atmospheres and attitudes

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

I've been to one previous S.J. Tucker show, and attended (part of) this afternoon's program. Much as I hate negativity, this is preying on my mind and I think it requires a public comment.

Previous impression: S.J. Tucker (s00j) does pagan folk/filk-ish stuff, with a couple of songs that appeal to me and a whole lot more that's pleasant, sometimes precious, mostly just not really my sort of thing. But I know a few people who love her, so I've kept listening.

Today: well, she started with a few songs that fit the various categories above...and then she introduced a song about a "single mother" who is urban-tough, trying to take care of her babies, etc. --oh, and teaching them to steal the cat-food left out on s00j's band-mate's doorstep. OK, I'd figured out this was a raccoon shortly before she said something like "and she's the leader of the local ring-tailed gang." And that was the beginning of serious discomfort.

And then she went into a parody of "Summertime and the living is easy"--in a Southern-influenced-Black accent. And then a song in the voice of "Miss Tough-Titty Cupcakes," as she and band-mates have apparently christened the raccoon...same accent, plus every stereotype in the book about urban Black women and single mothers.

*sigh*

My companion and I left after that song. I saw s00j in the hallway after the show, and asked her please to think about what she was doing with that song, and said that I found it offensive. Her eyes welled up, and she said that she was sorry that I'd found it offensive; as I left, it seemed to me that her friends gathered around to comfort her.

I don't mean this to be a personal attack on the singer, who is probably a well-meaning lady who envisioned an amusing anthropomorphism and perhaps a provocative subversion of some sort, and who may even be young enough to be unaware that--quite aside from the numerous stereotypes embodied in the song--"coon" is all by itself a highly-charged term, adding an absolutely unmistakable and inescapable flavor of racism to the piece.

But it is a challenge, to all of you, to all of us. We've had a lot of conversations recently, at cons and in LJ and elsewhere, about diversity and such. Numerous fans of color have talked about feeling unwelcome at cons, about the pervasiveness and sometimes encouragement of the same racist attitudes they find outside fandom. I can only imagine how alienated and isolated someone might feel, listening to that song and its enthusiastic reception (by an all-white audience, so far as I could see). And therefore I'm asking people to think about their attitudes and what these do to our community.

Comments

(frozen) From S. J.

[s00j.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your honesty, and also for the numerous compliments that you pay me in this post.

I regret that I was too shocked to ask you what had offended you about the song in question when we were face to face. That makes this post all the more valuable to me.

Today was the first time (and the second as well) that anyone, at any event, fandom-friendly or otherwise, was brave enough to tell me that s/he found "Tough Titty Cupcakes" to be offensive. I am grateful to you for that, for many reasons. I hope that all of my friends and loved ones, regardless of the color of their skin, will always be so honest with me. (That statement is not an invitation for anyone and everyone to say hurtful things in my direction in comments, by the way. Please, please don't, for all of our sakes. If you must do--and I ask you to think about whether you truly must, please do me the same honor that this poster has done: do so one-on-one.)

One of the first people to ever tell me how much she loved this particular song (which was written by, and the character of which contrived by, my cellist Betsy Tinney, whom you also saw on stage today) is a lady named Annie who lives in New Orleans. I hope that you get a chance to meet her some day. My audience, as a whole, is far from all-white. Today was no exception.

It has never been and it will never be my *intent* as a performer to make anyone in my audience uncomfortable with any given song, or to make them get up and walk out.

Thank you again. You have my respect and my gratitude, always.

(frozen)

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

While I realize this does not address all of the issues raised, nor do I expect it to: the word "coon" does not actually appear in the song.

(frozen)

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Sooj: thanks for correcting me on the authorship of the song, and thank you very much for your gracious reply as well as for hearing what I had to say. Just to underline the point--I never thought that you were intentionally offensive, but only that perhaps you'd been unthinkingly insensitive (is that redundant?).

(To reply to another comment, which I can't figure out how to unscreen: I should have made clear that you absolutely did not use the word "coon" itself; the issue here was that using what I perceive as a Black stereotype in the context of a song about a raccoon seemed to imply and echo the racial slur.)

I am now sorry that I didn't stay to hear more of your show. I liked the Firebird song very much, and loved "Ravens in the Library."

(frozen)

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Even after speaking to s00j privately, you felt this "require[d] a public comment." I certainly don't blame you for speaking your concerns, but I think if your goal was, as stated, to get people to reconsider their attitudes, this post left a good bit to be desired in the execution.

You might have corrected your post to remove the incorrect statements and inferences of fact which you've retracted in comments but left for the public eye, but you did not do so, just as you did not bother to identify the specific stereotypes which horrified you enough to take this to public comment.

I know from hearing many, many other performances of TTC that it is performed a la Billie Holiday, who was a Black woman, but not a Southerner. s00j, however, comes by her accent honest, by way of Arkansas. The riff on "Summertime" is a further Holiday homage: the Gershwin tune was a jazz favorite, famously recorded by many artists including Holiday.

For the record, your use of the phrase "Southern-influenced-Black accent" is itself offensive, as the phrase "Black accent" is rooted in some fairly problematic assumptions, being mostly used by white people to categorize certain speech patterns and dialect as part of a (nonexistent) Black monolith-culture. Let me add that the song is not written in African American Vernacular English, the dialect most frequently assigned the incorrect label "Black accent". Not even close. There's more to that dialect than the word "ain't".

From hearing many renditions of TTC, I feel confident stating that the phrase "leader of a ring-tailed gang" appears nowhere in the song; none of the unique words in that phrase even appear. (Video of the arisia performance exists, so I'm sure this can be verified.)

However, the second line is "Mama's got a little something to tell you about how it's gonna be to live life as a raccoon." (emphasis mine.) The listener isn't even required to determine the identity of the speaker by inference. It's made explicit. (According to your post, you "figured out" what was stated in plain language, but a phrase that didn't appear was the "beginning of serious discomfort".)

As for "every stereotype in the book about urban Black women and single mothers"... for all the "numerous" stereotypes you claim, you have failed to identify a single one specifically in your post, despite this "preying on your mind" until you were driven to make public comment. If you had done so, perhaps there could have been a discussion of how TTC might or might not play into them.

As for noting that it was an "all-white audience, so far as I could see" - your statement contains some fairly large assumptions about the visibility of racial identity. It's almost pure irony, when juxtaposed with your earnest call for people to reconsider their attitudes.

(frozen)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

However, the second line is "Mama's got a little something to tell you about how it's gonna be to live life as a raccoon." (emphasis mine.) The listener isn't even required to determine the identity of the speaker by inference. It's made explicit. (According to your post, you "figured out" what was stated in plain language, but a phrase that didn't appear was the "beginning of serious discomfort".)

Also, as someone who was there: There was extended patter at the beginning of the song about the raccoon that the song is very specifically about. It's not even that Tricky Pixie set out to anthropomorphize a raccoon to reflect a single-mother experience - as S00j very clearly stated before the song, this is a song written about a specific raccoon that was stealing trash and cat food from stealthcello's back porch. They also have a song called "Callan's Song" which is about a cat named Callan who want to have sex with everything. This is not written as a trenchant statement and exploration of men when was to have sex with everything. It is about a cat named Callan that the band happens to know. Just as "Tough Titty Cupcakes" is about a raccoon that the band happens to know.

Since there was an extended patter and explanation before the song that made that abundantly clear - original poster, I have no idea how you arrived at these crazy conclusions. No "figuring out" was needed. She told you up front. And I agree with the commenter above that your response says more about you than about what you're reacting to.

In addition, members of a minority group tend not to like it when members of a majority group swoop in to "protect" them from things they don't need or want protection from. I suggest you take that energy and do some research about how to be an ally.

As for noting that it was an "all-white audience, so far as I could see" - your statement contains some fairly large assumptions about the visibility of racial identity.

Indeed. The audience was predominantly white, because Arisia is - but from my vantage point I saw many black, Asian, and Indian attendees, and they were all rocking out.

I'll add that yes, that's a basic Southern accent, and one S00j comes by honestly (and one that comes out of me when I'm tired or pissed off, which means if I'd been with S00j when you decided to fling nasty on her last night, you'd've heard it).

I was a Southern single mom for the first six years of my daughter's life, and I scan the song as *celebrating* kick-ass single moms who keep their babies fed. I'm pretty sure raccoons don't have race, so that really didn't enter into it for me. Or, apparently, anyone else.

If you could name a single stereotype in the song, maybe we could have an actual discussion on this. But I know you can't, because there aren't any.

The graceful thing to do would be to remove this nasty dig and apologize to the women you've been slandering.

(frozen)

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

If you could name a single stereotype in the song, maybe we could have an actual discussion on this. But I know you can't, because there aren't any.

I was very confused when I heard there was a kerfluffle over this song because it's one of the ones that I recognize largely because of the hilarious name and the raccoon. I think people are projecting their own issues onto the song so I think they could find their own issues in the lyrics if they try hard enough.

(frozen)

[rosefox]

I think it's pretty sad that in your laudable effort to open your eyes to subtle instances of racism, you completely misread a love song--because TTC is absolutely a song of love and praise for Miss Cupcakes and to mothers who don't care what anyone thinks of them because they're doing what needs doing to keep their babies fed--as something nasty and offensive. Why do you identify a Southern woman's Southern accent as a "black accent" (a meaningless phrase)? Why does a song about single mothers make you think about black women? Who are the "you" and "us" of your last paragraph? And, as someone else pointed out, why are you making corrections and concessions in comments rather than striking through the parts of your post where you accuse s00j of using racist words she didn't use?

Until someone steps up who says they actually felt alienated and isolated, rather than just having to imagine it, I would suggest continuing to calibrate your racism-detector; false positives are, on balance, probably not as bad as false negatives, but they do a different kind of harm--causing "boy who cried wolf" cynicism in the community as well as distressing people who have done nothing wrong--and I hope the primary goal of your increased awareness is to minimize harm. If there's a future situation that bothers you, I can personally recommend asking reality check questions like "Does anyone else see a problem with this?" of several friends in private before making a big post full of strong statements in a public place.

(frozen)

[cimeara.livejournal.com]

Whatever the comments of others, thank you for being brave enough to clearly and cleanly state what you saw in the song and how you felt about it and the ways in which you thought it might be hurtful to others, and to ask that those involved consider the implications themselves.

I saw nothing nasty in your words, nor any slander. You made no demands for apologies or that she stop singing it. You talked to the person directly, which always ought to be the first, honest step, and she appreciated it. But a public post offers the chance of support and consolation for others who might also have felt that way and been afraid to express it, and I think that's fair.

I suspect some of the disbelief being shown at your objections is a matter of age more than background. I grew up in the South. I remember the first SF con I went to, when I first came to Boston in the very early 70s, and being stymied at trying to describe one person to another. The person I was trying to describe was black. But my family and neighbors didn't use the term "black" (much less "African-American"). They still used the words "Negroes" and "colored people" and I knew that was wrong, but I wasn't yet sure of what wasn't. I wasn't there for the song. But if I had been, yes, I would have been a little uncomfortable. And yes, as someone else says, that might say more about me than about the song. But people should be allowed to express how things affect them without being jumped on, as long as they do so politely, and I think you did.

In a way, though, I'm very, very glad that others are so astonished at your interpretation. It's a proof of how far we've come.

(frozen)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

You might like to listen to the song before pre-judging it. You can stream it here (http://music.trickypixie.com/track/tough-titty-cupcakes). Then perhaps you'll understand why the rest of us in the audience were baffled by this post...

I do think the OP handled this very poorly. She cornered the musician and berated her - that in itself would have been bad enough (an e-mail when she was feeling less hostile would have been better). But then she decided to bring this to the Arisia LJ community, and do so in a nasty way, and that seems inappropriate to me. Her own LJ is the place for this. Slandering the guest of honor on the con community is bad form.

And yes, it's slander when she's claiming things that aren't so. There's not a sentence in this that's remotely accurate, aside from her own feelings about the song, and I'd take this post better if it wasn't 80% fiction. (Yes, I was at the concert.)

(frozen)

[rivenwanderer.livejournal.com]

I had a similar reaction to the song at the concert as the OP, and it was (for me) a false note in what was otherwise a lovely introduction to some amazing music. If (as comments here suggest) the things I perceived as problematic were a product of an overactive imagination on my part, I'm certainly relieved!

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Is there any particular reason replies to existing comments are frozen? Is the OP doing that or are mods locking the post down?

[rosefox]

Whoa, I'm glad you said this; I had no idea. Mods?

(frozen)

[jasra]

Hi! Moderator here. We're just trying to keep the drama level low and keep the arguing down in the threads. Please do not feel that we don't want to hear your opinions, but we prefer to keep this a friendly community.

Thanks again,
Lisa/jasra

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I wish to all that's holy that you had not decided to drag a GoH's good name through the muck in the con community to make yourself look like a l33t ally. In your own LJ, fine; in person at the con, less fine, but still better than what you did here. Especially if you fail to update the post to correct things like how s00j never mentioned gangs of any sort or that s00j's southern accent might have something to do with where she grew up (did you know white people from the south also speak with southern accents? Trufax).

I know a lot of us white fen are still trying to figure out how to handle things in a post-Racefail universe. So please stop and think before you post much longer than you would otherwise, because we don't have a good grip on what we're doing just yet. It can be hard to pick between staying silent and letting bad things perpetuate or speaking up and making things worse; when in doubt, I'd go for letting PoC speak for themselves rather than trying to put words in their mouths.

[eustaciavye.livejournal.com]

In speaking with an FoC friend at the con the comment was made that the best response for a white ally in this kind of situation is to seek out a trusted friend who is a PoC and run your thoughts by them, give some of the power in your decision to speak up or not over to the people you are trying to defend

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I was hesitant to say "go ask you friendly neighborhood FoC" because I've heard PoC say repeatedly they're sick of white people expecting educational services from them. If you know a specific person/people who would be happy to answer such questions from you in particular, it is absolutely a fantastic idea. I just don't want white fen to start hitting up random nearby FoC for Official FoC Opinions, you know?

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

I just don't want white fen to start hitting up random nearby FoC for Official FoC Opinions, you know?

TOO LATE!


And yes, it is insanely aggravating and exhausting to be expected to be an unpaid resource to answer all questions about race and racism.

I would also point out that I created a hand out of resources about race and racism (available at http://www.scribd.com/sparkysays). I handed it out at 2 panels, and copies were left in the literature stand.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

You're right, I should have said "I don't want to encourage white fen to keep [doing stupid shit]". A lot of FoC have already written reams on the subject of race and fandom even though it's not their job (and thank you for linking to some of yours yet again), the least we white fen can do is read it before barging in with questions.

[eustaciavye.livejournal.com]

Indeed and this is why I say a person ought to pick someone who is an actual friend of theirs, and who they trust, and who they know is willing to discuss such issues with them.

It would be completely inappropriate to grab someone in the hallway because they have the skin color desired and make them listen to the song, then give an opinion. Checking in with someone you know personally is entirely different.

[rosefox]

in a post-Racefail universe

I think everything in your comment except this phrase is awesome.

I think this phrase
-- implies that white people are done being full of race-related fail, which seems very unlikely, since Racefail '09 was a teeny tiny thing in the grand picture of this very very racist world, and even in our little community there are plenty of people who ignored it or got nothing out of it or found it more personally distressing than useful (which is why we need posts like this).
-- implies that Racefail '09 (which I think continues to need and deserve a date) was most notable for the way it helped us white people to improve ourselves, which is rather appropriative.
-- suggests that that experience of self-improvement and enlightenment is universal, which is both too kind to some white folks and too unkind to POC who didn't need the education in the fucked-up-ness of racism and don't have the privilege of deciding that they now live in a world where all that is over and done with.

I figure that's probably not what you meant to do, and it sounds like you're the sort of person who'd appreciate the food for thought, so I respectfully submit a recommendation for finding a different phrase to describe what you mean there.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

You're right, I was trying to express a concept like unto (I put in a link only to realize it's the same thing (http://nkjemisin.com/2010/01/why-i-think-racefail-was-the-bestest-thing-evar-for-sff/) you linked in your first point; it's the second half in particular that caught my brain), but I did not communicate it particularly well. Perhaps the term should be "in a Racefail universe", to imply that it's an ongoing process instead of a done deal? But that might seem to specifically indicate the parts of fandom that are engaging in discussions about race rather than a time of significant change that will impact all of fandom. "During the Racefail era", perhaps? But that brings up the problem of being wishy-washy about the date and if you add the date you're right back to the "done deal" problem. And none of these really address the "its still all about white fen" issue.

Good memes are hard. I need to think more about this. Thank you for pointing it out.

[rosefox]

This editor says: if you can't swap in a different phrase, the whole sentence has issues. Starting with "I know a lot of us white fen are still trying to figure out how to" works fine; just pick a better verb to follow it. "Handle things" is pretty vague anyway. "I know a lot of us white fen are still trying to figure out how to"... recalibrate our racism awareness mechanisms? apply things we've learned over the past year? decide when and how to speak up about things we think are (or might be) problematic? something like that.

(frozen)

[jasra]

This is in no way a helpful or constructive comment so I'm freezing & screening it too.

-jasra wearing her moderator hat

[jasra]

Hi again.

So, the only person who can turn off comments completely is the OP. The only thing I can do as a moderator is delete the post. I do NOT want to delete the post as there's been some good discussion in the comments and that seems (to me) to be overreacting to delete it all.

Thank you,
Lisa

[jasra]

(This reply is a joint reply between the moderator (me), the GoH Liaison and other people close to SJ.)

The question has been raised about why community moderators have been freezing replies to comments on threads in this post. We walked a fine line between a dislike of silencing people and our desire to discourage a full-blown debate in this forum.

Many of the follow on comments attempted to defend Sooj by attacking or contradicting the OP. Such comments do an injustice to Sooj's embrace of all of her audience, and are counterproductive in this context.

As this year's Guest Of Honor Liaison, I would have liked to see the posting end with enegim's initial inquiry followed by Sooj's respectful answer, and enegim's kind reply. As far as I know, LiveJournal's community management choices did not allow such a solution.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

So...people can make provably false statements about your GoH, her lyrics and her presentation, combining their critique of her purported racist actions with plenty of racially problematic assumptions of their own, in an unlocked post on a public community, and what you would have liked was for no one to talk about any of that other than the GOH and the person slandering her, because it's "counterproductive"?

In the words of my very own Southern grandmother, "Well, I declare."

The OP had a one on one conversation that didn't suit her with the only other person y'all believe should have been involved - and then she made the choice to take it to the public community, with much more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger about how this required public comment. At least while she thought people were going to agree with her, she seemed happy for a discussion to take place. It's only once a discussion started actually happening that comments started getting frozen to "keep down arguing" that hadn't actually happened yet, unless you define "disagreement" and "critique" as "arguing". I'm also not seeing these "attacks" against the OP. Criticism is not always an attack. Public comment sometimes creates public criticism, and most adults are aware of this...particularly when they, you know, enable comments.

I'm also confused by your characterization of her post as an "inquiry". Inquiries usually contain questions. Hers contained accusations, assumptions, outright misstatements of fact and a well meaning call to reconsider attitudes, but it wasn't any kind of inquiry.

I'm not the only person who interpreted the original thread-freezing as an attempt to silence the discussion, as a quick look at the much longer, much less polite discussion (http://karnythia.livejournal.com/1464934.html) over at karnythia's journal will show. Attempts to silence discussions centering around racism are rarely a good look. It was not a good look here, and it reflects badly on the community and its associated convention to boot.

The previous handling of this did not impress me, but I cut y'all some slack at the time because the convention was ongoing, which eats energy and available dealing-with-internet time. I must confess I'm even less impressed now by what this latest update indicates about where priorities lie and precisely how much value is placed on maintaining the appearance of harmony in this space rather than encouraging honest communication on difficult subjects.

[jasra]

My profound apologies. Yes, it was mid-con. I was woken up with a request to watch things. I asked for input from other people on what they wanted done.

Someone else local can moderate. Dealing with staff drama/arguments/behavior/etc is plenty enough for me. I call quits.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

I regret that it appears to be this criticism of the handling of this issue that made you decide to quit, but I have to respectfully stand by what I said, just as I'm sure you'll stand by your own decision and the results of decisions already made. So it goes.

[jasra]

I have enough other things to deal with that this is low enough priority that someone else can do it.

I don't have any answer that I could give you that would explain what went through the minds of the people who asked me to screen comments so I won't try.

One of them may step up. Or not. Someone else with more time to deal with LJ stuff can jump in and deal with LJ stuff.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

All of that is eminently fair. Thank you for the explanation.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

I want to own up to being the primary composer of the explanation that Jasra took the heat from you for. A question was asked about why discussion was cut off and I attempted to answer about what happened during the convention.

As you mentioned that you cut us some slack for actions during the convention, I do want to point out that by late Monday, when the convention was over, there were active threads going on here, and we were not cutting that off.

I realize that one of the errors on my part was to see this LJ community as a place in which expression could be controlled to be an official message from Arisia. Despite the Arisia name on this community, it doesn't and can't reflect the point of view of the convention committee.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

That was honestly what was so confusing to me, was the freezing threads to stop arguments when I didn't see arguments happening, just discussion. Of course we could have continued to post top-level threads, but it didn't seem welcome at the time and it's not conducive to discussion because no one can reply to specific comments or receive notifications.

I felt like we couldn't/shouldn't talk here because of that, but didn't see anything in the rules that explained why...and by the time discussion started here again, the exhaustive discussion in karn's LJ was already at nearly 200 comments.

I get your point about community-as-official-statement vs. community-as-discussion-space. That's a hard line. And I appreciate you taking time to discuss it with me.