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I'm gonna do a thread about racism in fandom, the ao3's disappointing but consistent statements, what we can do, and why we should do it. I'm white and I think white fans have to do work to fix this problem, since it's our problem in the first place. Please bear with me.
first of all, I'm indebted to Black fans and fans of colour who have taught me a lot. I'm leery to tag them because I don't want to bring more bullshit down on them, but there are many easily googled resources on racism in fandom and you should listen to them before me.
Then, some counterarguments: people making critiques of structural racism in fandom are not the same as people using social justice language to harass others. Harassment and critique are not the same. We desperately need to uncouple those.
I don't use the word "anti" because it's too overburdened with meaning, and a lot of people (intentionally and not) use it to lump together people doing important anti-racist fandom work with people getting off on harassment. it's used to justify harassment OF anti-racist POC
also, if you're wondering why we should worry about fandom racism when the world is generally on fire, the answer is, and always is, that we make progress by making changes in our local communities. all of us, in all communities we're in, have a responsibility to root out racism.
having clarified those points, here's my deal with the AO3: none of this is new to them. none of this is new to fandom. I've been in fandom 24 years and it's always been structurally racist. That doesn't mean fandom hasn't done good things, or that the ao3 hasn't done good things
but this has all been around a long time, and it's been documented, and spoken about, and discussed. this week is not the first time anyone brought up the issues of structural racism to the ao3, which is a small part of fandom, but an important one. we've all known.
so the question we should all ask ourselves is: why haven't we taken action before? I include myself in that. but I think the ao3 as an institution and an organization has a greater responsibility than the average user, because they have more power over how we experience fandom
making large-scale structural change to root out racism in our community is a long-term project. I've seen a lot of people this week discussing how hard it is, or asking "what if proposed change X leads to harm Y"? and I confess I am worried the convo will end there.
If it's hard and takes time, why haven't we been doing it? If we haven't been doing it, why not start now? If you are worried making Proposed Change X will lead to increased harassment of ao3 users - that's useful commentary, and we need to include it in the discussion.
BUT if you're saying "Proposed Change X will lead to Harm Y and therefore Proposed Change X is ridiculous and cannot be considered," you're not helping. If you're using this argument to shut down attempts to make changes, you're not helping.
If we all agree that racism is a huge problem in fandom, that pushes fans of colour and especially Black fans out of our spaces, if we agree on that, then "I don't think Proposed Change X will work" is a starting point for conversation, not an ending point.
Moreover, there are PLENTY of changes that, from my experience at least, basically all good-faith ao3 users agree on. One of them is tools to block individual users - this is not controversial. Block people from commenting on, bookmarking, or seeing your works - people want that.
(the ao3 said years ago that this feature was impossible and would never happen. Is it impossible? or is it difficult/expensive? we can also ask: why was the archive built without this feature? what structural lack of anti-harassment thinking omitted it in the first place?)
another example of a simple change people agree on is the ability to blanket-disable anon comments on works, blanket-archive lock works, and blanket-moderate comments (h/t to @15dozentimes for reminding me of these). It doesn't fix racism but it's one small tool.
If the majority of users want these changes, and notice that these changes help with ALL kinds of harassment on the archive, then why haven't they been implemented? Some might point to issues of cost or of code. Let's talk about those issues.
Cost: the ao3 isn't transparent about its use of the money it gains via fundraising. that's another pretty popular reform - budget transparency. let us see where the money goes. Budgets are moral documents and where we choose to allocate money is a moral choice. so let's see it.
IF the budgets were released, AND it was clear that there are desperate shortfalls and nothing that ought to be reallocated, I bet a lot of people would kick in money for a fundraising campaign specifically to make the changes called for by anti-racist fans of colour. I would.
(note that I've donated to the ao3 before but without budget transparency, stated commitment to specific anti-racist actions, and installment of anti-racist fans of colour in positions of power, I won't give them another dime)
so that's Cost. what about Code? I don't know anything about programming. but if the changes being proposed are absolutely impossible (not difficult or expensive) then I would like to hear alternate proposals that would affect the problem.
if you're someone who's worked with ao3's code and you're frustrated and saying "no no no we can't do X because . . . " then I want you to bring your expertise to the convo and talk about what can be done instead. Vague statements from the org saying "oh we can't" are not this.
again: we all agree, in this thread, that racism is a problem in fandom and that we're committed to working with it. there is plenty of years of documented evidence that this is a problem in our communities, so reasonable objections to a Proposed Change are fine, but not the end.
What if none of the Proposed Changes people are spitballing randomly are feasible? Well, turns out there are experts who do this for a living, and the ao3 can and should hire them. Hire people who are experts in creating safer online spaces to make recommendations.
Expertise is a great thing because there are undoubtedly tools and solutions out there that those of us who are well-intentioned would not know about or think of on our own! Hiring someone to do this is expensive, so see above re: cost.
SPEAKING OF MONEY, I would like to say I'm pretty grimace-emoji at the idea of BIPOC and fans of colour "volunteering" to do this work. If want expertise, pay for it. Stop devaluing the work of fans of colour. It's not their problem to solve so why should they work for free???
If you're one of those "but fandom is a gift economy!" people, maybe think about how few fuckin gifts BIPOC and other fans of colour have been given by fandom. I've seen people give to fandom endlessly for years to get spat on. More free labour is not an anti-racist proposal.
There's a delicate balance in all anti-racist movements where we need to be led by Black voices and other POC voices, but must not put the burden of labour on them
I'm rambling, so I want to come back to the main point: none of this is new. No one started talking about this last week. We're late. That doesn't mean hastily install poorly thought-through changes, but it means let's get to work. There are basic changes we can fight for TODAY.
The more long-term stuff, the structural racism in fandom that leads to things like the appropriation of Black pain for white characters or the erasure/demonization of characters of colour, those are harder to fix with little policy changes, but that just means we do more work.
Lastly, strategy. SINCE the ao3 is more conservative than most good faith actors in this conversation, and SINCE the ao3 refuses to even state a dedication to the basic principles of anti-racism, I would say that the strategy of asking nicely has not worked.
It's been years. They've had years. They have not prioritized this even at the level of lip-service. So, I would suggest an escalating campaign to put increasing pressure on the ao3 to make these changes. The first step, a lot of people are already doing: a write-in campaign.
Go here to contact the ao3, and be specific about the statements, changes, and priorities you want to see addressed. Look to anti-racist Black fans and fans of colour for these priorities. https://www.transformativeworks.org/contact_us/
Flood their inbox. Remember: we're past being polite.
Flood their inbox. Remember: we're past being polite.
(that doesn't mean curse them out or harass them, it means illustrate to them that this is the thing they have to deal with to make the emails stop. they refused to prioritize this, so prioritize it for them.)
Next steps might be things like:
- a petition with specific demands
- writing articles in fan publications etc. on the ao3's failure to deal with anti-racism in fandom
- calling out specific people in power to make changes or discuss why those changes can't be made
- a petition with specific demands
- writing articles in fan publications etc. on the ao3's failure to deal with anti-racism in fandom
- calling out specific people in power to make changes or discuss why those changes can't be made
oh, I forgot to talk about one other thing: the Abuse Team. In addition to budget transparency, there should be transparency about how the Abuse Team functions, what criteria it uses, what training people get, and those things should be open to community scrutiny.
the other piece of strategy I would encourage everyone towards is speaking about this in your specific fannish spaces, wherever those are. don't be afraid to bring it up with people. talk about how structural racism impacts your fannish space (because it does)
create awareness and consensus among those you're close to in fandom, and then use that awareness and consensus to motivate action (like emailing, building a petition, etc.)
I hope this thread has made clear that making anti-racist changes to the ao3 is not a matter of cost, ability, or even the will of most users. the reason we haven't made anti-racist changes before is because the ao3 didn't prioritize it and we users didn't push for it.
everyone talks about fandom as if it's a progressive feminist space, about the ao3 as a feminist archive, but something isn't feminist just because women made it. you're not feminist if you're not anti-racist. if you took pride in winning a Hugo or have ever loved fandom, get in
because we have a responsibility to make that good feeling actually accessible to everyone in our community, or who would be in our community except for the racism. I'm tired of seeing the ao3 and fans in general talk a good game and not do things. let's do things.
will add since folks are reasonably asking: yes, the ao3 does post a budget breakdown every year, and I think I made a mistake in saying that it wasn't specific enough in terms of line-items (relying on memory of previous years, sorry!)
they say here in the 2019 document that they have reserves for a "rainy day" so . . . https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/12422?show_comments=true
I do think that there can be increased budget transparency here still, though, especially in terms of decision making, urgency of items, priorities, etc.
I do think that there can be increased budget transparency here still, though, especially in terms of decision making, urgency of items, priorities, etc.
another great action item: https://twitter.com/Olive2Read/status/1272941678572105729
more info talking about how these changes require investment, which we should make. https://twitter.com/regretsonmain/status/1272943321091133440
(nb: I'm not perfectly informed, I'm missing stuff and made mistakes above. the focus should still be on the ao3 making public statements and commitments, with timetables and discussion of problems or concerns, that will address racism at the site.)
