Report from Planet Midnight by Nalo Hopkinson Read Free Book Online Page A

they felt a little better than before.
    More positive change that came out of RaceFail: fans of colour began daring to blog their experiences and their feelings about systemic racism in fantasy and science fiction (both in the literature and in the community) because they realised there was some backup. Fans of all stripes—and by that I mean “white people, too”—began challenging one another to read books by people of colour and review and discuss them, and they are by heaven doing it. Can I just say that I love me some fandom? Fandom is not exempt from the kind of wrongheadedness that humans display every day. But when fans conspire to do a good thing, it is most well done indeed, with verve and enthusiasm.
    The white fantasy and SF community has a culture of arrogance and entitlement that is infuriating. It became clear last year just how patronizing some of you could be, just how little you trusted us to have any insight into our own experience, an experience about which many of you are proud to say that you’re blind. If I’d ask one thing of you, it’d be to demonstrate your own impulses to equity and fairness—I know they’re there—by beginning from the assumption that people of colour probably know whereof we speak on issues of race and racism.
    It also became clear that many of the white people who are able to make that collegial leap of equality and respect are so mired in guilt and trying to take the fall for the rest of you that they are somewhat paralysed. That doesn’t help either, and I’m not sure what the solution is. I think you could stand to talk amongst yourselves about that one.
    One of the things I really wanted to say from this podium: people of colour in this community, I love allyou. I love allyou can’t done. I love how you stepped up to the plate in this past year; I kept feeling that love even when rage led to regrettable actions from some of you. I love how you looked out for each other; I love how you got energised. It’s bloody terrifying to be up on this podium right now, but you give me the courage to keep going, and for that, I thank you. When RaceFail first began to happen, I was dismayed. I didn’t think the Internet with its trolls and incendiaries was the place to have the discussion. I was wrong. Tempest Bradford, I was wrong, and I love you for holding strong, for keeping your sense of humour, and for speaking hard truths while being honest with andgenerous to pretty much everyone (by “everyone” I mean, “white folks, too”).
    There are so many names to be named of people who did the right thing through all this. I cannot name them all. Because I’ll tell you, people, I tired. Oonuh, I tired to rass. I get seen as one of the go-to people when it comes to race in this community. I spent most of the last two years homeless and couch-surfing with my partner, recovering from illness and fighting a still ongoing struggle to get enough to eat from day to day. I simply didn’t have the energy to take RaceFail on the way I wanted to. And when I began to hear from some of the more arrogantly obstructive white people in the community who were all of a sudden being friendly to me without acknowledging their actions and the reasons for their overtures, I saw red. Allyou think I just come off the banana boat or what? That is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and my mother didn’t raise no stupid children. I am not your tame negress. I mean, I know I’m published by a mainstream house and have achieved some recognition. I know I’m in the house, people. But house negroes get a bad rap for being inherently complicit with Massa. There were and are freedom fighters among them, too. I know that a large part of the reason I’m up here has to do with the brave actions of people on the inside, of all colours, at the IAFA. And I thank you all profusely for it.
    By the way, to the people in the community who have coined and are using the term “failfandom” to mock people