this? There doesn’t seem to be an answer in Star Wars.

Sandra mentions C-3PO and R2 - they’re in it from the beginning and have a lot of knowledge. R2 is the smartest but very few can understand him. C-3PO is a translator but no one wants to listen to him! 

Becky emphasizes that people with privilege have to listen and lift up the voices of more marginalized people. We have to get on the same page, but that page has got to include all of these other things even if - especially if - those things don’t affect me personally.

William talked about how people become focused on their own lives and don’t look at what’s happening on a broader scale.

An audience member brought up that the basis of SW is anglo-centric individualist hero’s journey. RO shifts that a bit into being about a community of heroes.

William adds that even in RO the extremist is a black man.

Anika asks how do we form our own rebel alliance and use SW to bring a message of hope?

Sandra said it’s about ordinary people coming together and how that can draw power [okay there was a whole lot of stuff here about the laws of power that I just blocked out because I can’t with that].

Becky talked about the themes of hope and also of warnings in the movies - if we don’t do the work (beyond just blowing up the Death Star), the Empire will come back. Fandom is community/communities - we need more communication and active listening among these communities. Fandom can give a foundation for community action.

William added that we need to build access - the world kids live in today, they have a lot of access to information and conversations that took us older folks a lot longer to get to. 

Becky stated that adults who interact with kids need to help them think critically about what they’re reading and talking about online. Help them apply stuff like conversations about privilege to their real lives.

An audience member talked about a 20-something nephew who is both a SW fan and a tea partier. They think of themselves as the rebels. 

Anika brought up an article online - someone saying they grew up wanting to be Luke Skywalker, but joined the army and found themselves part of the Empire instead. We love underdogs and we all like to think of ourselves as the underdog. Using fandom to reach people can be problematic because we all personalize the stories we read and watch. 

An audience member added that with The Hunger Games, the right sees themselves as the rural downtrodden folk and the capitol as the liberal elite. 

Becky also added that Captain America resonates with all sides politically in this country. She asks “why are we fighting different Empires?”

William talked about the narrative appetite for violent rebellion. It’s strong with the right with narratives about confederacy, for example.

Becky said that we can all see ourselves as Luke, but certain segments freaked out about Rey, Finn, and all of Rogue One’s cast. It felt like the franchise was being taken away from them, when really it was being given to more people.

Sandra stated that everyone is the hero of their own story [not always true ime, but yea].

An audience member brought up Galen as a character working within the system. This idea of collaboration vs. rebellion. 

William said that Galen made him really uncomfortable, and compared it to stories of people working within the Nazi’s in order to help Jewish people escape. 

Becky stated that very few people are all good or all bad. We all do what we can, but at the same time - maybe don’t build the Death Star?

Sandra said that Galen knew they could make it without him, so he felt his only option was to build it but put in the flaw.

Anika brought up how Jyn was raised by Galen and Saw - extremes on either side of the rebellion with different ideas of how to fight. How does that affect her?

After a whole discussion about media, the spread of info, storytelling vs. entertainment in the SW universe (sorry did not catch it all down in my notes), Anika stated that Trump is not Palpatine. Trump is Jabba the Hutt. 

An audience member brought up Uncle Owen as showing how invested you can be in the status quo - even if that status quo is terrible. Becky added that Owen told Luke - your dad was a rebel fighter and he died, so don’t do that. But Luke was like - omg my dad was a hero and died for his cause, I wanna be just like him! (somewhere in there she also stated “if you don’t like the Ewoks, you can fight me!” lol)

William said Owen was right - Luke got into the fight and everyone died. This idea of survival vs. resistance. 

Becky talked about how Owen was all about surviving another day while ignoring the terrible things happening. We have to have hope that we can fight this. But the Empire was going to come for Luke anyway...

Anika mentioned Jyn’s line about being able to ignore the Imperial flag as long as you don’t look up...

Anika then asked the panelists what they’re doing for the resistance.

Sandra talked about joining groups to fight gerrymandering and calling representatives on issues. 

Becky said she’s become more aware of politics on the local level. There was recently a specific election in just her district that she might not have known about a year ago. She stressed the importance of knowing all of your reps. She also continues to write about these themes in her own writing.

William talked about using his job working with kids to support where they’re coming from. An example was adjusting the bathroom policy in school system. Him coming in as a white male doctor and using that power to get the issue taken more seriously has helped. 

Becky concluded - “I fight straight white men more now. My discomfort is worth getting through to people.” 

[sophygurl]

Links to all of my WisCon 41 posts and panel write-ups if anyone wants a handy place to find them all. All of these posts are here on tumblr too but I decided just to do the handy all-in-one-place link post on DW. 

[sophygurl]

Home from WisCon. Physically exhausted but emotionally and mentally fed and renewed. I’m going to eventually make posts all about my thoughts, feels, experiences, lols, and full-ish write-ups of the panels I attended. For now I’m just kinda drifting around in my head unable to think clearly enough long enough to make a whole lot of sense. (For example, I tried to tweet out the hashtags of all the panels I’m gonna write-up later, but misspelled several of them - not exactly helpful)

[sophygurl]

Dance Apocalyptic: Dystopian Fiction and Media In a Dystopian Age - WisCon 41 panel write-up

These tend to be long to click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

Dance Apocalyptic: Dystopian Fiction and Media In a Dystopian Age

Moderator: The Rotund. Panelists: Amal El-Mohtar, E. Cabell Hankinson Gathman, Lauren Lacey

#ReadingDystopiaInDystopia - for the livetweets and comments 

(I think I missed jotting down some introductory stuff as my notes just dig right in - sorry about that!)

Amal talked about how dystopia crosses over into issues of immigration, and Cabell posed the question - “dystopia for whom?”

Lauren discussed teaching Octavia Butler’s Parable series during the November election and then teaching Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale this spring. 

Rotund asked the panelists to define dystopia and mentioned the twitter quote about current generations not being promised a future of flying cars, but rather a cyberpunk dystopia. 

Amal talked about conflating dystopia with post-apocalyptic, but that the two function differently. They can intersect, however. Dystopia is allied with ideas of oppression - the severe marginalization of a large swath of the population.

Cabell added that this kind of dystopia is somebody else’s utopia. People with privilege don’t want to lose it - that’s dystopic for them.

Lauren discussed anti-utopias, such as 1984, where the audience identifies with the people being marginalized. Compared that with a critical dystopia where there is a horizon of hopefulness - such as Parable.

Rotund brought up the positioning of Firefly as allegorical confederacy and asked how do we deal with that?

Cabell answered - fanfiction.

Amal discussed how she had not connected Firefly to the confederacy due to the lack of themes of slavery, particularly child slavery. As a Canadian, that just wasn’t her first go-to when watching it. There were so many other examples of imperial or hegemonic control without the slavery aspect in her mind - specifically Lebanon, where her own parents had fled from civil war.

Amal talked about playing with this iconography of rebellion without the ugly context of the confederacy. There’s something interesting to play with about these heroes who were on the losing side, but she acknowledges that her perspective is different than those from the U.S.

Cabell stepped in and said “hashtag socialist killjoy” but, the themes of colonization in Firefly were there even without the confederacy angle. For example, the heavy Chinese influence of the culture but we don’t actually see any Chinese people. What are the implications of that?

Lauren said that one interesting part of dystopias is getting to identify with the rebels. This can lead to an unthinking identification with resistance - the idea that all power is bad, all government is bad. This constant identification with outsiders can be dangerous. She added that Octavia Butler does a good job with the complexities of these themes in her works.

Cabell brought up prepatory vs. cautionary dystopias. Putting the spotlight on collaborators. 

Amal discussed some of Canada’s issues with how it’s dealt with it’s Indigenous cultures with truth and reconciliation commissions. An issue in Firefly is that we have no idea of any Indigenous life on the planets that are taken over and terraformed. 

In some ways, Firefly reflects America’s colonialism with the frontier themes, but what does that look like without any Indigenous populations? Canada’s attitude for a long time was “well, our treatment of Indigenous people wasn’t as bad as what the US was doing...” and that was a fantasy to make themselves feel better about it.

Rotund pointed out that people like to feel like rebels.This was the foundation of Trump’s campaign. It’s a distressing use of the dystopian narrative.

Lauren brought up Handmaid’s Tale and how despite the complexity of it’s historical notes, there were still problems in the ways many marginalizations were ignored.

Amal talked about the appropriation of resistance terms and used MRA’s use of feminist language as an example. Just as a group is gaining a voice against the powers over them, their language is taken from them and used against them. Then the people in power get to have this fantasy of being the oppressed ones.

She brought up Mad Max as this lone man trying to survive the apocalypse and how unrealistic this trope is - we need community to survive. 

(I have in my notes in the sidebar for the next page or so that I missed a lot that was said so bear with me if some of this seems extra jumpy from topic to topic)

Cabell discussed the Wisconsin cocaine mom laws that sprang up during the 90′s paranoia about crack babies (which it turns out is not even a thing, the affects were due to poverty not drugs). This was highly racialized. In 2014, California was found to be forcibly sterilizing female inmates - mostly women of color. 

The point of this discussion is that we’re already living in the reproductive dystopia. People are in situations where they’re needing to ask themselves how to stay safe in a system that is unsafe for them.

Amal brought up a conversation she’d had that day with a taxi driver when he found out she was Canadian and he immediately started talking about how badly we need socialized medicine here in the U.S. To Amal - the idea that everyone deserves health care as being radical is dystopic! She gets worked up and apologizes and Rotund says - don’t apologize for being mad at dystopias.

Lauren talked about Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time as an example where it’s not just about the privileged suddenly being in a dystopia. There’s a theme of complacency, of not paying attention to what’s happening to others. It’s a cautionary dystopia. 

Cabell brought up the SNL video of white people just in a constant state of screaming until finally there’s 2 black people and one asks what’s happening and the other answers - oh they’ve been this way since the election. 

Amal replied that she noticed a lot of people feeling sort of apocalyptic after the election, but many people of color were more like “oh, it’s Tuesday. Maybe a little more Tuesday than usual but...”

She also talked about how she saw a lot of people from the U.S. saying online that they needed to leave the country, while other people were angry at this notion saying - how dare you leave when we have work to do? Amal, coming from the perspective of her own parents having fled their country, acknowledges that the people in that first group are thinking more about survival. 

Amal found herself agreeing to let friends from the US come and stay with her as needed, while also members of her family were working on taking Syrian refugees in. “You think you’re safe until you’re not” - in Handmaid’s Tale, the main character waited too long to leave. 

[My own thoughts on the anger about people fleeing is that this is primarily directed at people who do have quite a bit of privilege choosing to leave instead of staying to fight for the people who really can’t make that choice. Example: the whole Amanda Palmer thing ugh]

An audience member asked about the common video game trope of going alone into the woods to survive after a dystopic or apocalyptic event. None of the panelists like that type of game. 

Amal really wants a game like that, but about community building. Cabell would pay lots of money for an MMO in that style.

An audience member recommends the game This War of Mine as doing community building well, and asks the question of if the panelists have noticed the need to upgrade security recently.

Amal discussed how she was detained on her way to the states this time and how horrifying of an experience it was. No one did anything particularly bad to her, but it was still awful and invasive. It did make her think both about the idea of state security and “what am putting out online?” 

She talked about how she has always self-censored, and the investment her family has put into respectability politics as a means of survival. She’s now opening up more, and finds that she’s angry all the time “that’s my secret - I’m always angry”. And yet she still tempers her rage and fury because she doesn’t want to lose the support of white liberals. 

Cabell replied to Amal’s experience about being detained and said - sure they all felt bad but they did it anyway. The idea of collaboration and following orders. When laws are unjust, the moral thing can be to break the law. 

She added that the best person to hide undocumented immigrants is someone who has never publicly said that we should be hiding undocumented immigrants, which makes it tricky. The need for networks and cells for this kind of thing.

Amal addressed that the reason the people involved with her detainment were so embarrassed had a lot to do with how she passes, has lighter skin, etc. 

(I have a whole chunk of something I wrote down that Lauren said that I added a bunch of question marks to, so not sure I got it down correctly but it was about how increased need for security has affected academia and the sense of witch hunt-ness involved in people speaking their minds freely.)

An audience member asked about examples in dystopian fiction of that use of appropriated language of the oppression.

Lauren brought up that in Parable, published in 93, the president really used the slogan “make America great again”. Also the Aunts in Handmaid’s Tale use appropriated language.

Cabell talked about another real life example, which was the laws created to protect fetuses and how proponents of it said it would never be used against pregnant women, but it ended up doing just that - specifically against women of color.

Amal talked about the idea of needing to protect men from women’s temptation and said that her story Seasons of Glass and Iron has an example of this. She also talked about how in The Hunger Games, punishment becomes entertainment.

An audience member asked about the appropriation of dystopian language and does this happen because the stories are too vague? How do we protect against this?

Amal answered that you can’t stop people in power from appropriating narratives. But you can become aware of it and try to check it when it happens. (and then a whole thing I sadly missed about exogenous settlers/immigrants)

The panelists wrapped up with some recommendations. 

Lauren: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett, and Kate Wilhem’s early stuff.

Cabell: Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott, and a title I did not catch ... something Chronicles by Barbara something (real helpful I know, sorry)  [Edited to add from Cabell: "Darwath Chronicles by Barbara Hambly! Very fantasy alternate universe; not a "realistic" dystopia/post-apocalypse."]

Amal: the song Miami 2017 by Billy Joel and the poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven

[snowdropsandtigers]

Me during the Vid Party Discussion panel two weeks ago at Wiscon: *babbles about The Final Girls* Buffy--I don't know why I said that word--