Dr Rukmini Pande

24 Oct 17, 15 tweets, 2 min read

Me everytime I see a well liked thread about AO3: Hey maybe THIS time it'll be about its utter lack of support for fans of color

*Narrative Voice: It was not*

Guess what AO3 isn't marginal anymore... It is an organisation that raises 200k in donations TWICE A YEAR

Can you even parse that??? Most civil rights organisations don't have access to that much money

And as a platform it has exactly ZERO POLICY on racist content... And it will continue to not have a policy because the discussion is always overwhelmed by cries of BUT CENSORSHIP

Fans of color support the archive.. with money, with labour, with fic and fanart and podfic and kudoses etc... And they are consistently told that they are not worth care or consideration

We are collateral damage to fandom's paranoia about censorship... ACKNOWLEDGE THIS FACT

I'm tried of racist harrassment not being part of anyone's concern when they talk about "toxic fandom"... I'm tired of ppl saying "just filter if you don't like stuff"..IT DOESNT WORK THAT WAY

Fans critical of the AO3 are not uniformly a bunch of "purity obsessed wankers" or "too young to remember strikethrough"... THERE ARE GENUINE ISSUES HERE

Also content warnings were not invented by the AO3... neither were they accepted by fandom at large without a whole lot of pushback

I was there when ppl screamed about content warnings being a form of censorship okay I remember... But now it's broadly seen as a necessary part of fandom etiquette...

My point is that it was a difficult transition that handled thorny issues but it did happen...stop saying that a similar discussion about how to handle racist content is impossible

I have given a significant amount of money to the AO3 over the years but I will no longer do so until this lack of support is addressed

The same ppl who rail at twitter and facebook for having BAD abuse policy suddenly discover free speech issues when it come to AO3 hmmmm

I feel like this is smth I go off on every couple of months but seriously if your free speech rant doesn't contain an acknowledgement of how this intersects with race then you're part of the white fandom problem

You're participating in the erasure of the concerns of fans of colour and in their continual deferral... Your claims to intersectionality are hollow #bebetter

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Dr Rukmini Pande

@RukminiPande

1 Sep

So @henryjenkins has posted a statement+apology.

I appreciate his clarity about the problems of the initial CFP, the validity of the critiques, and the casual racism and sexism in the response.

henryjenkins.org/blog/2020/8/30…

I accept the apology (only for myself).

It will be a longer process to rebuild trust. I hope that he will continue to show via his actions that he's willing to do the necessary work that he's outlined in the post.

The other person involved, @DrWilliamProct1, has also reached out to me privately with an apology.

I acknowledge it, but I do not accept it because it continues to place the blame on Samira and myself for causing hurt and upset by our critiques.

Read 9 tweets

Dr Rukmini Pande

@RukminiPande

29 Aug

I'm just really, really devastated by this. I don't know what to say

https://twitter.com/shallowbrigade/status/1299803866448490496

Yes @SamiraNadkarni and I are the people being named in this. For pointing out that a project claiming to focus on Black Comics should give space to Black academics.

I know what a lot of Fan Studies thinks of me and my work. But it's another thing to see it spelt out. Devastated.

Read 4 tweets

Dr Rukmini Pande

@RukminiPande

29 Aug

I'm very glad there will be a series focussing on Black comics, curated by Black academics. That's vital and necessary and I look forward to it!

But once again, it should never have gotten to the point where scholars like @SamiraNadkarni had to pushback publically (again).

https://twitter.com/SamiraNadkarni/status/1299780434125926400

I also think it will be great to have a series on multicultural comics.

But, at the same time non-Black POC scholars need to understand that it's not some kind of competition. Black voices and perspectives should be centered at this moment.

It's that simple.

This moment means something specific and it involves a global reckoning with anti-Blackness.

That includes the ways in which non-Black POC contribute to and benefit from the operations of those systems.

I NEED fellow scholars to reflect on our complicity and do better.

Read 4 tweets

Dr Rukmini Pande

@RukminiPande

22 Jul

Updates on #AO3 election Q's+responses.

The (merged) Q's aren't great but the first one is a useful distillation of how a part of the AO3 and its associated fandom have responded to the query, "Do Black fans matter?"

It's basically "All Fans Matter" - fandom edition.

https://twitter.com/unnaye/status/1285651561847422979

It's also a useful distillation because it shows how much this convo has been derailed..

Ppl asking "Does the AO3 care about Black fans?" are (sneakily) framed as advocating harrassment/takedowns/ censorship over things that are "upsetting."

Hmmm what does that remind me of 🤔

I'm going to remind everyone that the #AO3 has repeatedly self-identified as a platform built on the principles of Feminist HCI, in the words of one of its founders.

(Source: muhlenberg.edu/news/2019/arch…)

Coppa, shown with author Neil Gaiman during Muhlenberg's 201

Read 5 tweets

Dr Rukmini Pande

@RukminiPande

26 Jun

It's a full circle moment because the first time I was loud about racism in fandom as a junior scholar was about Franzeska's meta.

And perhaps it's time I talked about a related experience because it exemplifies how whiteness in fandom/fan studies undermines critical voices.

Note: This is difficult for me to recount.

Because it's deeply damaging pattern that I'm only now finding the courage to name. And I know it will probably be dismissed by most.

But I'm laying it out as it might help another junior POC scholar deal with similar situations.

This was in 2016. I was yet to get my first official academic publication.

As anyone knows, this is a very precarious time for anyone, but particularly if you're a POC scholar (from the Global South) in a historically white-centric field AND you're talking about racism.

Read 10 tweets

Dr Rukmini Pande

@RukminiPande

26 Jun

Finding out that the person who had key input into AO3 warning policy ALSO wrote 16k of OPENLY racist meta justifying the dismissal of concerns of FOC is both deeply unsurprising and ALSO a slap in the face..

Yes, it MATTERS who wrote policy which is now seen as sacrosanct

https://twitter.com/stichomancery/status/1276256391733358600

When I say whiteness is baked into the #AO3, that it is in its history, its policy, and its coding, this is what I mean.

This is what MUST be confronted for any changes to be worthwhile.

I was also today days old when I learnt that she was also HEAD OF THE ABUSE TEAM for years....This explains SO MUCH about how situations like this were handled:

CW for #racism and use of slurs themardia.tumblr.com/post/152527814…

Read 8 tweets