#whiteblr

[lilquill]

I rly hope a lot of whiteblrs are still embarrassed by how they keep portraying the few writers of color on here as “mean” and “bitchy” and “rude”......at least even the more abrasive of us are honest and direct with our problems instead of being manipulative white vaguebloggers milking sympathy from this website while not having the guts for actual confrontation without a shield of crocodile tears!

[stories-and-words]

This Is Happening

The prompt used for this story was found on my favorite dialogue prompt account @dialouge-prompts ! The account is great so if anyone actually reads this, y’all should check that account out. 

- Admin Hope

Prompt:

“I’m calling bullshit!”

“Well hang up, then.”

     Nobody expected this to happen. Nobody expected the country to be at war...with itsself. However, here they are, country split into two, District One and, well, District Two. The army for each district are small but strong and all genders are fit to battle. How it happened is really simple, two brothers with an ongoing battle to impress the father. When the father of the two died and passed the country down to the oldest to rule, the younger broke the country in half, declaring war on what is now District One. 

     Farah, like her names meaning, is beautiful. However, she never wanted to sit aside and let the men do all the heavy lifting and dirty work for her. All her life, she trained with a bow and arrows. Day and night, every hour of the day, it was spent training and it all payed off. Now, Farah is the leader of the ‘Distance Department.” She’s leading an entire department at the age of 17, height of 5′3, and weight of 120lbs. Take that stereotypes. 

       Garrett stays out on the battlefeild. He fights at the hands of death, killing and wounding. He’s unforgiving, gruesome, he stops for nothing. Unlike for most, he has a soft spot for Farah. Not because he’s interested in her , no, but because he’s the one she turned to when her father died at the hands of the enemy. However, that was years ago and the two have stuck together for the three years that has passed since then. One being the most powerful leader of all departments combined and the other being the right hand man of the countries leader himself. The two thought they were unstoppable. 

     This brings the two to where they are now, standing in front of the leaders cherry colored wooden desk, no leader actually there, talking strategy. “I call bullshit!” Farah exclaims loudly. Her long strawberry blonde hair is braided into two and falling over her shoulders, making it easy to see the fear in her hazel eyes. Garrett stops playing with his swords holster and rolls his eyes at his dramatic friend. 

     “Well hang up, then,” He rolls his eyes again and jumps onto the desk, siting on the wooden surface, his face softens ever so slightly at the fear in her eyes, but blink and its gone. "Farah, Keaton wants all departments fighting tomorrow, he wants to end this. Theres no way in hell that we'll win without the advantage that is having you on that battle feild."  

      Everyone in District Two army knows that the Distance Department is the strongest, but they're timid. Farah is good at keeping her team back until it's neccesary. She feels that the distance advantage as well as the strength advantage are those of desperate messures. 

     "You know where I stand on using my men while there are people on the floor fighting, Garrett. Theres no other reason to it than to save lives. My team could kill with one pull of a string," She adjusts the quiver on her back and begins walking away, however, Garrett grabs said quiver to keep her from leaving. "Let me go or so help me I'll-"

     "You don't have the strength to do anything to me without your bow. You will put your men in the battle tomorrow, you will lead them, and you will put your personal reasoning behind you. If not, consider yourself and your men let go," Garrett lets go of the younger girl and the silence in the room is only broken by the heavy breathing of the two. Garrett sighs and rubs down his face with his hand. "Look, you know that I care about you, but I care about the safety of the district too. We have to do this."

     "My men are ruthless, they will shoot and shoot until everyone on the other side surrenders or dies. What if one falls short? That arrow can hit and kill anyone on our side. Our fighters can die, our leader can die-"

     "Farah."

     "Garrett, you can die!" 

     Again, silence. Garretts eyes are wide, it all falling into place. The one person she has left that hasn't died puts his life on the line everyday while Farah is behind high walls, fighting from a distance, and watching with scared eyes. No wonder she doesn't want to send her district into fight. But this is Garretts home and in order to keep it safe, people need to suffer. 

     He takes a step closer and grabs an arrow from the girls quiver, pressing it in her hands and taking a shaky breath, Farah shaking her head slowly.

     "Then kill me."

     Is all he says before walking out of the office confidently, leaving Farah to clutch the lone arrow in her small hands and thoughts of bloody battle in her head. 

[lilquill]

We’re Not Done Yet!

A lot of people, primarily white people, have treated these discussions of honesty, acceptance of valid criticism, and racism in the writeblr community as just another phase of “drama” that would soon pass.

I’d like to tell these people that, perhaps, getting to view racism as just another bit of petty drama that they can simply wait out is indicative of white privilege. Refusing to engage with discussions of racism when you are a white person simply enables and perpetuates racism.

White people, a discussion of racism is not a storm that you hide out from underground, squeezing your eyes shut with a stockpile beside you waiting for it to pass so you can come out safely again.

A discussion of racism is rather more like a group of victims who have been terrorized by a hydra for far too long finally taking action to defeat the monster. We’ve had enough, and hell, we’d even tried talking the monster out of it, but it persists, so now it’s time for some sort of confrontation. And guess what? Even the hydra heads NOT snapping at us are still keeping the monster alive, enabling the heads that ARE doing damage to continue to do so.

Your silence does harm. Your unwillingness to speak up and defend people of color when you see racism does harm.

That’s not to say that you MUST publicly make/reblog callout posts are whatever in order to be a True White Ally™ or something. There’s several white writeblrs who, during this whole affair, reached out to me privately to show support, or sent me friendly anons, or politely asked me questions, etc. Trust me, we understand! There’s issues like anxiety that prevent us from being able to confront our friends or make public statements. Still, do what you can, and talk it over with people. At the same time, keep in mind that the discomfort of having these conversations as a white person doesn’t really match the active harm that racism does to people of color, and remember that it’s important to do your best to use your privilege for good. A little bit of discomfort is bound to arise from discussions of racism in specifics, where actual changes in behavior and decisions can happen, as opposed to the general comfort of reblogging nebulous posts about how “brown ppl are valid!!!” White people trying to do good, we don’t want you to actively harm yourself, but we really do need you to help us out.

However, I’ve seen a trend of people resolutely not talking about this stuff, where they’ll get asks about their opinions on things and say, “Oh, well, I don’t want to comment on this. Stuff like this happens all the time!” and hint at their true opinions (i.e. siding with the racist) in the tags. Well, if you’re able to make those posts, white vaguebloggers, then why not instead take a look around you, realize how whiteness dominates your community, and criticize the racism accompanying that instead? Why not try to participate when POC are facilitating open, honest discussions of racism they see within a community we both belong to?

A lot of people have talked about positivity in writeblr, and how I’m spreading hate or something. But the fact of the matter is, racism is inherently negativity. And if you guys are so concerned about creating an actually positive space, well, the discomfort or “negativity” of having conversations critical of racist actions is SUBSTANTIALLY less that the actual harm that people of color feel when they see your racism. If you think that talking about racism in specific instances is just “spreading hate and toxicity,” consider that perhaps you have a substantial amount of privilege in not being negatively harmed by the hatred of racism that has been in the writeblr community for far, far longer than I ever made a post criticizing Boo directly. Racism has driven out and discouraged writers of color looking to join this community. Stop prioritizing the comfort of racist whiteblrs over the safety of writers of color.

Please don’t treat the discussions we’ve had as a one-off thing. Just because the brunt of the discussion is over doesn’t mean people should just sit back once more and let racism happen. The only way you can truly mitigate racism is by actively fighting it. Please, do your best and make sure stuff like this doesn’t happen again. The POC of writeblr deserve better than what we’ve been getting.

As certain people seem to be crawling back in and deleting their fauxpologies in an attempt to sweep this whole matter under the rug, please make sure you’re doing your best to make writeblr a safe, inclusive community by upholding equality and accountability to the best of your ability.

[lilquill]

I mean I get calling people out for racism but I’d like to point out that Incandescent-creativity has two other wips, both of which have poc protagonists (Ash, who I think is southern Asian but I’m not sure, and Olu.)

Hello Anon!! Thanks for bringing this up because this is another thing that I’ve been wanting to talk about but totally forgot to because I was busy dealing with other stuff at the time.

Okay, so first off, seeing how @incandescent-creativity responded to me when she wasn’t even the one being criticized (it was during the whole Boo thing) she.....clearly does not care about women of color like myself. This is the reply she left on my post about Boo, and my response to aforementioned reply: http://lilquill.tumblr.com/post/180912650978/incandescent-creativity-replied-to-your-post. And it’s just.....really fucking racist lol and REEKS of white entitlement. Her attitudes towards other people asking about the all-white cast (screenshotted and linked in that post) also just show total apathy towards people of color. She also displayed Really Fucking Bad white fragility when Osie criticized her, shown in this post where Osie has screenshots: https://owlsofstarlight.tumblr.com/post/181388687146/ok-so-if-youve-follow-me-you-should-probably-be. (And this post once again plays into the whole “Oh well Sakshi why weren’t you nice to Boo??” thing because, well, this is how these people respond when you’re nice to them because they just don’t fucking care lol. The entire point is, other people HAVE tried being nice, and these assholes just don’t care AT ALL.) @incandescent-creativity literally got feedback from me about her all-white cast (like I responded to an anon saying that she could literally just have side characters who are poc, it’s literally that easy) and just....ignored it I guess! She deleted her reply, didn’t apologize for being racist to me, and blocked me! Like, she’s proven that she cares more about her own comfort than the well-being of poc. So, sure, she’s writing women of color, but she responds Like This when she gets feedback from women of color, so those WIPs sure are gonna end up a dumpster fire lol!

Also, as for her having woc as protagonists? Having a couple token protagonists doesn’t just.....mean you’re not racist. The fact that this is how she responds when addressing racism tells me more about her view of poc than the fact that she’s writing a couple woc.

Also, I haven’t even really addressed her racism, specifically related to the way she talks about her racist white woman antagonist. I’m going to write that post soon but I’m holding off because it pisses me off SO MUCH and is so genuinely upsetting to me in her apathy that I like....get too mad to finish writing it. (And this is also what I mean when I weigh the impact of racism on poc vs white people, by the way. Being around racism is actually deeply more harmful to poc than to white people. This is how we end up with such a white space here in writeblr, and this is why that little cluster of whiteblrs is......like that.)

Also, as a South Asian woman myself, I take issue with the way incandescent-creativity writes her South Asian woman protagonist. Here’s a post that really defines my feelings about this:

Right, so, she basically has a sad :( brown girl learn how to be happy!! :D through this white boy. I’m really very...hmmm....at this white boy talking to a woc when she literally thinks her family is dead. Like, culturally speaking, family tends to be more important to South Asian people than white people, and also especially when you’re a diaspora kid, family is the way you connect with your culture, so it’s extra traumatic. But, it’s okay! Because this white boy can totally reassure her out of it! And also, I really...dislike the way that the perspective of the woc is just a lens to fawn over this white boy with. Like it strongly comes off to me that she really likes this white boy more than her woc. You can say I’m overanalyzing or whatever, but my intuition is giving me Bad Vibes based on this lil excerpt and also IC’s behavior in response to a woc (me) criticizing her, so there! Let’s see if she takes that feedback. So, Elizabeth, if you’re reading this (and I’m sure it’ll find its way to you somehow), please take a nice, good, long, hard look at the way you write about poc.

(And that wasn’t even something I was planning on addressing in the bigger issue with how incandescent-creativity treats racism, but, there ya go.)

And also having a couple woc in her work doesn’t excuse the overwhelming whiteness present in both the way she talks about these characters and also....the rest of her casts. And also the way she treats racism and eugenics in her SOLE project is really deeply dehumanizing and bad.

Listen, there are plenty of authors who have very white casts and then learn to grow. Rick Riordan comes to mind; the original Percy Jackson series had a pretty white cast, for instance. And did people of color point this out? You bet! And what did he do? He actually apologized and WORKED HARDER TO INCORPORATE POC IN HIS WORK. Hell, he even started a thing to promote authors of color. THAT’S what actual allyship and a genuine response to criticism looks like. And even then? Rick didn’t pull this shit where he randomly used racism as a plot device to justify his own overwhelmingly white cast; he acknowledged that he could do better and DID. So, Elizabeth, take notes and DO BETTER. Because you DON’T support writers of color, you DON’T listen to poc when we’re trying to talk to you, and you DON’T work on self-improvement to acknowledge your own privilege and work towards equality.

Thank you for sending me this, anon. I’m glad you’re coming to me and asking good, interesting, genuine questions to hear me out. At the same time, I’d like to ask if you’re also talking to the whiteblrs behind this stuff alongside sending me this ask; even if you thought some of my stuff is unfounded, you must agree that that’s less bad than the ableism and abuse apologism and racism in Elizabeth’s work, as pointed out in @owlsofstarlight‘s post. (This isn’t an accusation against you, of course! You’re anonymous so I have no idea who you are, but I would like to point out that the actual shit Elizabeth is pulling is a LOT worse and more harmful and “negative” than whatever I’m doing.)

Happy holidays to you, anon! And happy holidays to everyone reading this, and merry Christmas if you’re celebrating it! <3 (It’s still Christmas where I am, and I don’t actually really celebrate Christmas, but I’ll still miss this time of year when it passes!)

[lilquill]

hi just wanted to say that you're a wonderfully kind person and i hope you're doing well! i have so much respect for what you've said about racist writers on this site and i hope people are being fair to you!! <3

Hello anon!!! Thank you so much for sending this my way!! I love you so much!!!!! <3333

[lilquill]

katekarl replied to your post “The fact that “how to write POC” written for POC authors is usually...”

Also, I can't get your tags to work. White fragility came up but not tone policing. Is it something I should do from a a desktop? Thanks!

@katekarl http://lilquill.tumblr.com/tagged/tone%20policing so yeah, desktop.

Also I only started tagging stuff with “#tone policing” after all the writeblr stuff went down so I’d highly recommend googling “tone policing racism” or “tone policing white fragility” or something in addition.

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

Ok so now y’all are expecting people to literally do your research for you? 

What? Should people maybe also write your entire wip for you as well? Also? 

I ... wow. Y’all are preaching about being all open to criticism and shit and reblog moodboards with brown ppl and resources about writing diversity and yet your cattiness and defensiveness betrays your true feelings. 

Y’all ain’t sad you fucked up. Y’all are mad you got caught. 

[rrrawrf-writes]

hey @writeblr

quit looking for people (marginalized or not) to validate and bless your wips about discrimination. quit looking for people to tell you, ur doin gr8 sweaty :)

do your own dang work, and start with googling "what even is discrimination"