now that i've plowed through racefail 2009

[piranha]

i feel moved to convert my anger into something semi-useful. as in, work on my own skanky race issues, which mostly consist of good ole liberal colour-"blindness". i wasn't raised that way; i did it myself, partially in reaction to my birth family's racist attitudes against roma and turks. i am 1/16th roma, but i don't look it, though it's obvious compared to how the rest of my family looks, that the genes expressed themselves differently in me. i'm never read as anything but "white" anywhere else, so i've never experienced any racism directed at me from outside of my family, and definitely never any of the institutionalized kind.

the self-trained colour-"blindness" didn't mean that i don't see human skin colour, but i've always treated it just like horse or cat colours -- yeah, i see it, and i use it in descriptions, and i might find some colour particularly pretty, but it's irrelevant to how i treat the being in question. and online i've never sought to find out about people's race, just like i don't care about their gender and age.

which is whitey-white privilege, of course. i know that now. i can choose to ignore race and even pat myself on the back for that. it doesn't follow me home like it does every PoC over here. *gah*, i was a clueless git. i want to improve. though i also know i don't have many spoons. so, baby steps.

#1: if any acquaintance of mine who is a person of colour, feels i've acted in a oblivious racist way towards them, please tell me. i promise to listen and not act defensively in return. i also promise not to ask you to teach me better; you're not required to assist me in passing racism 101. though if there is something in specific you would like me to do, please tell me that as well.

#2: a result of my selective vision has been that i am not usually aware of the ethnic background of authors, unless they write about their experiences as a person of a specific background, or for some reason i've picked up that they're of that background (it sort of comes with the territory when talking about manga that pretty much all the authors are japanese; when the ethnicity changes, the genre changes to manhua, manwha, or OEL). it's not that i imagine everyone to be white; i just don't imagine them to be anything. but i realize that this denies a part of who people are. so i want to become more conscious of it, and i want to make an effort to read books in particular by people of colour.

i've already found 50books_poc, and will add to my reading list after going through it. i'm not committing to actually reading 50 books from that list in a year because i do so badly with obligations for my free time, and because my book reading is never meant to be a chore of any sort, and what jumps in my lap to be read NOW is impossible to predict. i do commit to buy the books from that list, and to allow as many of them as possible to yell "SHINY! pick ME!" when i am in prowl mood. and manga doesn't count, because i already have oodles of it around to be read. i am also not allowed to make the entire list japanese, even aside from manga.

the list needs to be constructed to contain not much reading that requires extremely heavy lifting, but lots of SFF and mysteries, mostly novels (not short stories; novellas ok, but nothing under 10,000 words).

maybe some of you can help me with the list of authors. i know of:

barnes, steven
butler, octavia
chambers, christopher
chiang, ted
cisneros, sandra (tnx prairierabbit)
clough, brenda
corpi, lucha
delany, samuel
deloach, nora
due, tananarive
durham, david anthony
erdrich, louise
esquivel, laura (tnx prairierabbit)
garcia-aguilera, carolina
ghosh, amitav (tnx allbery)
gomez, jewelle
goto, hiromi
haywood, gar anthony
hopkinson, nalo
hurston, zora neale (tnx amagranz & firecat)
ishiguro, kazuo (tnx allbery)
johnson, alaya dawn (tnx sinboy)
lai, larissa
lopinto, lidia llamas & charles (tnx prairierabbit)
lowachee, karin
mickelbury, penny
mohanraj, mary anne
morrison, toni
mosley, walter
murakami, haruki
neely, barbara
nogha, misha
okorafor, nnedi
polk, chelsea
reed, ishmael
rowland, laura joh
rushdie, salman (tnx selki)
sanders, william
saunders, charles r.
tan, cecelia
thomas, sheree
wesley, valerie wilson
woods, paula
wu, william f.

Comments

[djm4]

Thanks for this. I was (literally, in the five minutes between waking up and opening LJ) thinking 'I really need to post something about RaceFail 2009, but what?', and your post has been an inspiration. Much of this applies to me.

Now I really need to post something about RaceFail 2009. Also (unrelatedly, but it's a similar 'propogating the meme' thing, though UK-only in this case) about this

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Icon!

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*cracks up at your icon*.

i'm glad it was inspirational. i am still thinking of making a link post with all the inspirational posts i found in this epic fail, because there are some real gems, and most of them from people i didn't know before (since i am not particularly tuned into media fandom).

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've been doing some reviews on Tor.com you might find useful -- S.P. Somtow's Jasmine Nights (http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=16625) and Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial (http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=14164). I've done others, but they're on your list. Also, watch that space...

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks for the names! i am having a bit of an allergic reaction to tor right now, and need to work through that. *sigh*.

[dr-brat.livejournal.com]

I really like Maryse Conde. Her originals are in French but at least some of them are available in English. My favorite is Moi, Tituba. Witchcraft, Caribbean culture, social critique, and a little bit of literary cannibalism (she meets up with Hester Prynne in jail). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryse_Cond%C3%A9

Maryse Conde

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thank you!

more authors

[eagle]

Looking around on my shelves, I can add, for SFF:

Buckell, Tobias S.
Ghosh, Amitav
Ishiguro, Kazuo

ETA: Actually, I have no idea if Buckell identifies as a PoC or as a non-native and islander separate of color. I thought I knew, but looking around a bit more, I realize that I don't at all. So I may be off-base on that one.

Re: more authors

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

in buckell's pictures he looks as white if not whiter than i. i know pictures don't tell the whole story, and i'd not argue with somebody's self-ID, of course.

tnx for the others! i recognize the names.

Re: more authors

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Buckell has gone into the matter here (http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2007/08/01/what-does-it-mean-to-be-this-caribbean-writer/).

Re: more authors

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks for that link (i'm gonna put him om my reading list just because he sounds interesting and conscious enough of nuance :).

there is a lot of fail in the comments. it's amazing how easy it is to tell which of the commenters look white, before they say anything about it.

Re: more authors

[selki.livejournal.com]

Crystal Rain was a fun ride, but then, I am a sucker for amnesia adventure stories. I just picked up Sky Mongoose (3rd in this series) at the library today.

Re: more authors

[eub.livejournal.com]

Could you recommend some Amitav Ghosh on the SFFnal side? I've only read Sea of Poppies, and enjoyed it.

Re: more authors

[eagle]

The Calcutta Chromosone by Amitav Ghosh won the 1997 Arthur C. Clarke award for best novel. (I've not personally read it yet.)

Re: more authors

[eub.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Two South-American writers

[eagle]

Not that either of these are likely to be unfamiliar names, but checking my non-SFF as well:

Coelho, Paulo
García Márquez, Gabriel

(Could be Márquez, Gabriel García -- I'm not sure about last name convention here.) These may be heavier lifting than you want for this purpose, though, as they're more on the literary side. Also on the literary side:

Mahfouz, Naguib

(Nobel prize winner in literature.)

ETA: All fiction, just not SFF; fixed.

Re: Two South-American writers

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, literature tends to be too heavy for me right now. and marquez didn't speak to me years ago when i last tried.

Re: Two South-American writers

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

I would guess that it's García Márquez, Gabriel, as it would appear to be a double-barrelled Spanish last name, and that's how it's sorted in Spanish. Sometimes they put y ('and') in between the two surnames, but often not.

Re: Two South-American writers

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

you're right; that should have occurred to me. the britannica has his name listed that way.

though when shelved, i'd bet in most cases one'd find him under M.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Racing The Dark". Also, she's a spiffy person.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

If you do read it, let me know what you think. I may be blinded by my love of Polynesian mythology, which the book draws deeply from.

[amagranz.livejournal.com]

have you read Ralph Ellison's _Invisible Man_? yeah, it's capital-L Literature, but it's weird and not boring or heavy lifting and it's profoundly moving. i can't recommend it enough, honestly -- it's actually the book i give to ppl who ask me for a recommendation, PoC or not.

or how about James Baldwin? i loved _Another Country_ in high school; though maybe mostly for the gender-bending sex scenes. ;-) again -- highly readable stuff.

toni morrison i would say maybe be careful, because that _is_ heavy lifting. how about maybe zora neale hurston, _Their Eyes Were Watching God_? i didn't really find it that great, but others i know absolutely love it.

i also note on the PoC 50 book blog that someone mentions the Fassbinder film Ali: Angst Essen Seele Auf -- to which I have to say yes, yes, and yes again... relationship between a north african gastarbeiter and an older putzfrau in postwar germany. but you either like fassbinder or you don't, i guess... may not be everyone's cup of tea.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, i've read ellison (awesome) and baldwin; if it's relatively classic lit i've quite likely read it, as long as it predates 1990 when i became illiterate in regard to literature. ZNH goes on the list (though she should really be in that group, but she wasn't -- my "classic lit" is top-heavy with europeans, and mostly white americans).

i read hardly any mainstream fiction either these days, *sigh*. it just doesn't grab me anymore, and i don't really know why. i'd probably also pass up fassbinder films, but if i can find that one i'll give it a try because it sounds very interesting. thanks!

[prairierabbit.livejournal.com]

I read to relax, so tend toward the lighter side of literature. I read quite a few mysteries and some general fiction. Some of these are genre, but the others are not heavy.

Laura Esquivel. She's best known for _Like Water for Chocolate_ which is magical realism, but she's also written SF, like _The Law of Love_. I think she is a fairly easy read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Esquivel

Sandra Cisneros, best known for _The House on Mango Street_. Accessible.

Lidia Llamas LoPinto & Charles LoPinto, mystery/crime.

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Lupe Solano mysteries.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks! garcia-aguilera i already knew about and have read( havana heat); i'll put the others on the list.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Bias alert: Brenda Clough gives good panel but I dropped her when she sneered at gamers. :-) I've read two of her books and heard her read a short story. Pretty readable, but not must-reads imo.

Delany's autobiography, Motion of Light in (on?) Water, I highly recommend. Black, dislexic, bisexual, poly -- of course he started writing science fiction! ;-) I really enjoy the story of his first encounter with avant-garde theater.

I really liked Haruki Murakami's *Hard Boiled Wonderland* -- fun puzzle.
I've re-read it a couple of times.

Also, Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children is long, but eventually we get to the birth of India as a nation, along with the birth of a lot of children with unusual abilities. And then more stuff happens.

If you can find the short story anthology *The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories*, it has several very good ones.

Coincidentally (?), an LA Times article about black noir mystery writers, some well before the 30's: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/02/black-noir.html

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, i've read the delany and murakami you mention (and they're well worth rereading). i feel much the same about clough's writing as you.

oh, rushdie! of course. that particular book has been on my list for a long time, but i haven't bought it yet.

i've put the japanese SF stories on my amazon list -- seems not too hard to get ahold of. and "black noir" as well. thanks much!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I second Midnight's Children. While it is Litrachur, you can easily surf the cool stories on the surface.

Since I am from Down Under, I recommend Keri Hulme's Bone People. It is mostly realism with magical touches. Note that it deals partly with child abuse and may be too heavy in that direction.

Possibly because of my whitey-ness and privilege, I do not know of any Australian aboriginal writers of sff. On the other hand, their traditional world-view is so very Not White that just reading anything by them may be worthwhile.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Amos Tutuola. How he himself classified his work I don't know, but it reads as fantastic literature to me.

Keep an eye out for if Nisi Shawl writes non-shorts, but she hasn't yet. :)