This will probably blow up in my face, but...

[tahariel]

...I don't really understand this: Con Or Bust: Fans of Color Assistance Project.

It's not that I don't understand what they're doing, it's more that I don't understand why specifically this is aimed at fans of colour. Because surely there is no rule that only white people can go? And fans of colour are not the only fans who don't have enough money to go to conventions? (I acknowledge that non-white populations in the US tend to be economically worse-off.)

If you know me at all, you will know that as far as is humanly possible, I try my hardest not to be prejudiced against anyone. I say as far as is humanly possible, because it is human nature to be prejudiced against something or someone, but wherever I find this in myself I try to stamp it out, because it is Not On. I am a white, middle-class woman raised in relatively comfortable circumstances, who grew up in an almost exclusively white middle-class area, and I know that sometimes this influences my thinking in ways I don't recognise. But I just don't understand why attendance at cons is a race issue, particularly.

I'm very happy for somebody to explain this to me, and very happy to listen. But I don't get it at the moment, and it has left me scratching my head.

Comments

[zoeiona.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen in my (albeit short) experience of con-going, fen of colour are significantly underrepresented among the attendees. This could be for any number of reasons; historical factors, present tendency by the SF glitterati to sideline authors/etc. of colour, popular incorrect perceptions about genre consumers (in the same way as people getting the gender balance of SF/F consumers wrong), whitewashing... whatever; economics may be a factor for individual people involved, but cannot be the only factor explaining the very noticeable absence of the group overall.

That being so, I'd see this in precisely the same light as scholarships for black students or campaigns/assistance programmes to try to increase the number of people of colour in the judiciary, medicine etc. After a certain point it's not possible to say, "well, the playing field is level so clearly black people don't want to be lawyers or to go to SF cons"; it's about reducing some of the invisible psychological factors, including those endemic to - or seen to be endemic to - the establishment concerned, be that the judicial system or the genre world.

(I would point out that WisCon's focus is on race issues as well as gender issues within SFF.)

[loki-dip.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that cons are predominantly filled with white fans, but not entirely and there's no reason why fans of colour can't go. It's not like their banned or anything...

[magic-at-mungos.livejournal.com]

Well economics play a part in it (not to say that Cacucasion people do not have financial or cash flow problems) but also there is a sense of real space fandom activities is not for people who don't fit into the majority. Look at male dominated cons and that wank over the Open Source Boob project.

And RL fandom events still tend to be overwhelmingly white in my experience. I can quite easily be at a fandom event and be one of only one or two non white attendees.