Every time that man attempts to pull this ignorant shit, just add this piece from 2007 to your Collection Of Rebuttal. I've also added a direct link to the highlight reel over on the sidebar, for the benefit of those who might wander hence for other reasons.
Snippage!
A man who says, post-second conversion, Actually, there's no such thing as an upper-class Negro, because he catches the same hell as the other class Negro. All of them catch the same hell, which is one of the things that's good about this racist system -- it makes us all one, is not a man who has been struck colorblind.
It's like he doesn't understand how the internet(s) - or, you know, libraries, or perhaps functional brains -- work.
Immediate context. There's other context, but I'll hold off on that for now. And I thank Deluxe (??) or whoever the hell that was at WonderCon for giving me a heads-up, because I had no idea.
Update! Okay, I probably have the name wrong. Because my choice was to associate my name directly with this site, one result of that is I'm often approached by people I don't know, have conversations or arguments with them, and they go away with me still not knowing who the hell they are. CCI, Faire, Ralph's, Publix, Dunkin Donuts, the Farmer's Market, LAX...happens more than it should considering all factors. So when I talk about them later, I might screw up the names.
This being approached by people who recognize me though I don't know who the hell they are does not bother me much due to having had a public profile for many years in the previous day job, where this kind of thing was part of the deal. It just meant that back then I had to travel 90 miles to party safely in a city far away from where my prime audience then was based, and also I couldn't date local, which can I tell you is EXTREMELY hard on the booty call front, okay? Other than that, no big deal.
Having a high threshold for this sort of thing is handy. Consider the tourists in hipster lands who are convinced I'm Whoppi and go !!omg I love you can I have an autograph!!!*** That was actually happening back when I was in college, decades before I moved to The Silver City, now that I think about it. Half the forensics team I was member of waaaay back in the day got to witness what it's like this one time in Mississippi when we stopped at a McDonald's, and the poor dear behind the counter freaked out thinking she was selling french fries to Whoppi. Be nice, be charming, be affirming, be whatever it took to get her suddenly-flushed and shaking self to stop gaping and sell my starving self some goddamned fries.
But on the other hand, my bn/bc/ba threshold can be challenged in certain situations where being aggressively mistaken for the wrong black person is ridiculous. Say ... at small genre events where attendees think I'm Nalo and go !!!omg I love your books can I talk to you about how much and also ask you detailed questions about them and then argue with you when you say you're not her!!! That pisses me off, actually. Unlike the Hollywood tourists or 19-year-olds slinging fries deep in red clay land, it takes *way too long* to convince these genre folks that they are Wrong. I know I've mentioned what happened the last time the Nebulas were in LA in passing around here, but I didn't tell the whole story because it's not funny, actually. I also didn't mention that the same thing happened at two of the three WorldCons I have attended over the years. (Those incidents, which are highly irritating, are not what will keep me from future WorldCons, though. What will keep me away from that event is that for the most part it is tiny, boring and not at all worth the money required to attend, when you consider the bang-for-buck big picture.) Truthfully, besides scheduling difficulties, what James termed The Nalo Effect keeps me from certain other cons I've heard about. Because if this particular thing happens to me at some of these other conventions on the sounds-boring-to-me-but-it-might-be-interesting-to-check-out-for-a-day list? There will be Bloodshed. You. Have. No. Idea. Interestingly,TNE never happens at the actually diverse and large CCI, which I have attended for a decade. Make of that what you will. End updtate!
Good lord. How far afield have I rambled? Let me get back on track!
As far as the immediate context is concerned, we've been here before for a bajillion years, fighting the same lies and derailing and denial and obscene acts of Wielding While Denying Doing So with each skirmish within the big picture effort. Like my friend said over and again, it's a two front war. Sometimes it's a multi-front war.
But ever it will be unto the inevitable apocalypse?*** That's where we split and argued and needled and swapped detailed examples and considered accepting the scary truths underlying the other's argument.
Meanwhile, I've gotta find time this year to get the Saunders and Faust pieces done...maybe push off the Big Ebony Attempt until 2010.
*** Which, in case it need be said, we assume in our souls would somehow involve zombies and/or something similar to Damnation Alley (book version as the movie, while entertaining in some ways, for the most part sucked ass).
*** Couple of weeks ago when The View was in town? After two days over in hipster land I hid elsewhere. When I'm on smoke break during class I learned very quickly never to stand in front of the building, and kicked myself later for not realizing that ahead of time.
