Checking in.

I have a feeling this one will attract a fight.

In other news, I saw an idiot when I poked my head out of my subterranean cave this morning, so 6 more days without Ragnell.

Still a bit wrapped up in my real life.

The unread post count in my feed aggregator is sitting at 3808, which is pretty damned scary at the moment.  So rather than even try to attack that I thought I'd just drop a note to assure everyone that I am not dead, not in a coma, not time-traveling, and not captured by supervillains.  Whether or not I've been presiding over the prisons, brainwashing facilities and/or death traps containing superheroes I'm not at liberty to say.  I can say I haven't seen Hulk yet (and I won't be deterred from that mission so don't bother with spoilers or bad reviews).

I'm more than a little behind.  See, over the past 3 weeks I haven't managed to read any comic that isn't in Ed Brubaker's Captain America run.  I've made it to the store, but reading time's been scarce and so all I've read are the trades I carry in my purse for spare moments.  (The beauty of comics, quick reads for quick breaks!).

I will admit that my thoughts turn more charitably towards Quesada, as he was willing to put Brubaker on Captain America, and I'm still savoring the results I praised earlier this month.  That Omnibus hardcover is very very nice, and Brubaker's Captain America ranks with Robinson's Starman as one of the few comics that make me willing to shell out for an expensive hardcover collection.  It's led me to one of the joys of reading comics again, finding a new little universe.  I never was a Cap reader beyond isues of the Avengers before, so I'm discovering the franchise details for the first time.  And I almost forgot how much I love to plunge into a story and trace the plot threads and characters back through the years, piecing together a picture of a universe cobbled together by so many hands.   65 years of hands.  That's why nothing can replace superhero comics for me, it's the history of it.  There's this labyrinth of actual continuity, complicated by retcons and revision as well as your normal twists, turns, dead ends and false paths.  And I'm following plot threads backwards through this monster-sized maze, not so much to find a way out but to collect all of the treasure in the maze.  I can't miss any of it, even if I've read a synosis or know how the whole story turns out.  Hell, part of the fun of back issues is you can sort of read the story backwards that way, starting with a fully developed character and making your way to the seeds of his or her personality.  Internet writeups serve as a guidebook for these tours, telling you where the most worthwhile sites to see are, letting you know not to expect too much from certain places, and giving you behind the scenes information that helps you understand how a character could possibly go from point A to point K, or even from Point D to Point X-which-is-actually-more-similar-to-Point-A-than-Point-D-was.  And of course they tell you how Point A got remodeled somehow during the journey so Point Q makes more sense than it would have at Point H and at the original version of Point A, and that this is all explained at Point N--Honestly, how can anyone not just adore mainstream superhero comics? It's like spending an afternoon lost in your hometown!

I'm rambling again.  I've been busy, but I had a wonderful way to relax and when I get some free time I'll have to do some serious back issue hunting.

Until then I have the odd moment on the internet, Kalinara's font of knowledge, and the trades and hardcovers I've managed to snag on my lunch break (Only work evenings if your office is within 20 minutes of a comic book store, it's just less stressful that way)  to occupy my time.  And Captain America has entertained me so much when I needed entertainment that even though I'm sure he doesn't know or care about it, I'd still like to publically take back some of the mean things I've said about Marvel's Editor-in-Chief.

Not all of them.

Certainly not the true stuff.

But definitely anything that's an absolute.

And if people are still paying attention to this blog after this long break...  Wow.  Thanks?

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The thread that keeps on giving.

We came up with an interesting question about the Black Widow in this comment thread which was derailed by the beginning of a beautiful fight that led into another comment thread (which was unfortunately ended by a sudden attack of honesty and understanding--what the fuck Kalinara have you been hiding mutant powers or do you just know me that well?). Because a question which is vital to the peace of mind for all involved has surfaced, and because researching this question would required digging through a crossover that was written by Mark Millar, I'm going to throw it out to the internet:

Do any of the Civil War tie-ins and fallout issues explain why Natasha decided to go pro-reg?

LurkerWithout thinks her personal loyalties should have put her with Nick and Cap, John feels that she was going for her own interests, Dan thinks she cut a deal (or that she's a Skrull), and I think she's watching things at SHIELD for Nick Fury while he's been forced into hiding.

In all likelihood this question has already been answered in one of the five billion Civil War tie-ins, or some issue of something since then but as I said before that's too much to sift through and some of them were written by Mark Millar. Did any Marvelfans out there spot a sequence that explains Natasha's reasoning, and would they care to explain it?

Quick Note

Just received this comment on my own personal blog:

Quick question. Is When fangirls attack a manga site now? Thanks.

You guys do realize we have fucking jobs and real lives here, right? I've had a miserable busy week and haven't checked a single feed since last Monday, Kalinara's had a miserable busy week, and Anna runs in her own circles. Sometimes, Anna will be busy and someone else will be doing all the posts in a row and you won't see any fucking manga for a little while. No one's being paid for this, we all have our own responsibilities.

When I see complaints like this it makes me want to close up shop. No, actually it makes me want to post every fucking link as "Link" and put them all in a paragraph so that you can't tell the superhero from the manga or the trolls from the activists and the fans. It makes me want to change the titles and the names of the authors with the links. It makes me want to arrange it so that every single substantial post is buried in the middle of troll links, featuring the best of the most hated people in the community.

And if I space it out right, I can do it without violating the stated linking policy.

There are only two things stopping me from doing this. There's the thought that this is just one or two fucking morons in a sea of reasonable people who understand that we have jobs, and lives, and families, and shit to do when we're not on the Internet. And the knowledge that if I went and burned down the fucking house not a one of you would step up to rebuild it.

Okay, there's also the miraculous font of sanity and diplomacy that is Kalinara. You guys have no idea how crazy mean I actually am.

Movie thoughts

(Don't ask what I've been up to.)

A few months ago Kalinara had a post pointing out the similarities between Wonder Woman and Captain America, and with the Captain America movie rumors (McConaughey, now this guy) I may have found another one.  We all know the Wonder Woman part is the favorite rumor of any pretty brunette starlet who needs to attract attention, Captain America may get to be the part that any handsome blond looking for leading man status wants to be linked to.

Come to think of it, it may be just as hard to cast as Wonder Woman.  You need someone very traditionally masculine who can pull off cheerful, old-fashioned, gentle, quiet and inspiring all without looking like a parody.  With Wonder Woman you need traditionally feminine but able to pull off utterly self-confident, powerful, friendly, pure hearted and inspiring all without looking like a parody.

I'm much more confident the Captain America movie will be made than the Wonder Woman movie, mind you, but it's interesting the similarities.  When they finally do cast it I bet the guy will be very much a modern male version of Lynda Carter.

And while I'm on the subject of comparing the two franchises, Bucky's a much better grown-up sidekick who came back from the dead in a convoluted story with an identity crisis than Donna's ever been.  Does anyone else think Brubaker might be able to do something worthwhile with Donna and Cassie if he got ahold of them?

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I've caught up on Brubaker's Captain America run.

(Seriously, that's what I've been up to all week. I've read everything Brubaker wrote about Cap or Bucky that I could get my hands on.)

And I have new favorite Marvel couple.

Bucky and Natasha, who the hell would have expected them to fit so well together?

It may help that Buck doesn't seem to smile at all in the entire run until that point she implies there might be a future for them.

And that even though Natasha is the ever-present ex-lover of half the Marvel Universe, this is the first time the romance backstory has actually seemed romantic. Normally it's more like she's been fooling around with a good friend she finds hot. (Not that I have anything against Natasha's healthy attitude towards sex, she just never seemed to be in love with a lover before Brubaker wrote her, so I've never been able to see her as part of a couple before.)

This must be explored.  And made into a normal thing.  With teamups.  And pillow banter.  And riding together on a motorcycle.  And staying in and whispering sweet nothings over takeout food.  And (once he gets back) the awkwardness of Steve accidentally walking in on them messing around.

Comic Art Indigene

May 11th-January 4th at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, Nex Mexico.

Comic Art Indigéne which opens at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on May 11, 2008 looks at how storytelling has been used through comics and comic inspired art to express the contemporary Native American experience. Under the larger definition of narrative art, comic art is more related to Native American art traditions than one might expect. The earliest surviving examples of such narrative art is rock art. The historic examples used in the exhibition, such as photographs of rock art, ledger art, and ceramics are meant to link Native American art traditions with contemporary voices.

PoA has a map embedded for anyone in the Southwestern US who can make it.

Oh, and for the record...

I did not miss Mother's Day. I just called her this time instead of posting on the internet.

And now for something awesome.

Remember that Marvel/DC Olympics poll I linked to?

Here's the results:

As for the swimsuit competition, well, I got about 100 different nominations, which would have broke your LJ to have a vote, so I'm gonna declare all you fanboys and fangirls and your dirty minds winners!

Although if we went by nominations, our overall swimsuit champion would be Nightwing, Mr. Dick Grayson himself, who snagged 20 nominations all by himself. Must have been his early green Speedo years.
As far as the girls went, Power Girl got 4, the most nominations for a girl nominee.

I love the Internet some days.

Blogdrama

He actually lasted longer than I expected.

(Found out through some livejournals I follow before I reached his blog in my feeds, actually.)

I don't want to comment on his little blog but because I'm adverse to one-sided stories and this'll be on WFA I just wanted to let everyone know that that postscript was meant for me, and that this was not an offer.  It was a suggested course of action.  Also, that my anger had shit-all to do with feminism and everything to do with military and family history, but if he's whiny enough to assume every disagreement with me is about women he may as well do so.  I was mainly thinking of my grandfather but there were also female veterans of WWII.

Admittedly, I dismissed him as a troll due to his asinine beliefs on rape. There is no excuse for this idiocy.

Anyway, contest: Read through Brett's "Goodbye Cruel Blogosphere" post and see how many logical fallacies you can find.

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I had to be out of my mind thinking I’d soon be over you.

I know this feeling.

Today in the comic book store, on a high from the lovely lovely movie this weekend and curious as to how well this translates to paper I picked up the Invincible Iron Man relaunch. I'd been meaning to investigate the praise this writer's been getting anyway. While I was there I grabbed American Dream and ran my hands over the Marvel trades from all the years I've missed.

This has happened before. I started out as Marvellite, a happy middle-schooler stealing her sister's Generation X comics to read between the pages of her textbooks in study hall. As my sister turned to DC and its imprints. so did I I flirted with the House of Ideas again when Quesada took over and he teased us with Wolverine's origin. In tech school I stayed up late studying Fantastic Four trades in tech school when I should have been studying FAA regulations and hunted through back issue bins in Mississippi looking for ever available appearance of Magneto's children. (I am the only person I know of who read that 90s Quicksilver series with the Knights of Wundagore, and I'd snap up issues to fill the holes in this run in a heartbeat.) I had a fling with Bendis' Daredevil (I was really more interested in Maleev's Daredevil, though) and poked around Avengers Mansion until Wanda moved out.

Between the destruction of my favorite aspects of the 616 universe and the rise of their nightmarish Ultimate counterparts (which I'd found entertaining at first, but which horrified me as time went on) I slowly made my way to a Marvel-free Wednesday. I didn't fuss. I didn't yell. I didn't to my recollection write a long essay on why I was leaving Marvel forever or complain endlessly about the loss of my childhood favorites. I did acquire an anti-Quesada affectation. I dd go off a time or two when the subject of Scarlet Witch came up. But on the whole I just quietly crossed the Marvel books one by one off my checklist over various transgressions until I was down to Spider-Girl, and I wasn't too inclined to talk about her.

Then someone in my feeds blogged about a teenage female Captain America in Spider-Girl's world, getting a miniseries this month. And someone posted this shadowy image online with "The Return" on it, and I found my excitement wasn't dulled by the inevitability. But the kicker was this shiny new movie, which I thought wouldn't get me because I never much cared for Iron Man (he seemed like a stiff), but here I am walking out of the store today with an armful of Marvel trades. 1 Image book, 1 DC trade, 4 Marvel trades, 3 Marvel books (would have been 4 had the one with Quicksilver not sold out). I've no interest in the skrullification beyond it's opportunities to retcon out all of the stuff I disliked. I mainly want to read about the guy in the movie who seems to have ADHD and a 340 IQ, and who shares my love of taking things apart. Also I want to read about Captain America--the one who isn't an asshole.

I roll my eyes when I see the "WHY DO YOU HURT ME DC!!!!" melodramas on the internet, but I find this is just like going back to an old boyfriend. Memories of a summer breeze turning the page on your hardcover, interrogating your friends to find out all the juicy stuff you missed, the familiar musty smell of back issue bins in used bookstores on the outskirts of town... And a heavy dread anchoring your heart because you know why you dropped it all before and you know it'll end in a night of tears and country music but you have this warm sensation in your cheeks when you open the cover and you just can't stop smiling as you turn the pages. It's unsettlingly similar to the time Sean stopped to visit me in San Antonio.

A week or two ago a friend asked me repeatedly why I was so damned reasonable about a particular situation. I supposed I can hold this up to reassure her I'm still a crazy fan at heart. Or at least short of memory and susceptible to hype.

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On the other hand, this is awesome.

Everyone see this idiot commenting on Kalinara's Variations post?

I thought it was the first ever comic that bordered on racism.

Yeah, he's not talking about The Spirit, he's talking about the latest Blue Beetle issue.

And not because they screwed it up, but because they were "forcing" the readers to read Spanish. (GOTI covered this one yesterday.)

At the end of all that xenophobic inanity comes this comment:

Hi, John Rogers, previous writer of BLUE BEETLE here.

Just to point out — this commenter’s problem is even more insane than first appears, because the issue in question ACTUALLY OCCURS IN MEXICO, where our born-in-the-USA teen superhero who is the son of two legal immigrants — one of whom is written to have served his country in the 101st Airborne — has gone to visit his grandmother.

This guy and people like him are one of the reasons comics are dying.

The Internet is a wonderful and miraculous place. We must never forget this.

I am so very angry I can't come up with a rant for this one.

Our newest community troll, discussing Captain America in Kalinara's comments:

Realism for portraying a WWII-era soldier (super or otherwise) is unfortunately being a xenophobic flag hugging bible thumping asshole. They might actually give him some depth that Ultimate Cap lacked, but I think he'll be pretty much right there as far as characterization.

Now I've been on the internet for a few years now, so it's not normal for me to see something that has me literally shaking with rage. You've accomplished quite a feat, Brett.

Congratulations, and FUCK YOU!

Apparent Marvel/DC Olympics Misunderstanding

Marvel/DC Olympics poll on livejournal.

Now, we can clearly see from the first eight matchups that we're only watching the men's events but it seems some misguided fans have nominated women for the final event. And twice as many women as men.

If you have a livejournal account, please go and nominate some men (particularly Marvel men since right now we just have Roy and Kyle on the list) for the swimsuit competition that makes up the final event.

Carnival Notes

PoC in SF Carnival #9: What I Heard about You, And What That Meant For Me at Soaring

Willow's looking for a host for #10, contact her if you're up for it.

The 21st Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans up at Heroine Content

Looking for a host for the 22nd issue. Please contact me if interested.

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Dear DC Comics,

I am writing to inform you of a mistake regarding this week's release of DC Universe 0. DC Universe 0 was released on Wednesday April 30th, 2008. I believe the date you were shooting for was April 1st.

I still commend you on an excellent prank idea. Perhaps next year you might try something with the Waynes.

Sincerely,
A loyal customer.

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Good News, Everybody!

Anna from Tangognat will be joining us at WFA on a regular basis. So we're now a 3-woman team!

Her first post is up.

The Many Loves of John Stewart

Kalinara and I joke endlessly about how John Stewart is only interested in alien women. But from my log of back issues I know this wasn't always true. There was a point in the O'Neill run where Hal was incapacitated and they needed John to take him to Oa. They found him in bed with a black human woman (I can't find the issue, so I don't know her name). I thinks he was meant to be John's first love interest, even though she never appeared again.

Later, when Englehart took over the series and John got activated as the center, he didn't have much of a supporting cast. He was briefly involved with Tawny Young, a black female reporter who spilled his identity on national television. I recall she felt guilty afterwards. The story was just plain annoying, because it retconned a piece of John's character away. In his first appearance he'd thrown the mask away, saying he had no reason to hide. It was one of those actions that establish personality. John was honest and forthright. For that storyline, he had to hide his origins and his name until he was forced to go public.

After that came Katma. The love of his life was an alien woman from Korugar. Katma was assigned as trainer (there seems to be some sort of 1417-2814 exchange program going on in the Corps) after John complained he hadn't been properly trained by his predecessor. The two clicked. Katma made a considerably better trainer than Hal. Hal's one of those people who's very physically-minded, who automatically focuses and concentrates without much thought into the process. A "Just do it like I do" teacher, which works for basics but it incomplete in the end. Katma was more cerebral and trained by explaining how the energy worked.

And in return for teaching him about Lanterning (for lack of a better word), John taught her about human culture. Especially mating rituals.

They were evenly matched, and complimented each other. After Crisis on Infinite Earths they turned into one of those annoying couples who wear matching outfits and are never seen separately.

Katma's death was followed by a focus on Hal and apparently a long dry spell for John until Mosaic. Mosaic was when a Guardian set up a zoo on Oa with populations from planets across the universe. John was the lucky guy who got the job of keeping them from killing each other. The population from Earth contained Rose Hardin, an ex-love interest of Hal's. The relationship with Rose seemed to be mainly about providing a father figure for Rose's son and winning a power struggle with Hal. He turned her over the second something better came along came back to life.

When Kyle took the lead in the mainbook, the end of Mosaic seemed to be soft-retconned away. John resurfaced as a member of the Darkstars. The editorial direction in Green Lantern at the time was something of a "Scorched Oa" policy, and just sending John off to space wasn't enough for them. I haven't read the issue (though it has to be Kyle's fault somehow), but in a fight John was paralyzed from the waist down. He returns to Earth with his brand new girlfriend from the Darkstars, Merayn.

The less said about Merayn the better. She was a pretty blue girl with no substance whatsoever. The relationship consisted of John brooding and her hanging on his shoulder. She didn't seem particularly restless on Earth until John got the use of his legs back. When Kyle left Earth and John got re-activated as the Earth Green Lantern, Merayn left him.

He hasn't had a love interest in the comic books since.

In the JLU TV show, John dated one alien woman (Hawkwoman) and one human woman (Vixen).

There's an interested pattern here. The first two, the girl who got left halfway through the night and Tawney Young, were the only black women John ever dated. Neither were substantial relationships.

Katma and Merayn both seemed to be coded white to me. There might be some argument with Katma being coded differently in the 80s, though.

Rose, a white woman, was the only substantial human relationship John was in and he turned her over for Katma in a heartbeat at the end of Mosaic.

I always wonder about this pattern. John didn't get a proper supporting cast when Engelhart wrote Vol 2 in the 80s. Tawney was introduced like a tailored Lois-Lane-style-love-interest and then established as untrustworthy. Much of the book was still dedicated to following Hal and Carol around while he was active, and the points with John had him interacting with the GLC and Hal's supporting cast.

The next time John took the spotlight in Volume 3 and in Green Lantern: Mosaic, he was surrounded by aliens. The local human settlement was a small town mostly populated by white people.

When Winick was writing Vol 3 a few years ago, and John got the Earth job he was still the supporting cast. Most of the paneltime was on KYLE'S ADVENTURES IN OUTER SPAAACE, John got a single issue (where Merayn left him) and some Meanwhile... paneltime. The rest of his time was spent in the JLA. Not a great place to build a character base and a supporting cast all his own.

I love Katma to death (and to resurrection if anyone at DC is reading), but something is really off about this pattern. It seems like John is uncomfortable with anyone but superheroes and aliens anymore. And while there's been backstory mentioned in narration, no one from his pre-superhero days (living in a majority-black neighborhood in Detroit) has popped up.

Do they worry when John even only half gets the spotlight, that they'd make the book too black if they bring his family in?

Do they think they'll offend people by giving him a black girlfriend? I can see some reader's eyes bugging out at this thought, but I've heard this complaint when a writer creates a love interest of the same race of a hero who's not white, like that because he's [race X] and has a girlfriend who is [race X]. Never comes up when a white hero gets a white love interest, but for some reason a lot of fans are suddenly worried about the lack of interracial couples in comics if the hero isn't white. It's possible the writers and editors think that way.

But then, if John gets a white girlfriend and a white supporting cast, it becomes really obvious they're white-washing him. So John gets alien girlfriends.

Which is pretty depressing.

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A Tale of Two Communities

I've been watching the commotion this week over the preview release of Convention Groping Excuse Version 2056.2.1 with sadistic glee. It does my soul good to watch a slew of outrage-arrows pierce the carefully constructed armor of delusion that covers the bloated ego of the male chauvinist geek.

It was truly a thing of beauty, an act of community like we rarely see in our little fan niche in the internet. A sheltered livejournalist pokes his head into the sunlight on a quiet spring morning and exposes the inner workings of his minds, and is answered by a thousand nerds screaming at him to for god's sake get back in his hole before anyone thinks that the entire community thinks like that.

I know some people feel he's been piled on and roughed up too badly (and even worse--some people think he had a good idea), and I know I may be headed for such a downfall in the future when my writing sins bubble to the surface of the seething cauldron of drama that is the internet, but I have to be proud of this.

See, our community has a lot of problems. When you point out sexism, you get a bunch of trolls screaming "That CAN'T be sexist! It's awesome and people punch things and I liked it and I'm NOT sexist!". When you point out the inconsistencies in same sex relationships or issues when portrayed transgendered individuals you get a bunch of trolls screaming "They CAN'T show that because of the CHILDREN!" When you point out racism, you get a bunch of crickets chirping.

Still, our community doesn't pretend to be perfect. It rarely pretends to be any closer to perfect than it is. And it is, to an extant, self-policing. When someone like The Ferrett stands in a position to confirm all of the worst thoughts about nerds to the mainstream populace, people rise up to put a stop to that.

And it wasn't outsiders who came down on this idea. It was nerds, plain and simple. Nerds of all genders, races, religions, and ability piped up and said "That... doesn't sound right." And while yes, there was a large contingent of Ferretteers defending his stance on the subject, the horrified nerd majority wasn't buying it, and they picked through his blog and put him back in his place at the bottom of the food chain.

Given geekdom's history of sexism, it was a week that made me very proud to be a part of this community.

It is very possible, though, that I was projecting too much pride on my imperfect nerdly home on the net. See, there was another example of community policing, in a larger community, going on this very month.

Now, I'm not sure if you know this reading this blog, but mainstream feminism has a sketchy past with race relations.

No, that's a bad way of putting it. If Feminism was a well, and racial equality was the only process available to purify water, we'd all be drinking sewage.

Admittedly, no one is perfect, but in general most people are willing to admit their shit does indeed stink. But every time someone at the Feminism Well points out that the water smells funny, the rest of the room shouts them down insisting that only the cleanest, clearest water comes from the Well of Feminism, and the idea that it may be polluted is a dirty lie spread by the Patriarchy in an attempt to prevent us from drinking water and hawk their Super-Concentrated Bottled Man-Juice (TM), now with EXTRA Oppression Power!

I have no fucking clue how to stop them from doing that. I only know change through the power of the Mob, and the Mob in the mainstream feminist blogosphere insists that the water's safe to drink.

This has been going on for decades. What tends to happen is there's a falling out between WOC and a major white feminist, the white feminists write history so the falling out never happened, young women find their way into feminism with no knowledge of this history and the same shit happens all over again.

I'd sworn off all of the major political feminist blogs because of varied instances of idiocy, and even gone so far as to tell people on my livejournal I won't respect anyone who has a certain blogger on their blogroll.

Naturally, someone on my livejournal friendslist sends me a post written by that very blogger that sends me into an incoherent spew of rage when I finally sighed and look at it.[Emphasis mine]

When I first heard about the Open Source Boob Project, I was sort of overwhelmed by the dipshittery and couldn’t really begin to tackle the multi-layered asshole levels required to be a part of this thing. (Summary: A bunch of dudes at some comic con decided that it would be awesome to trade on a handful of women’s serious insecurities and get some fondling. Gack, it’s complicated—just read the link.) Now that it’s been thoroughly dismantled by the rest of the feminist blogosphere, I feel like I can safely make fun of the whole thing without feeling like I’m missing something.

The fuck--? The "Feminist Blogosphere" didn't do shit about this. The "Feminist Blogosphere" was too busy trying to ignore the mass walkout of women of color (many of whom were active in letting the world know what a piece of shit idea this Boobie thing was while you guys patted yourselves on the back for being oh so enlightened and relevant to today's society) to deign to notice the shotstorm on livejournal.

There was a little more profanity and frightening of my cat before I started to realize just how stupid I sounded being upset by this.

And I'll be breaking two rules to explain why: 1) My No Politics on Written World rule and 2) My No-linking-to-these-idiots-and-adding-to-their-legitimacy rule.

Because Rule #2 isn't practical. It's not just someone has to call out someone being an idiot. The entire community needs to do so, to make it clear where the line is.

Here's the rundown, before the Ferrett's Incredibly Patronizing Proposal hit livejournal, there was a shitstorm involving a very famous white feminist blogger who cobbled a column on a mainstream website from the insights of a WOC blogger named Brownfemipower (among others)* without so much as a link back (despite the fact that it was known she read that blogger regularly). This was in no way the first time a white feminist has taken credit for ideas and work done by philosophers and activists of color, so it resulted in Brownfemipower closing her blog, a lot of very understandbly pissed-off people walking away from Feminism, and a number of others contemplating it.

Only one major feminist website addressed this. Two weeks later, a blogger on that very same website promoted an upcoming book (from a publisher with skeevy racial issues) from that white feminist blogger. (That turned out to be problematic.)

Kalinara has the scoop of the racism in the book. Interestingly enough, that is comic-related.

Anyway, so here I am irked at her taking something I was quite proud of my own little geek community for, and attributing it to her community.

Which is patheticly small potatoes compared to massive injury aimed at the WOC community, when this very same blogger took credit for the legwork and thinking done by members of their community and presented it as her own insight. Which has been done by the white feminist community for decades.

Its kind of like watching someone rob a convenience store, shoot the clerk, and then being indignant that she stepped on your foot on the way out.

In short, its very spoiled white girl of me.

But there's a point to this beyond my own navel gazing. Two, actually.

One is that this particular person is not salvageable. She's willing to still be intellectually dishonest in small ways, she's going to do so in large ways. I should not worry about her as a fallen role-model, but instead worry that the world associates her with a label I wear.

Two is the importance of community. Yes, these two incidents turned into discussions about individuals and not the larger issues. The thing is, the individuals behavior can only be taken into account with taking the larger issues into account. Calling out these individuals proves that the community at large is willing to try and stop things from getting worse at the very least, by setting boundaries and examples to newer community members. By making people who think along the same lines as those individuals rethink their positions, or at least their willingness to act on those positions. How we treat individuals when they fuck up is what defines what is socially acceptable.

There's a long history of sexism and racism in the geek and nerd community. We are all aware of this, and we work on this. And if something happens that threatens to cause a mass exodus of women from the nerd community, apparently the men in the community are willing to stand up and show that the idiot does not speak for them. They went on the attack. They pushed the individual and those who agreed with him out into the cold for the sake of maintaining a diverse community. This week, the geek community--a community dedicated to leisure and entertainment--proved that it was willing to police itself.

When a white feminist was called on her bullshit, the mainstream members of the community rallied around her and pushed several demographics out into the cold. When tensions had reached the point that it threatened a mass exodus of people from the feminist community, they let it happen. They made it worse. That community sacrificed a whole group of women in order to preserve one (white) individual's ego. Business as usual. This month, the mainstream feminist community--a community supposedly dedicated to bettering society--proved that it was not willing to police itself.

*ETA 27 Apr 08-- From E. in the comments:

But I do have a nitpick: while BFP didn't want to call out Marcotte for plagiarising/appropriating from her, and there are a variety of arguments that can be made for and against the idea that Marcotte bit off BFP, Marcotte admitted that there was a person she should have credited and didn't: Nina Perales. Also, she has yet to give Perales credit.

We can always tell when you haven't read ANY of the linked articles.

On a two and a half year old post:

I don't understand what this website is about... Men are portrayed in the same light as the women are... it is the nature of the "FANTASY" of a comic book. Get over it.

(In case anyone is still confused what sort of comments prompted this.)