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Privacy Features? Never heard of her
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.
????????????
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.