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Over the past couple of months, I have seen several ugly reminders that racism is alive and well. I just don't see it a whole lot because I'm, you know, a middle-class white woman. I don't have to look if I don't want to, and that's a privilege.
But that doesn't mean that it's not my responsibility to do what I can. So, some promises:
* I am going to do my best to call out racism when I see it. Even if it's my friends doing it. Even if it hurts. Some days I'll have more energy for it than others, but... I already call out sexist speech, and it's short-sighted (and privileged) in the extreme for me to only stand up about things that affect me personally. In other words: I will do my best to be an ally, in whatever small way I can.
* I am going to participate in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50books_poc, the pledge to read 50 books by people of color during the year. (I'm already up to, hm, let's see -- six, I think -- so it's feasible.) I'm not counting manga, not because they're not legitimate books written by non-white people, but because I can read a volume of a manga in twenty minutes, so it isn't much of a challenge to read 50. I may do a secondary challenge to read 25 manga, too. Why do this? Because it's easy for an American reading books in English put out by an American publisher to read very little besides white people just by accident -- so it's worth putting the extra effort in to make sure I'm reading diverse voices. If that sounds cool to you, I encourage you to join! If your reading rate is too slow for 50 to be feasible, you can always pledge to do 50 in two years or something -- that's not too uncommon either.
And if you see me acting in a way that's racist, please call me out, too. (Or sexist, heterocentrist, etc., it's just that those are easier for me to see myself.) I am so far from perfect that it's not funny, but I'm trying.
And if you have any recommendations for books by non-white authors, I would love to hear them!
But that doesn't mean that it's not my responsibility to do what I can. So, some promises:
* I am going to do my best to call out racism when I see it. Even if it's my friends doing it. Even if it hurts. Some days I'll have more energy for it than others, but... I already call out sexist speech, and it's short-sighted (and privileged) in the extreme for me to only stand up about things that affect me personally. In other words: I will do my best to be an ally, in whatever small way I can.
* I am going to participate in
50books_poc, the pledge to read 50 books by people of color during the year. (I'm already up to, hm, let's see -- six, I think -- so it's feasible.) I'm not counting manga, not because they're not legitimate books written by non-white people, but because I can read a volume of a manga in twenty minutes, so it isn't much of a challenge to read 50. I may do a secondary challenge to read 25 manga, too. Why do this? Because it's easy for an American reading books in English put out by an American publisher to read very little besides white people just by accident -- so it's worth putting the extra effort in to make sure I'm reading diverse voices. If that sounds cool to you, I encourage you to join! If your reading rate is too slow for 50 to be feasible, you can always pledge to do 50 in two years or something -- that's not too uncommon either.And if you see me acting in a way that's racist, please call me out, too. (Or sexist, heterocentrist, etc., it's just that those are easier for me to see myself.) I am so far from perfect that it's not funny, but I'm trying.
And if you have any recommendations for books by non-white authors, I would love to hear them!
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I know others have answered this question more eloquently than me, but I'll take a stab at it: it's not "colorblind," but I don't think that means it's biased, or at least not biased in a negative way. Specifically, I don't believe that we live in a colorblind society at this point, and I think that acting as if we do (ie, acting as if I can have an unbiased selection of books by ignoring race) means that I'm going to get a lopsided view of things. By failing to seek out books by people different than me, I reliably wind up reading 80-90% middle-class white people, mostly Americans -- and that means that I'm feeding my brain one range of viewpoints, often to the exclusion of others. Left to my own devices, it's too easy to read only things that reflect and reinforce my own experience. I don't want to do that: I want to see a variety of perspectives, even (especially) those that come from backgrounds other than my own. And that's not happening by chance, so I'm going to see that it happens by choice.
As far as that goes, even with this challenge, I'd be willing to bet that half or more of the books I read this year are still by middle-class white people.
(A more eloquent explanation of why I feel it's worth -- indeed, the one that tipped me over into taking the challenge myself -- is here.)