Diversity Panel Notes

[Eredien]

Hi folks!

In terms of diversity and inclusion statements, I think another good
thing for KFA to have would be a gender-neutral bathroom. Even if we
just took a bathroom that was normally gendered and designated it as a
gender-neutral bathroom for the duration of a KFA event it would be
more welcoming to those who might identify as genderqueer or non-
gendered or otherwise had a non-standard gender. There may be
logistical issues with this if our meeting spaces are at colleges, but
I am sure we should at least talk about this as an option.

In the Diversity discussion that kind of capped off KFA yesterday, I
thought that a few good points were brought up, specifically about not
turning to a [person who obviously represents a diverse group] and
saying, "gee, can you represent the whole of [diverse group] on this
opinion?"
It also avoids the "shadow problem" which is the opposite of that--if
you don't "look" or "act" diverse in way x, but yet fit into <diverse
group here> people aren't going to get the picture of how diverse that
group actually is because they would be so busy focusing on people who
'obviously belonged.'
Thanks for avoiding both of those things!

A note (and I swear this relates to KFA; keep reading):
One of the participants was talking about geek culture, specifically
SF, and an assertion was made that SF writers write to market to the
people who read their books--white adolescent males. It's not fair to
claim that writers write for that market because that's the "real"
market for SF and that's the only thing that will sell. Why is that an
unfair claim? Because that's not true, from either the marketing or
publishing end. I'm white, but I'm also a genderqueer woman pushing
30, and I'm a heavy consumer of SF and other genre writing. I'm also
an SF and fantasy writer. White adolescent males is not the market I'm
writing for, and I've never seen a call for sumbissions that read
"fantastic stories of fantastic fiction, 3000+ words; manuscripts with
people of color, LGBTQ themes, non-Christian characters, issues of
poverty, or handicapped people will be returned unread."

You may say, "oh, but you're an anomaly!" But that too perpetuates the
myth that I'm just not the "real" market for this stuff, by implying
that there is a real market out there and I'm not in it--that instead,
I'm consuming in and writing for some secondary, froofy, enlightened,
literary, post-racial, post-class, post-cis, post-everything SF
market.

Well, that market doesn't exist.
It's true that the SF community <b>certainly</b> has many of its own
issues about making its writing, marketing, and even editing
<i>recognize</i> that it has a market that isn't just white adolescent
males, and/or that all SF authors are not slightly older white males
so that's all they have to publish or cater to. But that's because it
has trouble recognizing/acknowledging the diversity that it doesn't
see that <i>already exists in its own borders</i>, not because white
adolescent males are the one true SF market and everything else is
kind of on the edges.

I'm not bringing this up to sidetrack the discussion, but because I've
been reading some interesting posts recently about the SF community's
color and gender and abilism blindness, and the ways in which fans of
SF in general have been pointing out these misconceptions and are
trying to work to fix them. Discussions in those other communities,
especially those communities that overlap with our other communities,
might be a good place to start reading, and get ideas about how we can
combat these same tendencies in our KFA communites--which appear right
now to be mostly geeky, white, cis, and middle-class, or at least
seemed to be such in KFA Boston (I have not been to any other KFA
events yet).

Here are some links:
<a href="http://www.tor.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=blog&id=52460">Mindblowing SF: SF by women and
people of color</a>
<a href="http://www.carlbrandon.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page">Carl
Brandon Society Wiki</a> - the mission of the Carl Brandon Society is
to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and
audience for speculative fiction.
<a href="http://ofcolour.blogspot.com/">People of Color SF Carnival</
a> - "A Visible Space For Fen & Creators of Color In The
Blogsphere" (there is a long and continuing history of people of color
being into and writing SF, which the emphasis on the white male geek
SF fan stereotype obscures or ignores.)
<a href="http://blogs.feministsf.net/">The Feminist SF blog</a>
<a href="http://www.locusmag.com/Roundtable/2009/08/disability-and-
sff.html"> - Disability and SFF Locus Roundtable (Locus is the trade/
news magazine for the professional SF/fantasy writing/editing field)

There's a lot more but you will have to find it yourself, because I am
tired.

[iron rose]

I just wanted to comment on this topic briefly.  I really appreciated Maja's comment on this topic at the discussion itself, which I think was that even if the majority of a community belongs to a particular demographic, we shouldn't perpetuate that disparity by focusing only on that demographic, or by (intentionally or unintentionally) conflating the demographic with the community as a whole.  (Please correct me if I mis-paraphrased or misremembered who made this comment...I'm sorry but I have a terrible memory.)

I thought that was a very valuable point.  To turn that on its head, I think that one way in which KfA can improve our diversity is to focus on the demographics and communities that were *not* well-represented.

I've been brainstorming more concrete suggestions for how  to do this, but I think I will make that post in the diversity thread, rather than here.  Or maybe directly on the wiki Diversity page.

-ironrose

[Joshua Pearce]

I wanted to add something to this discussion as well. I was the one
who made the comment that I think their is a bias and perception in
the industry of who buys their books. Certainly everyone around the
world of every variety can and would enjoy much of this "geek"
literature but the reality is that culture barriers exist socially
speaking that limit the diversity. My comment I think didn't come out
the way I meant it. I was trying to show that the problem is larger
than whether or not we put up flyers in diverse areas or reached out
to many different social/cultural groups. Educational gaps, exposure,
marketing I believe have all created what I see is a privileged
position in that geek culture as a whole seems to be more connected to
these types of lifestyles/activities/identities that permeate events
like KFA.

I'm a first ever member of my family who even thought of going to
college and I know that many of my own culture which came about from
exposure to ideas and imagination prevalent in fantasy/scifi and geek
activities. That world just like college is completely unknown to any
relation I have. I was trying to communicate that industry marketing
and cultural selectivity for things in geek culture might make
awareness of these activities and that by not getting a chance to read
or watch the things we do others might miss out on knowing that others
think and feel like they do. How do you know you have a community if
you aren't exposed to the idea. I didn't realize polyamory was even
possible or something I could do and live until I met someone who
lived it and it made me realize that my lifelong feelings of how I
wanted to live had a name and a community. And then from there I
discovered other identities and things about myself. Sorry to self
disclose a bunch on this list but I feel it is relevant to this
discussion. Maymay had a wonderful discussion at KFA about freeing
sexuality information, but what I took away from it is the
responsibility I feel to make others aware they have communities of
people who think and feel similar to them they might not even be aware
of. I think we will get more diversity by reaching out to more and
more people with a message of inclusion which comes from being open
about our identities and talking about them with others. I don't have
all the answers about this problem (as I see it). but I wanted to
share my perspective and see if others do. Anyway, I wanted to clarify
that this was what I was trying to speak about this when I brought up
the industry bias towards certain types of people.

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