Pro-Character of Color/Anti-Racism Guide

The list below has communities for discussions about race in fannish source, links to some blogs by science fiction authors who either are of color or who address issues of race (or anti-racist blogs which sometimes address science fiction), communities for particular Characters of Color (i.e. characters who are Black & Ethnic Minorities, or played by actors who are such, even if the character is not) or fandoms whose source has a goodly percentage of Characters of Color, as well as a few more general anti-racism communities on LJ.

Let me start you off with a quick and dirty vocab list, which actually starts out with oyceter's Terms and Disclaimers for IBARW2. She defines: racism, race, racist, anti-racist, white privilege, and people of color. People who are actively participating in anti-racism on the Internet are likely to use those words in a way which matches the definitions she gives.

This vocabulary list is written by a black American woman; I do not live in nor have I traveled extensively in the rest of the Anglophone world.

PoC

Abbreviation for People of Color. Some Commonwealth people don't like the term People of Color, feeling that it centers whiteness as a standard from which the identified person(s) or cause have deviated. Some of them prefer the term non-white, which a lot of USians will not use.

non-white

Preferred Commonwealth term for people who are not white

Disfavored term in the United States, because it centers whiteness as a standard from which the identified person(s) or cause have deviated.

FoCing Cabal

Fans who are People of Color.

Characters of Color (CoC)

Characters who are People of Color. May also be applied to aliens, vampires, and other non-humans played by actors who are PoC

allies

In the context of racism, white people who are actively anti-racist. In the context of other 'isms, members of the privileged class actively fighting the oppression.

skanky race issues

A phrase used to point that someone or something is acting in a racist manner, even if they do not consciously espouse a racist ideology, in the hopes that the accused (and her/his/its defenders) will listen and comprehend the complaints without panicking.

wank/kerfuffle

Deprecated in relation to fannish discussions of racism. From a moderator's fandom_wank guidelines

We're Wankas, not wankers. We're here to laugh at people doing stupid things - think of it like one of those home video disaster shows. Most times we like to think that the people falling into streams and driving quadbikes into trees have learnt something from their mistakes, we don't get into deep discussions as to whose fault it was that the guy drove into the tree, we don't follow the guy around and poke him with a stick to see if he'll do it again; we laugh a little, exchange a quip with a friend and then we move on to the next hilarious scenario.

Talking about racism is not a stupid thing. So don't call it a wank, as if people are overreacting to something stupid. Suggested alternate vocabulary: argument, conversation, debate, fight, imbroglio, metastorm.

Discussion of source and fannish racial issues
racebending / aang_aint_white Re: the whitewashing of the live action Avatar movie
starbase_idic Discussion of the ways Star Trek approaches race, gender, queerness.
verb_noire Small press for speculative fiction featuring Cocs
exp_horizons Online magazine for speculative fiction featuring CoCs, women, queers, and genderqueers
deadbrowalking (membership via application)
∅fandom_and_race at insanejournal
ibarw International Blog Against Racism Week. Year 2 was August 6-12, 2007. (both fannish and mundane)
primevalest Primeval (British SF show) specific
bobthehaitian Heroes specific
twilight_ndnz Natives in Stephenie Meyers' Twilight series
poc_comics For discussion of creating comics as well as people of color in comics
torchbearers An Ormes Society community, features information on black female characters in comics, black female creators of comics, race and racism in comics, and general comics news.
gamers_of_color
moorishrennies People of Color who attend Renaissance Faires
worldsf companion blog to THE APEX BOOK OF WORLD SF
∅entries tagged race and posted to the newsletter metafandom
∅entries tagged religion and posted to the newsletter metafandom

non-LJ, Speculative Fiction Fandom
ofcolor People of Color in Speculative Fiction Blog Carnival (a blog carnival is like a once a month meta recsletter, featuring stuff in the wider blogosphere)
angryblackfeed The Angry Black Woman
tobiasbuckell
Carl Brandon Society addressing the representation of people of color in the fantastical genres such as science fiction, fantasy and horror
David Anthony Durham
naloblogger Nalo Hopkinson
pam_noles
Ramblings of an African Geek

non-LJ, Comics
P.O.W.E.R. in Comics Promoting: Ownership, Writing & drawing, Editing and Reading

Fannish Activity for Characters or Actors of Color

Anime Fandom
Many characters in anime are Japanese. A smaller set are East Asian but not Japanese. Some percentage are Westerners. It is too large and too quickly changing for me to provide comprehensive links, but if Japan and East Asia are areas of interest, anime is there.

Multi-fandom
vchamber Archive for Women of Color characters, both fanfiction and original welcome
iconsofcolor
poc_daily
fanficofcolor
choc_fic Characters of Color Multi-fandom Love-A-Thon (recurs periodically)
eid_fic Fanfiction about Muslim characters in celebration of Eid
daysofawesome Days of Awesome: Jewish Characters Ficathon (Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur)
bolly_fics Bollywood Fanfiction; Bollywood is the largest cinema industry in India.
The Dailies pictures of actors, musician, and models of colors. Each little picture leads to a big picture and a link to places on the internet, including, in some cases, daily pic communities.
megillahfic Megillah Guerillas: Ficathon for Purim (Jewish holiday)
purimgifts Gift Exchange for Purim
red_packet Chinese New Year fic
Remember Us fanfiction archive

Characters

Battlestar Galactica
william_adama EJO is Latino. Is Adama from a similar ethnic group on the 13th colonies? Don't know. Don't care.

CSI
warrickfic Warrick Brown
warrickb_stills Warrick Brown

CSI: Miami
delko_stillness Eric Delko
all_about_eric Eric Delko
justericdelko

Dr. Who
lifeonmartha Martha Jones
leftbehind__ Mickey Smith

Firefly
ourpreacherman Book Sheppard
zoe_fan Zoe Washburne

Harry Potter
blaisecentric Blaise Zabini
blaise100 Blaise Zabini
parvati_fans Parvati Patil
kingsleycentric Kingsley Shacklebolt
callipygianking Kingsley Shacklebolt
do_me_kingsley Kingsley Shacklebolt
kingsley_news Kingsley Shacklebolt

Heroes
simone_d Simone Devereaux
hiro_worship Hiro Nakamura
hiro_lovers Hiro Nakamura
hiros_heroes Hiro Nakamura
heroes_micah Micah Sanders
mohinderfan Mohinder Suresh
heroes_mohinder Mohinder Suresh

House
foreman_fest Eric Foreman

NCIS
zivadavid Actress Cote de Pablo is Argentinean. Being former Mossad, I'm going to take a wild guess the character is an Ashkenazi Jew. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Numb3rs
amita_rocks Amita Ramanujan
ian_edgerton

Pagan Series YA Fantasy historicals by Catherine Jenks
pagansfandom Pagan Kidrouk

Prison Break
sweet_as_sucre Fernando Sucre

Stargate Atlantis
atlantis_ford Aiden Ford
f_o_r_d Aiden Ford
ronon_sex Ronon Dex
dex_slash Ronon Dex
satedan_fire Ronon Dex
ronon_love Ronon Dex
teylafen Teyla Emmagen
teylalims Teyla Emmagen
teyla_daily Teyla Daily

Stargate SG-1
tealc_dailyTeal'c of Chulak
tealc_fic Teal'c of Chulak

Torchwood
toshiko_sato

Fandoms with large numbers of CoCs

Grey's Anatomy
Homicide: Life on the Streets
Lost
Oz

Octavia Butler's Oeuvre
octaviabutler
thesower

Eureka
eureka_haven
eureka_fanfic
eureka_icons
eureka_slash
eureka_tv

Static Shock
dakota_bangs
the_gas_station

Ugly Betty
uglybetty
uglybetty_ic
uglybettyfic
uglybettyicons
uglybettylims
ugly_vids

The Wire
hbo_thewire
hbothewirefans

Mundane anti-racism communities
racism_101
ap_racism Advanced Placement Racism
anti_racism
debunkingwhite
50books_poc
12films_poc
sex_and_race Membership closed indefinitely
ibarw International Blog Against Racism Week. Year 2 is August 6-12, 2007. (both fannish and mundane)

For this section, I was going to be quite cute and write it up as an essay with links to other essays you should read, but I doubt I will ever get that essay written. So here are some links to some essays I think you should read.

People of Color Telling Their Own Stories
The Remyth Project

Racism in General
technosage IBARW: Simplifying the language of race: some definitions
oyceter Racism on an international scale
hth_the_first helpful hint for the colorblind: BE LESS BLIND
coffeeandink How to Suppress Discussions of Racism
yeloson The Art of Defending Racism

Racefail 2009
dysprositos Racefail Bingo
2ce Maybe I'll be a Southron of Harad Someday Why it's important, what it is.
wistfuljane What is RaceFail '09? A summary of the summaries
popelizbet This Isn't Magic: An Alternate Look at the Timeline Positive actions/outcomes of racefail
rydra_wong Linkspam pt 1 and Linkspam pt 2 The most complete selection of links on RaceFail available.

Racism in Fandom
coffeandink This Again a detailed summary of a Smallville racial imbroglio. This link is included because it's an extremely typical example of the sequence that racism imbroglios follow as they spread through fandom.
rydra_wong The Great Race Discussion Linkspam A more-or-less chronological, mostly unannotated list of links to discussions about race, both thoughtful and enraging

Racism in the Source
parrotfish The myth of colorblindness: more on race in Doctor Who
just_katarin Meta | Why Maya and Alejandro’s storyline makes me uncomfortable (Heroes)
liviapenn You're Racist Against Sidekicks! No one is arguing that it's just so awful and racist to have CoCs ever shown as criminals. What they're arguing against is that it's problematic to have a show where the heroes are overwhelmingly white and the villains are overwhelmingly brown

Character use and abuse
mimesere a fannish thing that is kind of bugging me You shouldn't need a ficathon to make you write about women and people of color. … [T]here are amazingly fantastically interesting and wonderful women and characters of color *no matter what your personal character types are* and … there should be fic because they are at least as amazingly fantastically interesting and wonderful as white male characters.
zvi_likes_tv Jazz in the Machine On the lack of CoC
thete1 My *Other* Problem With Recent DC Events Race, Genre Fiction, Fandom, and the Confluence of Self-Destructive Behaviors with Self-*Protective* Behaviors. (nb Recent = 2006-09-20)
ficbyzee SIGH Are you telling me that *every* fannish darling that gets tons of porn written about them is an incredibly well-written, fleshed-out character in the canon?

Language
sameoldhope Wanking Fandom, Saving the World But when it's the next shortsighted historical AU or offensive kink challenge, or skanky body issues or cultural appropriation- stand up if you can help, shut up if you can't, but always, actively remember that these strikepoints are moments when people can literally change the world for the better. … Whatever you call that, it's not wank.
ciderpress we're in another universe. you're not in charge anymore. There are words that are personally racially offensive to me and then there are out and out universally hateful racist words.
spiralsheep In which our heroine suggests that some words are more equal than others The word "race" =/= the word "species".
ciderpress this is the worst kind of discrimination. the kind against me! on tone in discussions of race and racism
ficbyzee Lately, I've tried to distance myself from race meta in fandom It's become pretty clear to me that there *is* no proper tone that can be used while talking about race. No amount of politeness or coyness will actually make people listen, so fuck it.
hsapiens My Role as a White Member of Fandom (and Humanity)

Anti-semitism and exclusion
chopchica where's MY parade? on anti-semitism and fandom generally, followed by fourteen links of fun!
technosage about that gold star again... reaction to the Yuletide debacle
chopchica links a billion followed by links redux and some handy bullet points roundup re: the Yuletide debacle
miriam_heddy A Letter to all Yuletide Writers and Readers, and to my own personal Yuletide Writer

Whiteness and Privilege
brown_betty a primer on privilege: what it is and what it isn't.
rydra_wong Your Science Fiction Twin on white privilege
annavtree Approaches to Race for White People: A Guide

Suggested Action
brown_betty On being an ally in fandom
zvi_likes_tv The Quest for CoC
zvi_likes_tv Some advice for white people in fandom On Writing Characters of Color
brown_betty Some thoughts on writing outside my experience On writing without exoticizing
paradox_dragon Baby-stepping away from racism: A guide for white people

Metafiction
sugargroupie Only a Ghetto Pass Will Allow You Safe Passage Stargate
Jessica Harris Wesley's Liberal Guilt Angel the Series
denynothing1 We Laughed, We Cried Stargate
amific A McKay Carol Stargate Atlantis
yahtzee63 Them No-Good, Low-Down, Lando Calrissian Blues



04/08/09, added Racefail Bingo
03/30/09, added worldsf
03/22/09, Added vchamber, starbase-idic, 50books-poc, 12films-poc, verb-noire, exp-horizons, racebending, aang-aint-white, racism101, vchamber, racefail link spams, Maybe I'll be a Southron..., what is racefail, popelizbet's alt. timeline
03/03/09, Added rydra's roundup and The Remyth Project
05/15/08, Added twilight_ndnz, red_packet
05/08/08, Added ...Lando Calrissian Blues
03/01/08, Added You're Racist Against Sidekicks!
02/02/08, Added Baby-stepping away from racism: A guide for white people, My Role as a White Member of Fandom (and Humanity), A McKay Carol
01/26/08, Added purimgifts
01/20/08, Added heroes_mohinder
01/14/08, Added link to megillahfic, rononlove, teylalims, teyladaily
01/06/08, Added link to We Laughed, We Cried; bolly_fics
12/17/07, added link to Torchbearers
11/21/07, added link to Wanking Fandom, Saving the World and a fannish thing that is kind of bugging me
11/20/07, added link to This again, Meta | Why Maya and Alejandro’s storyline makes me uncomfortable , definition of wank/kerfuffle
11/18/07, added 3 Eric Delko communities
10/25/07, added metafiction section with Only a Ghetto Pass… and Wesley's Liberal Guilt.
10/23/07, added Some thoughts on writing outside my experience
10/19/07, added section on anti-Semitism, with links to where's MY parade?; about that gold star again...; A Letter to all Yuletide Writers and Readers, and to my own personal Yuletide Writer; and three link roundups by chopchica
10/14/07, added daysofawesome, removed alt. link for How to Suppress …
10/13/07, added link to eid_fic, metafandom's religion filter
9/29/07, alt. link for How to Suppress Discussions of Racism
9/17/07, added pagansfandom
9/11/07, noted that dbw membership is re-opened.
9/3/07, added essay The myth of colorblindness: more on race in Doctor Who
8/26/07, added fandom_and_race@IJ
8/25/07, added poc_daily, moorishrennies, and metafandom's race tag; reorganized essay section; added update list