I don't blame her for being angry

This seemed like a good post to end Blogging Against Racism Week on. As much as I enjoy the education I receive about race from wonderful, insightful, honest bloggers such as Field Negro and Free Slave, I feel I can connect more with Angry Black Woman's blog and view. Maybe it's the fact we're both women? I have no clue.

Regardless, she is very good at making me see things I totally never would have seen because I'm a white gal. Things I completely take for granted because of my skin color. For instance, click the title of this entry and get an example. The Television Universe is white, apparently:

"I love writing SF, reading SF, and watching SF television. I used to love watching SF television a lot more. now I’m just left wondering why the universe is so fucking full of white people.~Major case in point: Battlestar Galactica. I’m speaking of the new show here, not the old one. If you look at that show for about 10 minutes (any 10 minutes will do) you might notice that there is a major lack of people of color. It’s not a trick, that’s just how the whole show is. I don’t watch this show. I have watched some episodes and I have heard a lot about it, but I missed the mini-series and thus couldn’t get into it at first.

"12 colonies or planets filled with humans. So far I have seen exactly 2 black people (one was killed 42 minutes after he showed up on the screen), one Asian person (who isn’t even human, she’s a Cylon in disguise), one Latino person (whose son, for some crazy reason, is played by a white dude), and that’s it. The rest of the people are all white. White people everywhere. This is stupid. If you have billions of humans on 12 planets I refuse to believe that only the white people would survive. Statistics say so. Unless there weren’t many black people on the colonies to begin with.

I think the backstory is that Earth was the home colony that people flew away from millennia ago. Apparently only white people were smart enough to build spaceships to fly away from earth and took along a few darkies so that they could create some ‘exotic’ babies every now and then. Or maybe SciFi channel just sucks ass. I think that might be the case.

"What else can you say about a network that allowed the guy who made the Earthsea movie turn all of the people white except for that one guy? On Stargate the black people are all slaves, but the white people might be slaves or they might be rulers or they might be accountants. On Atlantis they gathered together scientists and military folks from countries all over the world, and yet the only person of color from Earth is the one military guy. All of the other black folks come from another galaxy. From backwards, tribal planets no less. Oh, except for that one Asian chick in that one episode.

Don’t get me started on Andromeda."

Really- I never would have given it a second thought- and never did. That is exactly my privilege- to not see color right away. When I put myself in a person of color's position (and I am in no way implying that I ever really can- just trying to see from their perspective), it's very obvious. Such an imbalance, in a world that is supposed to be working towards equality. I say "working towards", because this is just another example of how we have in no way achieved it.

Now, if you look through the comments on this blog entry, some ignorance shines through:

"By the way, if it sucks so bad that Sci-FI has too many white people, why don’t you lobby BET for some F&SF productions? Tired of Euro fantasy worlds filled with caucasians? Write your own and get them published. The ancient histories and pantheons of the aboriginal people of Australia or the inhabitants of Africa seem to be rich fodder for this kind of development.

Personally I think it’s sad that anyone who enjoys F&SF can be so totally stuck on race, that they feel they need to boycott or pitch a fit until “more people like them” start showing up. As I have already stated, half the time in F&SF the heroes and main characters aren’t even human, so why the huge hangup on skin color?

Let’s shave Chewbacca and find out what color he is! He’s probably white too! AIIGHEEEEEEEE!

Silly."

Always the automatic comeback- the "if you don't like it, then YOU do something about it". Always pushing the responsibility off on someone else. And this was a laugh- just go write your own stuff! Now, ABW may be a writer, but I'm sure there are plenty of Sci-Fi Fantasy lovers who are people of color who are not writers. No, the responsibility falls on those who choose to portray people of color the way they do. Then to suggest they ask a "black network" to air more of the these type of shows, just reveals how deep in privilege this person is.

Lobby BET for the diversity in programming? Wow, is he serious? Which analogy would be better for that comment- sit at the back of the bus, or drink from your own fountain?

There should be more diversity on the networks most of the white people watch- period. I had thoughts about this a couple of months ago when I watched Roots. It's the 30th year anniversary of the film, and where could you see it? TVOne. Now, how many people have TVOne? And really, how are you going to get through to those who REALLY need to see it? (meaning: white people).

Point being, that movie should be on a major network every year (I'll let you figure out the month). Major TV channels should have their writers write more diversely. There needs to be a higher awareness. You certainly can't get the people more aware, if you can't have the programming they watch be more aware and sensitive to race.

And no, aliens on sci-fi shows do not count.