Safe Stories in Long Hidden

I started this post a bunch of times, and kept getting bogged down.  And then the Hugos happened, and Kameron Hurley's "We Have Always Fought" won (deservedly) and I re-read it (you should to), and I stopped focusing on arguing about the place of women in wars (not really the point, and the fact that I was focusing there showed I was missing the point), and instead started focusing on llamas and the way they're written about versus how we actually experience them (hint, not actually about llamas).  And then I realized that not only had I re-read a darn good (and award winning!) essay, but also I could lean on Kameron for this piece.

So let's take as a given that stories give us a lens to look at the world, and that sometimes the lens of story can be as influential as our actual experiences, particularly when we don't have a lot of firsthand experience.  And if you don't want to take that as a given, then maybe go read "We Have Always Fought", don't argue with it like I did, and then come back here.  I'll also drop some more links at the bottom.

Long Hidden is an anthology of stories from the margins of history.  (Have I mentioned you should buy it?) Many of those stories are about experiences and histories that I have very little firsthand exposure to, and haven't even read much about.  One of the things I'm most grateful to the authors and editors for is creating a safe space to read these stories.  I don't have to go in with my guard up, looking for a Magical Negro, Damsel in Distress or other damaging stereotypes, but could instead open myself up to unfamiliar experiences.  Two stories in particular really created a safe space for me: The Witch of Tarup and A Score of Roses.  (Witch of Tarup discussed first, with few spoilers, Score of Roses second with all the spoilers).

In The Witch of Tarup, there are a number of characters with physical disabilities.  Some permanent, some temporary.  Traditionally, disabled characters tend to be portrayed as either bitter and angry or else fonts of wisdom who transcend their disability.  Either way, they are defined by that disability.  The Witch of Tarup features neither.  The disabled characters fit into their story and community.  They need assistance at times, but can function with their disability, and are defined by their other characteristics and other ways they've fit into the community.  The story was one of my favorites from the anthology simply in the way it spun out and revealed the very touching conclusion, but also because it gave me a safe space to think about disability as a part of the whole person, rather than the defining characteristic.

Troy Wiggins' A Score of Roses also provides a safe space to tell a story too often negatively stereotyped in both fiction and media.  (Spoilers ahead!)  The two characters in 1870's Memphis are clearly identified as members of the black community by the use of African American Vernacular English (since I had to look up AAVE when I first saw it), but also as non-human spirits.  Together they fall in love, court, raise a child, and the mother (at least) leaves the family.  It is, viewed baldly, a story about what could be described as a broken family, where the child is growing up with only one parent present, the other absent with no clear indication when or if she'll return.  But mostly it's an incredibly tender story about parents falling in love and passing on their strength and identity to their children.  I did not, at all, get the sense from A Score of Roses that the family was broken in any way.  Instead I found myself smiling at the affirmation of strength and love that the characters had for each other.  It was only reflecting afterwards that I realized Troy was threading a needle by telling a story about strength and love in a family situation so often demonized or characterized as broken.  A Score of Roses may not all by itself tear down all of my preconceptions about what family means, but it certainly highlighted some of the ways those preconceptions are dangerous, flawed, and created by narratives.  (Scaly llamas!)

(After re-reading A Score of Roses, I've also remembered what a simply beautiful story it is.  Unfinished: a more detailed response to A Score of Roses by itself, because I have done this story an injustice by only bringing up the way it presents a nontraditional family in a safe, loving and supportive way).

Many of the stories in Long Hidden create safe spaces in one way or another, or challenge the stereotypes that other narratives have created.  I'm grateful to the authors and editors for doing so in a respectful way, and providing me a space to read stories that may make me uncomfortable, but also always challenged and rewarded me.  It's an incredible anthology.

If "We Have Always Fought" wasn't enough for you, more resources on the way our worldview is shaped by narrative, and some of the dangers that entails:
MedievalPOC, which shows how people of color have been removed from our view of medieval and early modern european society.
Nnedi Okorafor on The Magical Negro
Mary Robinette Kowal on writing the stereotype of the "psychotic half breed" while trying to combat other stereotypes
Ta-Nehisi Coates' point that Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns blows up the myth that black ghettoes were caused by illiterate broken families migrating to the north
Ann Leckie on restaurants that do (or don't) punch people in the face.  (Again, not really about restaurants)

Edited to correct title of The Witch of Tarup

Unfinished -
Review of A Score of Roses

A few thoughts on Ferguson

No bookshelves tonight. [actually, book thoughts at the end]  I've been on Twitter following coverage of the protests in Ferguson, and I have a few thoughts.  In no particular order.

First, there are people smarter than me writing about this.  If you're on twitter, I'd suggest looking for faces that aren't white. Also Saladin Ahmed for general notions about the experience of being nonwhite in America (plus a great book and information on old comics!).  Also this article: "America is not for black people".  But mostly I'd suggest that if you want thoughts about how a white cop shot a black kid and the police came out as basically a paramilitary force to suppress a community venting it's frustration and anger there are people who can express and inform better than me.

Second, the FAA closed airspace around Ferguson, MO to press helicopters.  So there's some level of federal cooperation with what I understand are primarily county police and officials.  That's terrible.  Especially because it's primarily directed at preventing coverage of what's going on.

Third, early Twitter response (for me) to this came from people of color.  Then women who I typically associate with social justice activism.  Only more recently have I seen privileged white men (primarily in the tech space) getting interested in what's going on in Ferguson.  That seems telling to me.

Fourth, there's a lot of deliberately inflammatory information floating around.  Quips about how Ferguson cops don't have dash cams but do have military equipment are obnoxious.  City policy aren't leading this crackdown, the county is.  Separate government agencies.  What's going on is bad enough, why should such misleading comments seem necessary to rile up anger?

Fifth, this is a really good reminder (for me) that the heat of the moment is a terrible time to make policy.  Because a common point being made is that this is a great argument for putting dash cams in every policy car and cameras on every officer.  And that's true.  And from what I understand, cameras have been shown to reduce overall complaints of police misconduct and police violence and have also (anecdotally) protected policy against false accusations of abuse.  It took a reminder from Twitter to me that there are serious privacy implications to putting cameras everywhere: with a few minor tweaks that turns our society into an essentially unprecedented surveillance state.  There are downsides.  Privacy protections are essential, and any sweeping structural changes shouldn't be made in the heat of the moment.

Sixth, police harassment of journalists brought a bunch of journalists to complain on Twitter in ways I hadn't seen previously.  (And by "harassment" I mean: ordering journalists to leave a McDonalds, stop recording officers, assaulting the journalists, arresting them, releasing them with no paperwork, record, or obvious means to seek recourse, and denying information about the officers' identity.  All of this is awful).  Journalists are right that if police feel entitled to act this way towards journalists supported by national organizations, what are they going to do to people without such a platform, but it still looks pretty bad to see them coming to the defense of two white men when paramilitary forces are shooting rubber bullets, sonic cannons and tear gas at a black community.

Seventh, there's something here about how this wouldn't have been reported even a few years ago and the incredible power of social media.

Eighth, it seems to me that there's a lot of very sophisticated tactics going on, with no real strategy supporting them.  I'm guessing that the FAA no fly zone was triggered by a request from local authorities.  The SWAT forces with military equipment have probably had a lot of training on specific scenarios, including riot suppression.  With no particular information, I'd speculate that probably the majority of crowd interaction training for these cops has been related to crowd control, and probably most of the focus has been on violent riots.  Tactically, I'm guessing the cops on the ground are doing what they've been trained to do and drilled on.  Strategically, it appears no one is seriously considering press freedoms, freedom of assembly, the possibility that legitimate grievances can be aired in nonviolent ways, or the ways in which this response is waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Ninth (and here's where we get to books), this tactics-no-strategy approach seems related to an increasingly militarized policy force.  I read an excerpt of Radley Balko's Rise of the Warrior Cop.  It's absolutely worth a read.  The military-industrial complex has moved from the military to local police forces.  And that leads to certain types of responses to situations like what's going on in Ferguson.  (Let's also make no mistake - there's gotta be a lot of money in providing equipment and training to all of these police forces).  Similarly (and again at least partially driven by capitalist concerns), we as a society have very specific repressive approaches to policing communities of color and specifically black communities.  (Here I'd suggest Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow which I have read and found incredibly enlightening.)  I was perhaps most shocked to learn that a generation ago the trend was away from incarceration and towards other approaches to crime.  Now, of course, the incarceration rate of the US is the highest in the world.  The school-to-prison pipeline is a thing, as is the prison-industrial complex (because of course incarceration is increasingly being handed to private organizations.  As with local police forces, basic constitutional rights aren't high on their list of priorities).
This isn't a case of "evil" as I've seen mentioned in a few places on twitter.  There are powerful societal and commercial forces that have worked to make sure that police forces in black communities are focused on repressing people especially young men.  These forces laid the seeds for a white cop to shoot a fleeing black kid.  These forces trained the paramilitary organization in St. Louis County to respond with military tactics and equipment when a community gathered to protest this murder.  We don't get to say "look at those bad people over there".  Our society laid the foundation for the events in Ferguson.  Individuals, policymakers, authors and others have warned us.  We (collectively) did not stop the trends in place.  And so Cliven Bundy and his friends can point sniper rifles at federal agents and escape unscathed while SWAT teams point sniper rifles at a grieving community.

Tenth (and finally, but here are more books), we need to get over our obsession with dystopic fiction.  We have had the warnings about what happens when language is redefined so that imminent danger is months or years away (1984).  We know what happens when patriarchal theocracies take charge (Handmaid's Tale).  We know what happens when corporations and the profit motive are allowed to infiltrate such levels of government (Neuromancer, among others, although I will admit that here my ignorance of dystopias is showing).  We aren't going to find outlines of the incredible power of the government to create a racist society that the indictments located in Ta Nehisi Coates' The Case for Reparations or The New Jim Crow.  What we need now are more books that wrestle in a positive way with the implications of our technology.  Governments have listened.  They have learned.  Science Fiction has the power to inspire.  Inspire us to ensure privacy while empowering citizens in an age of always-on communication.  Inspire us to change subconscious prejudices and assumptions so that we can expand our idea of community.  Inspire us to challenge the powers of centralized capital with decentralized outrage.  I'm tired of dystopias.  I can see them wherever I look.  Show me a Utopia.

OK, now I'm done.