Alas, Yet Another RaceFail09 Post

If you haven't run into what has become known as RaceFail09, a brief summary: Elizabeth Bear had a reader complain about race depictions in one of her books. Bear responded reasonably at first (she rescinded that later), but her friends and fans did not, and things became ugly. The conversation arched across the SF/F communities and beyond, becoming a sweeping (and quite vicious on the part of some pro authors and publishers) discussion about race, cultural appropriation, and white privilege. There are summaries of links at metafandom and rydra_wong; one of the best summaries I've seen of the whole thing is here.

I've mostly just read and thought about these things rather than entering into discussions and posting about them. My reasoning was that, well, I felt it was narcissistic to say "Here's what I have to say on the topic! Listen to me!" I felt it was better to read and absorb and...well, very often to wince in amazed horror at what people were saying.

( Today had two posts that broke me, though. )