Links – Female, Muslim & Mutant, Olympic Rumors, WoC & Beauty Carnival, Publishers Contract Issues – Deja Vu & Why Say No?

Links for today!

*Broken Mystic explores the position of Muslim Women in comics comparing the American-created Dust and super-heroines created by Muslims such as Noora, Hadya, Jalila and Aya in two parts – Female, Muslim and Mutant (Part 1, Part 2) . All characters are deconstructed and its a very interesting exploration of the true existence of Muslim women and the biased Western views of the lives of Muslim women. Also the comic he talks about “The 99” sounds pretty awesome I’m picking up the English translations as soon as payday swings around.  

*Racialicious talks about black athletes being banned from bars in Beijing during the Olympics and the xenophobia and racism that’s been directed at Chinese since these unsubstantiated rumors popped up. It all exploded at Perez Hilton’s blog and the comments are really quite horrifyingly racist and soul-killing – Perez Hilton Hates Yellow People.

*A new carnival is looking for submissions. The Women of Color and Beauty Carnival looks to explore:

This Carnival is intended to focus on beauty and what it means to and about women of color. In particular, I would like to see discussion go beyond a focus on the ways in which women of color can internalize self hatred to the ways in which women and communities of color recognize and celebrate beauty.

Submissions from women and men of color are welcome, focusing on these areas:

What does beauty mean to women of color?

What is the difference between beauty and ethnically based sexual stereotyping? How does stereotyping and white supremacy affect our concepts of beauty, and how can we create change? What kind of responsibility do white women who identify as allies have to analyze and take ownership of their privilege in this area?

How do popular standards of beauty based on generalized whiteness affect our relationships with ourselves, each other, and between different groups of people of color?

The deadline for submissions is August 5 so hop to it, I’m gonna try to come up with something myself for this soon.

*If you’re even marginally involved with the publishing world in any capacity then you probably remember last year when Simon & Schuster and the Authors Guild went head-to-head over a change made in their contracts. If you didn’t hear about it or want a quick refresher go here. Pub Rants is a great blog by Agent Kristin who blogs about new writer mistakes, query letters, contract negotiation and more. This morning she brings us news that though S&S’s bid to change the contract failed here in the States the Random House Group is now trying something similar in the U.K. 

*Liz Henry over at Feminist SF – The Blog! asks:

Why are characters in SF so reluctant to Undergo The Great Change or quaff the vial of super-spice or be part computer or become immortal or have my DNA reengineered to be part-alien and merge with the giant group nanoconsciousness?

Then asks readers what they would do if offered that kind of choice. Head over and join the discussion. I’ll go into more detail in my reply over there but the simple answer is I would not hesitate to “quaff the vial of super-spice” at all.

They’ve Done It Again…

So I was reading Fantasy Debut, one of my daily blogs. I was skimming the review Tia had of The Sellsword (Dragonlance) by Cam Banks, skimming because I could tell it wasn’t the kind SF/F that’s really to my tastes then I hit one of the last lines of the review:

I do have one major criticism, and it has nothing to do with the author. Vanderjack is black. So why does the cover feature a man with pasty white skin? I thought the cover was well-done otherwise.

Now I’ve blogged about this phenomenon before, most recently talking about visual media in, Hollywood Stop Whitening Characters! No Really! Stop It! and just over a year ago at Feminist SF – The Blog talking about books in Judging Books & Their Covers. I’m glad that others are noticing this horrifying trend and bringin attention to it. This is not something that’s over and done it’s something that is still happening with books that come out everyday.

I’ve really said most of what I have to say about this subject in the previous links however, I might have a suggestion: When I talked to my friend Jackie about this phenomenon, she mentioned that when she wrote a review of Larissa (one of the books in my Feminist SF post where the cover girl is white but the protag very clearly black in the text) she suggested that anyone who was outraged at the cover as she was, do this – tear off the offending cover and mail it back to the publisher with a note explaining why. 

I do advocate buying the book first (in case that wasn’t clear), number one so you don’t get arrested for vandalism and number two because I don’t believe in punishing the author for publishing decisions, which these almost always are. I don’t know that doing this will do anything to change the way the industry thinks and acts but at least it’s a constructive way to let the publisher know how you feel and get your anger out at the same time.

EDITED TO ADD – I just wanted to clarify in case it wasn’t clear in the the original post that I do not blame the author for this and if the book sounds like something you would enjoy I say go out and buy it. I love it when folks write POC characters in any kind of fantasy setting and I think we should all support that.

Recovering

Yesterday I was laid low some horrible stomach thing so I stayed at home curled in a ball around my twisty-painfilled-stomach. I’m better today still a little nauseaus and my throat is sore as all get out – from praying to the porcelain god – but I’m back at work. Low energy so today I’m focusing on some other stuff I have to get done.

For the latest in the the Sanders/Helix farcas go here: http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/841797.html

Too Through…

Let’s go through the list shall we, now due to Sanders open and outright bigotry many no longer want to be associated with Helix magazine. Yoon Ha Lee requests that her story be taken down from the website. Sanders replies and does this but in the letter says how he never liked it in the first place, it didn’t make sense and he only bought it to increase writers of color in his magazine…and a lot more, basically he acts like an 8 year-old. (Yoon Ha Lee’s journal)

Then yesterday Sanders makes a public post claiming it was his idea to allow people to removes their stories from the archive, says anybody who wants to remove their story should email him and he’ll take it down.There’s also a lot of insinuation in the post about people being greedy and this all being some attack -because yeah Sanders is that big, everyone wants to attack him that’s what it’s all about. He says to act now because he’ll decide capriciously when this offer ends and if you don’t like it you can shut your pie-hole, classy and professional! (Yoon Ha Lee’s journal)

Tempest describes what was left on the pages of the stories that were removed and in a post today Sanders says that anyone who wants a story removed must pay $40 to the webmistress Melanie. Now keep in mind that just yesterday his letter said Melanie shouldn’t have to deal with this and he would take care of everything. My guess is that either a bunch of folks sent in requests and he’s trying to stem the tide by charging or his petulance is growing exponentially as he discovers most folks now know he’s a bigot.

Tobias Buckell weighs in and suggests sooe sort of drive for folks who want their story down but can’t afford the $40.To Sanders $40 may be nothing but to a lot of us it’s the difference between eating actual food this week or Ramen. Many in the comments urge folks not to pay anything because it would be like paying Sanders for his bigotry.

Kate Nepveu suggests since most folks say the contract with Helix is for non-exclusive internet rights that any authors who’re unhappy or don’t want to be associated with Helix any longer can post the stories on their blog or anywhere they want and redirect all their links there. Which personally I think is awesome.

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 Other things in the SF/F world:

Kate Elliot starts a dialog on reviews and what readers would like to see in their reviews. While this may seem only tangentially about SF/F, it is a post by a well-known and fa I find the ideas in the post align with my thoughts a lot because I critique a lot of things here and I think for some people that reads as if I hate these things but no, I love them, that’s why I critique/review them because I want them to be better in regards to power/privilege/oppression. Anyway, go join the conversation let Kate know what you like/dislike about reviews.

Yoon Ha Lee links us to someone starting a new on-line magazine specializing in “literary adventure fantasy–character-driven stories in secondary worlds”, paying SFWA pro rate for stories, opening to submission on August 1st called Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I’m thinking of submitting one of my stories to them after some major edits.

Still Swamped – Links!

I still have a lot of balls in the air so I have links for you guys today!

First the story of a mother who found herself the subject of a Child Services investigation because there had been an accusation that her autistic daughter was being sexually abused by a man. The evidence for this accusation? Well it seems the educational assistant who works with little Victoria went to see a psychic.

One Memphis officer has been fired and another now riding the desk after they beat a Transwoman in a holding cell because she wanted to be called by her given name and no “he-she”. It’s all on video and from what I hear pretty graphic (I can’t bring myself to watch it yet), she’s beat in the face with handcuffs, sprayed with mace and another officer holds her arms while one beats her and finally when the nurse enters she goes directly to the officer. Trangriot has more.

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So Nightshade books released an anthology called Eclipse: One in which the authors were pretty much 50/50 men and women but no women’s names appeared on the cover. There’s was a valid outcry over this. Check out Coffee And Ink’s breakdown of the panel on it that occured at WisCon this year. This includes the fact that at the panel people were told the second volume would be different because of the respondents, the excuse for the first cover being that the men were just more famous.

But the story’s not over because the Table of Contents for the second volume has been released and there’s only one woman that I see. The excuse is of course that whole genderblind defense: “I don’t see gender I see good stories” which of course not only ignores subconscious prejudices but implies that women just don’t write good Science-Fiction. Bring into it the fact that this volumes is supposed to focus on more Science-Fiction than Fantasy and it reinforces that old stereotype of “Men write Sci-Fi, Women write Fantasy” which is of course complete bullshit. Check out some links.

Gender blind, right…

A scenario for you

And for a little perspective a post theangryblackwoman wrote over a year ago: How To Promote Diversity in Fiction Markets

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Many of you will recall my post about Marriage Equality and that one of things that bothered me the most was that there were no dissenting voices in this debate, no one who stood up to say that marriage is not a cure-all and in fact is a bit of a fucked up system. Well I started to find some dissent.

In “Marriage Isn’t My Golden Ticket” Miriam Perez points out the way this issue has eclipsed everything else and draws attention away from important issues.

In “Why This Queer Isn’t Celebrating.” AngryBrownButch addresses the way that already marginalized groups within the queer community are becoming even more marginalized by the mainstream face that is being presented by the community.  

Finally “Why One Queer Person Is Not Celebrating California’s Historic Gay Marriage Decision” by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (who I now want to be my new best friend) breaks a lot of the issues I’ve been struggling to verbalize down.

That’s it for today, enjoy the links.

 

 

 

Monday Quick Links

Just a couple quick things because I’m exhausted after  weekend mini-vacation and the next two days will be busy, fun and even more exhausting:

Forbe’s Annual 15 Most Wealthy Fictional Characters, number one used to be one of my favorite cartoons!

Cassie Edwards and her publisher part ways, after her plagiarism comes to light. I have issues with Edwards even without the plagiarism, can we say exotification and appropriation? I knew you could! Also you should really head over to www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com and read how this all got brought to light (see blogging can change the world, at least the publishing world) and for their insightful, hilarious commentary.

And last but definitely not least vito-excalibur has her latest alter up: Alter #3 Le Beau et la Bete. Remember I pointed you guys her way after her reinterpretations of Wonder-Woman and Power Girl (Boy). This time she takes on fairytales and Disney and it’s just as fabulous as the others.

 

Plastic Surgery Children’s Book, More Talking about Race & Gaming and Hanes Apologizes for Those Ads

There’s been a lot of talk about the children’s book My Beautiful Mommy, it’s all about explaining to a child that mommy needs a tummy tuck and breast implants and after that she’s even more beautiful. Just typing that sentence made me want to throw up but I haven’t blogged about it because the book is coming from a vanity press and will sell approximately 0 – 10 copies, if that. Even knowing that though there’s something about the coverage that’s been bothering me and Laurie and Debbie over at Body Impolitic hit the nail on the head with their post on the subject. It’s not the book so much as the kind of coverage it has received and the validation that gives it.

Pat over at Token Minorities has written part two of his Suggestions for Talking about Race and Games and these are especially useful for those of us who get into heated discussions involving identity politics. Pat confronts us over the fact that you won’t convert most people, and talks about investing so much energy in these discussions. I’ve learned a lot of the lessons he talks about the hard way, now I’m more likely to engage someone a couple of times and then back away. For me it’s more about trying to show people (the person I’m arguing with as well as the people that may be watching) another way of thinking about something. Head over and read it Pat has some good points on why to engage and why not to.

So I have my issues with GLAAD (unsurprising they’re some of the same issues I have with the HRC and other mainstream GLBT organizations) but apparently they took notice of the Hanes ads and sent off a strongly worded email. It got an apology from Hanes who backpedaled as quickly as possible and stated that they had never actually approved the ads and they we offended too. I’m a little…not angry exactly but perturbed by excerpted part of the GLAAD letter: “The use of the f-word and other hateful slurs to sell products is reprehensible.” I’m just a little bothered that they summarized the two other ads with “hateful slurs”. Presumably they didn’t say n-word and p-word because they are a GLBT organization and that’s what they focus on but they failed to think that some GLBT people are People of Color as well. I don’t know maybe this is all informed by my issues with GLAAD, which I think only really represents the rights of rich, white, gay males but it just irks me.  

 

Monday Dreariness & Links

It is Monday, which is bad enough but it is a Monday where I’ve been up since 4 A.M., after only five hours sleep, so I am understandably cranky and ready to go home. Le Sigh, since that’s not happening for a few hours yet let’s get to some of the interesting things from around the net that I’ve found today.

Karnythia over at The Angry Black Woman has a wonderful post on People of Color and the Politics of Medical Research. The Tuskegee Experiment is only the most well known of the instances POC have been used to further medical knowledge against their will and then the benefits of those experiments used to help Upper Class White Folks. She also mentions Harriet Washington’s book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, which I’ve heard from vatrious friends is a fantastic resource and completely gruesome to read. I haven’t read it personally because of some of the gruesomeness that’s been described to me by those that read the book but I probably should pick it up soon. She also discusses Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his accusation regarding AIDS. It’s all great stuff, head over there and give it a read.

In the interests of my previous post on White Liberal Feminist Imperialism, I feel remiss in not mentioning the other imperialist moment that’s been occuring in the feminist blogosphere. A blogger by the name of Black Amazon made a post in which she stated “Fuck Seal Press”. For those who don’t know Seal Press is a feminist publisher, and her fuck you was about their ignoring of Women of Color {or near enough} in their publishing. Their response was so entitled and unprofessional that it disgusted almost everyone who read it. Read about the whole thing over at WOC PhD in Why Seal Press is OFF the syllabus. I would link to the actual posts but like WOC Phd I can’t seem to link to them directly.

Over at Feminist SF – The Blog!, the angry black woman in Are We Talking About Gender and Magazines AGAIN? …Yes talks about gender disparities in several top F/SF magazines. She’s analyzed Asimov, Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF) and Analog by their Table of Contents so far in 2008. I think, considering the prevaling thoughts on women writing/being interested/excelling in fantasy as opposed science-fiction, that most will be shocked to find out that Asimov has the highest percentage of female writers so far in 2008. She also has yearly percentages for Asimov, Realms of Fantasy (ROF) & F&SF. Make sure to check out the comments as well which are very illuminating.

And last but certainly not least over at The Hathor Legacy, Revenna talks about Nim’s (almost awesome) Island and the issues with race that abound in the movie. Mostly it’s about the action-adventure scenes which she says recall the whole pulp fiction the Other as evil stereotype. You remember from all those pulp novels about the heart of  deepest, darkest Africa and it’s headhunting, cannabalistic evil dark people who’re evil because….um, well…because they’re dark…AND EVIL!