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extrapenguinTo begin with: I think racism is bad and that fandom and the OTW should be less racist.
However, the End OTW Racism campaign, given the pro-harassment stance of the people most involved in it, is incapable of being a force for ending racist harassment. I very intentionally did not participate in the first round and will not be participating in the second round. (If 4+ candidates gunning for radical internal reform step up to run for the Board, I might buy an OTW membership. Otherwise, I'm not going to contribute financially to such a sick system.)
The End OTW Racism campaign, instead of citing examples of OTW racism (e.g. the way the OTW jerked around the Chinese volunteers in charge of the OTW Weibo account), chose to heavily cite the works of StitchMediaMix. Stitch has written blog posts accusing POC who like the "wrong" ships or characters of racism, stands in support of her friends using slurs against mixed-race people, is buddies with Winterfox/Benjanun Sriduangkaew (billionaire oligarch infamous for viciously harassing mostly brown and Asian people out of SF fandom), and perpetuates harassment campaigns against POC to the point where they fear to comment on her in public (denise has stated this better than I could).
Why would this nominally anti-harassment campaign then so heavily foreground a harasser, especially one whose presence has made multiple POC decline to participate? (Even I, terminally disconnected from absolutely everything, know several such people.)
Simple. The harassment is a feature, not a bug.
The people behind End OTW Racism have chosen to remain anonymous, but when I look at the loudest voices, I see a number of familiar pseuds. Naye. Skuld. No_detective.
Back in 2019, I made a post that was misinterpreted as a critique of a month(s?)-old fic of BNF bonibaru. She began a weeks-long harassment campaign to essentially drive me out of fandom, including a false accusation of plagiarism from frith_in_thorns and, when the fandom went Bzuh?, the campaign switched to accusing me of being rude on Discord. (To the best of my knowledge, none of the people making the accusation had shared a Discord server with me.) The people I named in the paragraph above were more than happy to join in on the pile-on and harass me out of fandom for the sheer crime ofbeing autistic not bowing to the BNFs in an approved fashion. Harassment is something they enjoy. They have chosen their anti-racist guru with care: here, a Black person who thinks harassment is fine and dandy! Not only that, but a Black person who likes starting harassment campaigns, so they can join in and get their harassing jollies with a bonus zing of self-righteousness, since they are participating in a (racist) harassment campaign in the name of anti-racism.
While they performatively shake and cry on Twitter about the fact that someone told them that their goal is good but their methods could be more effective, I am shaking as I type this post, because now, four years later, I can finally see their names in text and only shake a bit and have my afternoon ruined, rather than having a panic attack and my entire day ruined. For months after the harassment, every e-mail notification would make me panic. These fuckers gave me PTSD. I think they enjoyed it.
And, as other people in fandom also have eyes, they did not join in on an anti-harassment campaign led by harassers. I do not blame the people who joined in to try and get the OTW to do something, but I do not think the organizers are sincere about any anti-harassment rhetoric they might spout.
(These people already hate me and I've blocked most of them already. If things heat up excessively, I will close comments entirely. If you do not wish to speak in public, you can DM me.)
However, the End OTW Racism campaign, given the pro-harassment stance of the people most involved in it, is incapable of being a force for ending racist harassment. I very intentionally did not participate in the first round and will not be participating in the second round. (If 4+ candidates gunning for radical internal reform step up to run for the Board, I might buy an OTW membership. Otherwise, I'm not going to contribute financially to such a sick system.)
The End OTW Racism campaign, instead of citing examples of OTW racism (e.g. the way the OTW jerked around the Chinese volunteers in charge of the OTW Weibo account), chose to heavily cite the works of StitchMediaMix. Stitch has written blog posts accusing POC who like the "wrong" ships or characters of racism, stands in support of her friends using slurs against mixed-race people, is buddies with Winterfox/Benjanun Sriduangkaew (billionaire oligarch infamous for viciously harassing mostly brown and Asian people out of SF fandom), and perpetuates harassment campaigns against POC to the point where they fear to comment on her in public (denise has stated this better than I could).
Why would this nominally anti-harassment campaign then so heavily foreground a harasser, especially one whose presence has made multiple POC decline to participate? (Even I, terminally disconnected from absolutely everything, know several such people.)
Simple. The harassment is a feature, not a bug.
The people behind End OTW Racism have chosen to remain anonymous, but when I look at the loudest voices, I see a number of familiar pseuds. Naye. Skuld. No_detective.
Back in 2019, I made a post that was misinterpreted as a critique of a month(s?)-old fic of BNF bonibaru. She began a weeks-long harassment campaign to essentially drive me out of fandom, including a false accusation of plagiarism from frith_in_thorns and, when the fandom went Bzuh?, the campaign switched to accusing me of being rude on Discord. (To the best of my knowledge, none of the people making the accusation had shared a Discord server with me.) The people I named in the paragraph above were more than happy to join in on the pile-on and harass me out of fandom for the sheer crime of
While they performatively shake and cry on Twitter about the fact that someone told them that their goal is good but their methods could be more effective, I am shaking as I type this post, because now, four years later, I can finally see their names in text and only shake a bit and have my afternoon ruined, rather than having a panic attack and my entire day ruined. For months after the harassment, every e-mail notification would make me panic. These fuckers gave me PTSD. I think they enjoyed it.
And, as other people in fandom also have eyes, they did not join in on an anti-harassment campaign led by harassers. I do not blame the people who joined in to try and get the OTW to do something, but I do not think the organizers are sincere about any anti-harassment rhetoric they might spout.
(These people already hate me and I've blocked most of them already. If things heat up excessively, I will close comments entirely. If you do not wish to speak in public, you can DM me.)
no subject
Date: 2023-06-19 00:49 (UTC)A number of folks DO know you (thank you for all you do in fandom) and maybe hearing this from a known, fannishly active person will help bring some reason. (I can hope, darn it.)
no subject
Date: 2023-06-19 17:27 (UTC)I'm not sure if this will reach anyone who needs to hear this/is ready to receive the message, especially since I don't have the reach of the wankers. Hopefully this will at least let anyone who disagrees with the harassment cadre know that they are not alone and they are not going insane.