{"id":2682,"date":"2012-09-28T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T18:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/?p=2682"},"modified":"2015-07-15T11:08:08","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T15:08:08","slug":"are-you-kidding-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2012\/09\/28\/are-you-kidding-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you kidding me?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.racialicious.com\/2012\/09\/25\/reverse-oppresion-a-fad-that-needs-to-end\/\">Sparky<\/a> at Racialicious.]<\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/809008221\/out-boy-meets-girland-is-imprisoned-for-it\">&#8220;reverse discrimination&#8221; bullshit<\/a> got funded?! WHY?<\/p>\n<p>Re plot summary: SNORE. Also&#8230;saddest song, smallest violin.<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I&#8217;ve started swearing in my LJ again. There&#8217;s too much bullshit in the world that needs calling out as such.<\/p>\n<p>EDIT: Wow, it gets <i>worse.<\/i> First off, the author says that she wrote this bullshit because anti-gay bigots need to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preblebooks.com\/apps\/blog\/why-did-i-write-out\">&#8220;to feel, through the love story of Chris and Carmen, the wrenching horror of being denied the person you love.&#8221;<\/a> Yeah, somehow, reading about a persecuted straight couple will make anti-gay bigots more sympathetic to queers. Given that many anti-gay bigots believe that they are personally being persecuted right here and now by the &#8220;homosexual agenda,&#8221; I doubt that a book making queers the majority will promote empathy in said anti-gay bigots. They&#8217;d read it as a cautionary tale of what will happen to this civilization if we let those evil queers have their so-called &#8220;rights.&#8221; No, Preble, your book does not challenge anti-gay bigotry. It <i>supports <\/i>anti-gay bigotry.<\/p>\n<p>Second of all, she thinks she&#8217;s some sort of fearless crusader with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preblebooks.com\/apps\/blog\/love-is-love\">a message from &#8220;the Universe&#8221; to &#8220;[l]ive your truth.&#8221;<\/a> Hey, Preble&#8230;your truth is that you&#8217;re full of heteronormative privilege. Also self-aggrandizing bullshit.<\/p>\n<p>Third, she&#8217;s laboring under the misconception that her book is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preblebooks.com\/apps\/blog\/love-is-love\">&#8220;LGBT fiction.&#8221;<\/a> News flash for the clueless &#8212; in order to be classified as &#8220;LGBT fiction,&#8221; your book has to feature some lesbian and\/or gay and\/or bisexual and\/or trans characters as sympathetically portrayed individuals whose experiences are worth sharing. You can&#8217;t just write a story\u00a0 with some lesbian and\/or gay and\/or bi and\/or trans characters who function <i>not<\/i> as characters, but as poorly wielded anvils to hammer home the Important Theme [tm] that Anti-Gay Bigotry Is Wrong. &#8220;LGBT&#8221; fiction requires valuing, promoting and centering various varieties of &#8220;LGBT&#8221; experiences, which Preble obviously can&#8217;t do.<\/p>\n<p>Fourth and most disgustingly, Preble feeds us some argle-bargle about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preblebooks.com\/apps\/blog\/can-fiction-change-minds\">writing this book in support of her gay son.<\/a> Jesus Christ, if she <i>really<\/i> wished to support her son, why didn&#8217;t she help to organize her local city&#8217;s Pride celebration, join PFLAG, staff the fundraising phones at a marriage equality organization [since that&#8217;s one of her pet causes]? At least do something directly related to queers. As mind-blowing as it may be to hear this, Preble, writing about straight people does <i>not<\/i> further the cause of queer civil rights. In fact, it just reinforces the broad societal assumption that the only stories worth telling are heteronormative ones. Get it? <i>You&#8217;re not helping.<\/i> Shut up; bug off, and stop colonizing my subgenre. We don&#8217;t want you here.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t expect Preble to get it, though. Her brain is so stuffed with straight privilege that there&#8217;s no room for any critical thought. I mean, look &#8212; she apparently doesn&#8217;t think queers exist. She addresses her blog audience [and putative readership] as follows: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preblebooks.com\/apps\/blog\/can-fiction-change-minds\">&#8220;If the way you are, ie, attracted to people of the opposite sex, was criminalized, how would you feel?&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Three things, Preble: 1) You appear to be operating under the strange and old-fashioned notion that sexes have &#8220;opposites,&#8221; a concept that is both factually incorrect and incoherent. What do you even mean here?<\/p>\n<p>2) I AIN&#8217;T STRAIGHT. I am not attracted to people of the &#8220;opposite&#8221; sex. Amazing, huh? Not everyone in the world is just like you.<\/p>\n<p>3) It ain&#8217;t a conditional for me. The way I am <i>is<\/i> criminalized in some places, maybe not where I live, but elsewhere. Though I might have certain freedoms that people in more restricted places do not, we all suffer from the same societal biases. Don&#8217;t tell me and others like me that our lives are speculative fiction. You don&#8217;t get to dictate my reality.<\/p>\n<p>Oh wait&#8230;I have a fourth thing. 4) I read your sample chapter of this book, and you can&#8217;t write for shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Thanks to Sparky at Racialicious.] This &#8220;reverse discrimination&#8221; bullshit got funded?! WHY? Re plot summary: SNORE. Also&#8230;saddest song, smallest violin. P.S. I&#8217;ve started swearing in my LJ again. There&#8217;s too much bullshit in the world that needs calling out as such. EDIT: Wow, it gets worse. First off, the author says that she wrote this&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2012\/09\/28\/are-you-kidding-me\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Are you kidding me?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[692,657,656,733],"class_list":["post-2682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heteronormativity","tag-people-of-color","tag-racism","tag-stupid-straight-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5219,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions\/5219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}