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zenolalia: A lalafell wearing rabbit ears stares wistfully into the sunset, asking Yoshi-P when male viera will come back from the war. (Default)
[personal profile] zenolalia
I don't actually know how to set a post up in such a way that I can link a specific person to it and have it be readable for them, without having it publish publicly. And since I have no idea if this person has a DW, I can't just add them to a circle. So uh.

????????????

Don't reblog I guess, lmao (comments welcome, of course)


Original post here.

Recently, the author of this fic got in touch with me about that post, to ask for a greater explanation of why I had such a strong, violent reaction to chapter 30.

While I do think that it's a bit less-than-ideal to present a child trying to act within the dietary restrictions of her heavily, heavily maligned religious and racial minority as "cheating," my issue was very much not with the fact that the characters within the story (such as Dumbledore) treated her as cheating. In fact, I think that's a very realistic thing for them to do. Rather, that at that point in the story there was not indication in the narrative itself that this treatment was unfair.

There was a strong implication that her disqualification was legitimate and deserved. The excuse given is that she should have simply asked for an exception to be made. But, that's a completely unrealistic expectation to present on a child of color who has, especially in the UK in the 90s, definitely been subjected to extensive racism surrounding her religion. Indeed, canonical to the books, the exclusive celebration of Christian holidays in a school that pre-dates the wide spread adoption of Christianity in the isles is, itself, strong evidence that she would have experienced a lot of this racism. So, of course, her not asking for an exception is totally within reason and a strong character choice. Just like having the judges treat her as a cheat is also a strong and reasonable character choice.

The problem arises when I, as the reader, was expected to keep seeing the judges as sympathetic and, indeed, as being in the right for their actions.

That's not something I was at all capable of doing.

While it might seem well grounded to say, "she should have known better/just asked anyway," that's neither plausible nor acceptable. After she revealed her reasoning, it becomes the responsibility of the adults around her to acknowledge that they were--inadvertently and accidentally, of course--being extremely racist towards her. Instead, they put the responsibility on her for having avoided something which every single person whose religious and cultural cuisines are mocked would avoid. You only have to be called a stinking paki for eating something that the white people around you don't like the look or smell of about 3 times as a kid before you just shut down. You beg your parents to give you cheese sandwiches, and the food of your home is for your home. It takes a long time to undo the shame and self-loathing that dietary racism creates.

After that, you rapidly lose the ability to stand up for yourself.

So, you know, treating these kinds of cultural restriction as something that you don't dare ask your teachers to help you with is sensible. It's good writing.

The problem is when you, as an author, fail to recognize that racism is what creates that silence.

God, I feel like I'm going in circles here. It's just so hard to cope with. This whole conversation is dredging up every memory I've ever had of people making fun of my brownbag lunches, until I stopped eating in front of other people at all. It's reminding me in a very bone-deep, aching way of the fact that even though I love cooking and am quite skilled at it, I will probably never successfully recreate my own family recipes because my grandparents died while I was still too ashamed to ask them how to prepare a real, genuine kibbeh that wouldn't give me food poisoning or how to toast the pistachios to make koonafeh taste right, or if its even possible to pickle turnips in US sourced vodka rather than arak and still get that beautiful striation.

Reading the chapter where she was disqualified for her culture, a culture which is maligned and loathed, and that disqualification is considered fair was painful. It was just another example, made worse for the casual nature of it, that people don't just hate the food (both recipes, and the culture around it) of my people, but hold me responsible for their hatred. That I must not only bear the weight of their censure of my heritage, but also, that it gets to be "my fault" that I'm censured at all. Because I'm just not being good enough not adhering closely enough to their arbitrary rules that punish my existence. Because I should have asked, when asking inevitably leads to punishment.

And it's an agony that every person I know who has been mocked for their cultural foods is all too familiar with. It's my step-father's refusal to cook chicken livers if anyone else is in the house. It's my classmate's horrified silence when she realized she'd mentioned eating beef hearts. It's the giggling replies my cousins get when they ask if there's pork in the mince pies, until they just stop asking and take their chances with breaking kosher. And yes, it's the fact that almost every indo-pak restaurant and chef in the west is expected to cook and serve beef, whether or not that's allowable under their religion, and will be punished for not conforming.

In your story, the punishment is simply disqualification from a school competition, followed by being moved to an active role as a revolutionary. In the real world, that punishment is everything from financial ruin to outright murder.

In a great many ways, the incident as you wrote it is completely accurate. A 14 year old Hindu girl would almost certainly rather resort to subterfuge than admit she's a foreigner when competing on a public stage. A collection of white judges would probably consider her a cheater, regardless of whether he actions impacted the nature of the competition or other competitors. But the entire incident would only happen that way because of the racism surrounding it. And to have a story show such an obvious, painful case of racism, and then neither acknowledge the racist nature of it, nor suggest even passingly that there's something tragic or enraging or just fucked up about white adults treating a brown girl's ashamed fear in the face of white supremacy as something sneaky and vaguely criminal?

It's really, really hard to cope with.

I had to stop reading there. I tried to make it through another few chapters, but the whole story had suddenly turned to ash for me.

The thing that burns me the most is, it would be a very, very easy fix to make. A single line tucked somewhere in the narration that indicates that although the judgement is reasonable (in that there are reasons for it), it is not necessarily just, would be enough. Anything that indicates that the racism of the scene is known.

I specify the narration and not the dialogue because, of course, Arjuna's disqualification is narratively necessary and thus the judges need a reason to disqualify her. Thus, the judges' opinions, to allow for the narrative flow of the story to remain unchanged, would need to be that Arjuna is undeniably in the wrong and needs to be punished. Having one of the judges comment that they're being racist twats would undercut their character consistency. But the narration is in the third person, and at least partially omniscient (or more accurately, has changing focus characters), meaning that it can be used to make commentary on the actions and beliefs of the characters.

As it is presented, though, the racism inherent in holding a Desi child accountable for the society that caused her to consider her needs to be so lowly that she couldn't even consider asking, is just more than I can handle.

And I know, I know that nothing about the chapter is intended to be that way.

That's actually a part of the problem. It's one of those situations where the racism is so baked into our real, extra-diagetic world that it slides into the narrative seamlessly. And so, the narrative reinforces the very racism that ultimately inspired it, and no one without the first hand experience in both that kind of racism and this kind of writing notices, or at least, no one without that combination of experiences has the specific critical skills to put it into words. I barely have the critical skills to put it into words, and I'm a published fiction writer, an experienced editor, and a sociologist with an extensive research background in the marginalization of non-western cultures in the western world.

It's not your fault, as an author, for writing the event in that way. It makes perfect sense.

The problem is that the reason it makes perfect sense for events to unfold that way, given the characters that we have and the setting as established, is racism.

Racism is the reason it works.


And, well, it's uncomfortable at best to see a story-beat that relies on racism to occur, but doesn't acknowledge that the racism exists.

Also, not to hold RPF to a different standard than traditional fanfiction, but Ramsey himself has built a reputation and indeed multiple shows on the grounds that his training as a western, white Chef is specifically limited in scope. People in other cultures and with other trainings can and do have more advanced skills than him in a lot of arenas, and he both respects that and learns from their expertise.

He's not quite Anthony Bourdain levels of celebrating other cultures' relationships with food, but he's very close, and to see him specifically presented as a casual racist who would hold a Desi child guilty for just trying to be Desi without being judged as inferior for it, is also exquisitely painful.
 

Date: 2019-01-17 06:21 am (UTC)
teaforlupin: a chibi avatar of me, with blonde spiky hair, glasses, and wearing overalls (Default)
From: [personal profile] teaforlupin
That is definitely not something I (white, Australian) would have picked up on as a reader of this story--I really appreciate you taking the time to make the issue explicit, and I'm really sorry it caused you so much pain.

Date: 2019-01-17 07:26 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] imagitory
Hello, my dear -- sadly your journal would not let me reply anonymously, so I've created a temporary account that I'll delete later, so I can respond. I would have preferred if this whole conversation could have been private and more intimate given the subject matter, but since there's a lot to unpack, I suppose it's unavoidable.

First of all, I appreciate that you took the time to explain your position to me in full. I can tell you feel passionately about this, so I want to address everything with the respect you are owed.

I acknowledge that in the books, there is undoubtedly a white, Christian, European, straight, cisgender bias, one that I'm sure J.K. was unaware of while she was writing the books. It's something I'm very cognizant of, whether because I have my own biases as a white cisgender American, or because I am outside those biases thanks to my Agnostic belief system, my affiliation with the LGBT+ community, and my biracial family (my stepbrother and stepmother were born in the Caribbean). J.K. has said in interviews that she personally saw prejudice in the Wizarding World being more centered around blood purity than about sexuality, and for me, given that I know of so many people from marginalized groups who have found comfort in the Harry Potter universe, I really wanted to write about a world like that. After seeing how my stepmother -- the most brilliant woman I've ever known, who graduated with a PH.D in Microbiology from Johns Hopkins -- could be passed over time and again for jobs solely because of how she dressed and the color of her skin, I am very aware of how racism can be baked into our society, and starry-eyed though it might be, I didn't want that to be baked into this world that so many people have run to as a literary escape. I wanted to write about a world where a black woman was the Minister of Magic back in the 80's. I wanted to write about a world where two gay wizards could be happily married even if it's only 1998. I wanted to write about a world where one of the most intelligent characters we meet is a witch with Asperger's syndrome. I wanted to write about a world where a young Hogwarts student could come out as non-binary, and only conservative blood purist types -- not the rest of the Wizarding community -- would give them the side eye. And yes, I wanted to write a story where witches and wizards of color were treated no differently than white witches and wizards. Yes, Arjuna is British Indian, but she was raised alongside wizards, which would've cushioned her from the prejudice we find in our world, like the kind Bridget (as a Muggle-born) would have experienced. She refused to ask for help not because she didn't feel like she could, but because she didn't want to admit that she needed help: because she had up until then been the best of all the chefs, and she had thought that she would be able to win the competition easily. (And honestly, I've been there -- even now, it takes a lot for me to ask for help.) And just because Arjuna is of Indian descent didn't necessarily mean that everyone knew about her religion and what restrictions she would've been under -- she could've been Muslim, Buddhist...even Agnostic or Atheist! So the only way the judges would've known about the issue is if she had brought it up.

When I first was developing this entire story arc, I asked my mother for some advice, as I often do for characters that don't belong to my house of Slytherin. I asked her about what it might take for her -- as a Ravenclaw -- to cheat in a competition she really wanted to win. Her response was three-pronged, and I used those prongs when I was developing Arjuna's plot line:

1) "I would've had to feel like I was unfairly disadvantaged somehow." (Arjuna is the only one of the chefs who can't cook with beef because of her religion.)

2) "I wouldn't want to hurt anyone else's chances, just elevate my own." (Arjuna knew Millicent could cook with beef and she wasn't taking any time from her.)

3) "I would've had to make myself feel better by thinking of it as not cheating." (Arjuna can rationalize it as not really being cheating, as she wasn't trying to hurt Millicent's chances.)

In the end, the reasons I decided to give Arjuna this entire plot line really came down to her being a Ravenclaw and her as a character needing to learn how to ask for and accept help. Many Ravenclaws are pidgeon-holed as being "goody-two-shoes," with Gryffindors and Slytherins being the usual suspects for cheating, and I actively wanted to break that preconception among others (like Hufflepuffs all being extroverts and friendly, or Slytherins all being brooding and shady). And for Arjuna's arc as a character, she needed to start at a place where she thought highly of her own abilities (as we see when Astoria tries and fails to convince her to meet up with the others, to learn new techniques) and was too proud to ask for help (which is something that ends up crucially helping her later). In fact, in the very next chapter, although her house has largely turned their back on her for being disqualified, her best friend Astoria stays by her without question, and Hermione addresses how understandable and sympathetic Arjuna's thought process was -- that of course she'd be reluctant to tell someone she really looked up to, like Professor Ramsay, that she couldn't cook something. And not to go into too many spoilers for the rest of the story, but Arjuna's defeat is a wonderful contrast for what happens to her later..."Zero to Hero," I guess the phrase is.

I say none of this to try to change your mind. I'm truly sorry, again, that anything I wrote made you so unhappy and I appreciate hearing your perspective, as it gives me something else to keep in mind. The reason I wrote all of this was simply to address the issue you had with the Wizarding World seemingly disregarding the prejudice of our world...because, as I said, I kind of purposefully did so. I see a lot of my own friends and family in some of these characters, and I wanted to embrace the idea of an accepting Wizarding World that J.K. has promoted rather than the flawed execution of it. Yes, there's blood prejudice and I address that in full -- there's even some prejudice against LGBT+ people among Death Eater sorts because they often don't fit their mold of Pureblood families with seven kids -- but I wanted the Wizarding World as a whole to not be a perfect mirror of our world. I want my characters, regardless of their gender identity, sexuality, or race, to have just as happy of an ending as Harry, Ron, and Hermione do if they survive the War. Because of that, I've idealized a lot, and I can understand if that approach isn't appealing. I'm sincerely sorry again for any harm I have caused, and I hope that nothing I've said here upsets you either.

Love from
imagitory

Date: 2019-01-17 02:39 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] codex8
I think perhaps the issue here is that you haven't done what you assert you set out to do. Because where in all the other examples you talk about, you sidn't specifically recreate an exact replica of what the real-world counterparts of you characters experience and then narratively justify it.

In this case, you HAVE done that. It's one thing to say "I wanted to write a world where real world prejudice didn't happen, so I tried to deliberately not create any", but it's quite another say that because that was your intention, the fact that you exactly and precisely created a real world bigoted scenario amd just...didn't acknowledge it as such meets the standards of your intentions.

I strongly suspect that you are hoping to convey that you understood what was being said to you, but I'm afraid you may have come across instead as confirming a worst-case-fear that you may in reality just believe strongly that there's nothing hurtful about the scenario you wrote even after it's been explained to you.

In any case, if the goal is to create a world where "regardless of their gender identity, sexuality, or race, to have just as happy of an ending as Harry, Ron, and Hermione do if they survive the War", then it would probably be ideal to ensure that the moments of contention that ~are~ created in the narrative for those characters doesn't map onto real world prejudicial experiences so perfectly. In other words, it's not, as you suggest at the end, that your approach is unappealing. It's that someone came to you, specifically BECAUSE of that approach, and instead found the execution left them out.

Date: 2019-01-17 03:42 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] imagitory
I have explained twice now that Arjuna's religion is not the reason she was eliminated, but that she switched the cards when she had other options. Even if she had wanted to stand up against a bigoted system (which wasn't a factor in this situation), she could have just made something different and explained why after the fact, and Ramsay brings that up as well. Again, considering that she could have followed any number of religions (as there was no way to know, just by looking at her, what her religious beliefs were), there was no other way the judges would have likely known it unless she had spoken up.

I can't help but feel like I'm missing something, but in any case, if you would like to continue this discussion further, perhaps you could private message me on Tumblr, so that perhaps my followers and others could weigh in on this issue. If this issue is something we should address, then I would love to hear more points of view about how I could resolve the issue and improve myself, and other people might learn something too. Or if you'd prefer, we could talk further over email or through Tumblr chat: given the nature of this subject I once again would've preferred if we'd been able to discuss this privately, which was why I had sent you a message through chat on Tumblr in the first place. If not, I understand, and I sincerely wish you the best.

Date: 2019-01-17 05:46 pm (UTC)
feotakahari: (Default)
From: [personal profile] feotakahari
I once read a My Little Pony fanfic where ponies were naturally inferior to and submissive towards dragons, and dragons used this to keep ponies as slaves. A lot of readers objected to this, on the grounds that it seemed to be treating slavery as natural and justified. Every time the author got a comment like this, he responded as if the commenter had complained about the existence of slavery in the story, and since slavery is a thing that exists in real life, he figured there was no problem with slavery existing in the story.

Zenolalia is complaining about the way an event is portrayed in the story and the context surrounding it. You keep responding as if she’s complaining about the event itself. Your opinions are your own, but please respond to the things she’s actually saying, not some thing that’s tangential to what she’s saying.

Anonymous comment test

Date: 2019-01-17 07:22 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
This is a test to confirm that anonymous commenting is now enabled on this post. This comment was written as a test by the original post author, Zenolalia. Anonymous comments have logged IP addresses to help keep response chains organized, and include a test based (non-graphical) spam filter test.

Date: 2019-01-18 04:57 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] imagitory
I appreciate your kind words about my writing, and I also once again am grateful that you told me your position, even if I was disheartened that you didn't feel comfortable writing me a review or tagging me in a post with this criticism so I could have addressed it earlier. I certainly hope that a discussion surrounding your point can help me improve my work, and I thank you for introducing it.

Date: 2019-01-17 11:28 pm (UTC)
palominocorn: A rearing palomino unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail, standing in front of a genderqueer symbol. (Default)
From: [personal profile] palominocorn
I haven't touched anything Harry Potter related since like... 2008 or so, but as someone who's faced a ton of race/culture-based dietary crap, GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. WASPs (and people who buy into WASP hegemony, I've had people from all sorts of backgrounds do this to me) are the fucking worst.

Date: 2019-01-18 03:19 pm (UTC)
schnikeys: A light purple morning glory flower with darker purple markings on a background of deep green leaves (Default)
From: [personal profile] schnikeys
Oooh, the good old “the author doesn’t know it’s racist, and now I can’t enjoy the fic anymore” :/. That sucks, dude.

Date: 2019-01-21 11:46 pm (UTC)
teethntongue: Portrait of the Beast Below with a halo. (Default)
From: [personal profile] teethntongue
I haven't read the fic in question, nor am I a member of any culture with dietary restrictions, yet I find myself ruminating on this post quite a lot. Several days later, it's is still in the forefront of my mind.

It makes me wonder where my own personal blind-spots are. I would like to think I might have thought of some of the issues you outlined, but would I really? How would I take such a thoughtful and nuanced breakdown of an issue in my writing? I'd like to think I would have "gotten it," as it seems pretty clear as an outsider, but would I be blinded by defensiveness if it had been my own fic? Writing is so personal, and we put so much of ourselves in it; it can be so easy to have a subconscious knee-jerk reaction and not realize that you're not actually defending your writing, but defending yourself. Would I be able to take a step back and make that distinction?

And then there is always the matter of the fact no group is a hivemind, and no matter what you do, someone will see a problem with it. How does one ethically balance that when trying to portray groups that one doesn't belong to? Of course, there is no easy answer to that question and I know that, but I can't help but think on it as this post runs through my mind... particularly in regards to the author's desire to have their "followers and others [...] weigh in on this issue." I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, as I said, no group is a hivemind; however, does one then find the ethical ground by taking the statistical average based on one's Tumblr following? I'm not trying to say that the author should simply agree with your point and change the fic, and I do see the benefit of wanting to have more points of reference to become more educated, but... something about that doesn't quite Sit Right with me.

But how would I approach it? Would I change my fic? Is that the correct answer? Would that improve matters, or would it be an empty gesture after damage had already been done? I don't know, and I know that I can't know. Every situation is unique, and I'm not sure there is ever truly a perfect solution to such complex issues. (Even though I wish there was.)

I also have to say that I feel you handled this with grace. It's no easy feat carefully outlining why something so ingrained causes so much pain, and to navigate a continuing explanation. I'm always very struck by your ability and willingness to engage in good faith, even when a clearly very personal and sore nerve has been struck.

(I hope this was not unwelcome. If so, just let me know and I'll delete this comment.)

Date: 2020-08-01 02:58 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] rc88
Regarding the Christian holidays celebrated at Hogwarts, all state schools and most private schools in the UK base their breaks on the Christian calendar, the state schools are required to provide religious education with a strong focus on the Church of England (which makes sense because it was so relevant to our history, though of course I'm sure it is regularly used to pick on non-Christian kids - don't remember that at my schools though) and many of the private schools are religious. It probably didn't occur to Rowling to do it any other way, which, as you point out here, isn't an excuse for it alienating readers who don't come from that kind of system.

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