‘Harshin Ur Squeez’: Visual Rhetorics of Anti-Racist Work in LiveJournal Fandoms [Conference Notes]

by Latoya Peterson

These are the notes for “ ‘Harshin Ur Squeez’: Visual Rhetorics of Anti-Racist Work in LiveJournal Fandoms.” The notes are from a paper by Robin Anne Reid at the Texas A & M University Race and Ethnic Studies Institute’s Symposium exploring Race, Ethnicity and (New) Media.

Reid’s paper is not yet public; however, the summary notes how she approaches the topic:

This presentation is part of a larger project on the written and visual rhetorics of anti-racist work growing out of ongoing conflicts about racism in online LiveJournal media Fandoms. Conflicts include racial and class stereotypes in fan fiction, racial stereotypes in the canon texts of the fandom, racist terminology that embodies histories and etymology not widely known, and, ignorance of a minority culture’s religious practices. I argue that the rhetorics of racisms in feminism and in fandom reflect the larger social rhetorics of race at play in the United States. By making an argument of similarity, I am not saying that fandom is feminist. However, since feminist groups and fan groups share a certain “us against society” mentality, valuing the groups as in part an escape from oppressions of the patriarchal or mundane culture, the attempts by people of color to analyze racisms in both groups have been met with similar responses, the roots of which are based in the need to maintain the comfort of the escape for white community members, that comfort being a privilege which fans of color are denied. later. Additionally, a number of the fans involved in anti-racist work are drawing from theories and practices familiar to me from anti-racist feminist work I know through academic discourses. This presentation focuses on the visual rhetorics of several representative icons.

There is the argument that the digital world of the internet represents a kind of freedom, since you can literally be anyone. The idea is that racism, sexism, etc. would not exist online. However, we have since discovered that this is not freedom, just the opportunity to pass as a white male for a while.

The refusal of fans of color to pass is the focus of paper.

The attempts by PoC to analyze racism in both fandom and feminism have been rebuffed; in both spaces, the view of these places as refuge is a function of privilege to set these issues aside.

Author notes how her whiteness impacts her perception and work.

Icons are made as a presence or physical representation of the self in online space – in antiracist work, icons are drawn upon to further the cause.

Biggest takeaway from the paper: Some people in fandom complain that fen of color are harshing their squee by talking about racism; however, they fail to understand that our squee is harshed by racism.

(Image Credits: Fen of Color, United (FOC_U); Laurashapiro and Hsapiens for the icons.)

Update:

Squee

A noise primarily made by an over-excited fangirl, however it has spread rapidly and is now widely spread among the web community.
Omg!! New Harry Potter book out!! Omg Squee squee! omg!!!

Harsh

Unusually or overly cruel, referring either to specific actions or circumstances.
“So the teacher gave me a 35 in the class.”
“Man, that’s harsh!” [...]

harsh

verb – “to harsh one’s mellow” – interfering with drug buzz, or bothering someone who is stoned. Can also be used for people who are just relaxing.
“Dude, can you turn off the Montel Williams show? It’s totally harshing my mellow.”

Harshing one’s squee is equivalent to killing someone’s fan buzz. It’s the “why’d you have to bring that up?” line of questioning that arises when we point out issues (normally skanky race issues) in some created work. – LDP

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Microsoft’s Project Natal Doesn’t Care About Black People? at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 16 Jun 2009 at 12:00 pm

[...] It’s not about the dreadlocks, Shoe. N’Gai is brown-skinned. Sensors did not compute. Damn it, gaming people. Race issues are harshin my squeez again. [...]

Comments

Alston wrote:

I don’t know what a squee is…at least not in this context…

Posted 21 May 2009 at 11:51 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

Updated with definition.

Posted 21 May 2009 at 12:13 pm ¶
Sadface wrote:

The expression “to harsh one’s squee” did confuse me when I first heard it, and I have an inexplicable dislike for it still. Uh. Squee in that context is simply “enjoyment”? Don’t harsh my squee = don’t spoil the innocent/mindless fun I’m having?

I kind of tripped over the “United States” bit in the quoted paragraph.
The discussion of racism in fandom is very US-centric, to the point where people from outside the USA get attacked for not recognizing certain stereotypes, for not being perfectly familiar with US-American historical figures related to US-American racism, the ethymology of offensive American English expressions, specific stereotypes, etc.
A lot of people participating in these discussions online aren’t American, and it would probably be very difficult to separate their contributions and influences from the discussion to draw conclusions about only one country, the United States…

Posted 21 May 2009 at 12:26 pm ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:

this is very true. I’m a frequest commentator on this very popular film blog which covers sci-fi/action and big budget Hollywood films, and I often get mocked or attacked by fanboys, who are mostly white American jerks. Ahh, I just love it.

Posted 21 May 2009 at 12:48 pm ¶
M wrote:

@Sadface — I understand what you’re saying. However, I often feel that non-US people who make this complaint often use their non-US status as a dodge. They will either assert that they don’t have dodgy race relations in their home countries, or that they find it *impossible* to understand the issues or recognize patterns of discrimination or bias because the examples given occurred in the US. I often find that the people making these assertions are from Australia (HA! on the no dodgy race relations in their country) or from Canada (HA! again).

There was one kerfuffle in fandom about someone writing an AU in which the non-white characters were cast in roles that were rather low-status, compared with their corresponding roles on the actual show. I think all the other AU characters were scientists and scholars, and the minority AU characters were baristas/restaurant workers. I’m not understanding how one would have to be from the US to recognize that. The kerfuffle in HP fandom about putting interracial pairings on a par with interspecies pairings — what’s US-centric about that? Is there some other culture where considering interracial pairings to be interspecies pairings is NOT racist?

Posted 21 May 2009 at 1:04 pm ¶
Kash wrote:

@ Deaf Infian Muslim Anarchist!
You yourself are a fanboy and based on your comments history, an unapologetic racist.

Posted 21 May 2009 at 2:15 pm ¶
cocolamala wrote:

@kash

how is criticizing DIMA’s comment history contributing to the discussion of this topic?

Posted 21 May 2009 at 4:16 pm ¶
Sarah wrote:

While I think the subject of this paper is very interesting, I think the comparison of fandom and feminism is just weird and wrong. Most fandoms I’ve ever encountered are actually rather woman-hating. Also, the idea of feminism as “us versus them” is not at all relevant to my experience with feminism. I think this paper would have benefited from leaving that awkward comparison out.

Posted 21 May 2009 at 4:32 pm ¶
Sadface wrote:

@ M
Yeah, I know. It’s incredibly annoying, you’d think people would agree by now that racism is a global problem. But I really did not mean it in that way. I hope it didn’t seem like that. X_x

Mostly, my comment was not meant to excuse anybody’s behaviour, words or actions, I wanted to point out that online, a lot of people come together from different countries with different perspectives and experiences, and even if they write in perfect English and even if they participate in fandoms of American shows and movies, does it make sense to compare their discourse to the (offline) discourse of the United States? Of course, the paper might take this into account, but considering how widespread the assumption is that anybody online is American, I cannot help but be a bit suspicious.

Posted 21 May 2009 at 4:48 pm ¶
cocolamala wrote:

@ sarah

i think they’re saying that the anti-racist tacticts used to identify and call out racism within feminist online communities are able to be applied online in fan communities.

like bingo cards, derailing for dummies (primer), etc.

Posted 21 May 2009 at 4:50 pm ¶
Hilary wrote:

@Sarah Please don’t make that assumption, there’s a lot of variety in fan culture, probably as much as there is in the wider culture. The fact that fen can be sexist is, I think, more that they’ve internalized ideas that can be found in mainstream culture than sexism being inherent to fan culture.

I should say that I’m a little out of the loop and don’t actively contribute in fandom nearly as much as I used to (I was a hardcore “otaku” when I was in middle school, I’m now 20). But there are definitely socially conscious fen, of all ethnic backgrounds, who use platforms such as livejournal to criticize racist/sexist/what have you trends. There’s a lot of fan critique of the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender movie and its casting, which has been covered here already but in case anyone’s interested, check out: http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/ and/or http://community.livejournal.com/racebending/ They also have a lot of cool icons to make their views known:)

Posted 21 May 2009 at 5:39 pm ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:

@Kash: I’m not a fanboy– I’m a fangirl.

lol, I’m racist? Yeah sure… call me whatever you want.

I’ve been called racist, mysogynistic, homophobic, ableist (despite being Deaf), ageist, and pretty much everything else in the book.

Try harder

PS– this contributes nothing to the comments here. I’m surprised that Racialicious approved that personal attack comment. Wow.

Mod Note – Yup, our apologies. Someone had already responded to it by the time I came back through the comments, so I didn’t retro-delete it. But, as always, further ridiculousness will be deleted. – LDP

Posted 21 May 2009 at 11:01 pm ¶
Persia wrote:

@Hilary and Sarah– Exactly what I was going to say. I do wonder if animanga fandom is a little better on female characters than live-action fandom– but I haven’t been actively involved in live-action fandom for years, so I don’t want to use that broad a brush. (SG1 fandom, though, always seemed better on gender than race- but that’s an outside-looking-in perspective.)

Posted 22 May 2009 at 1:07 pm ¶
Daryll B wrote:

Interesting points…I will say that no one or group is immune to racism/sexism. Everyone is guilty at one point or another of an awkward moment.

What I can’t condone is that some of my fellow sci-fi/comic/fantasy fans seem to almost relish in their ignorance / arrogance.

Isn’t it ironic that a place where nothing is limited by the imagination, is often victimized by ugly, base thoughts?

Posted 25 May 2009 at 7:01 am ¶