Show your alliegance to the horde herd with fetching unicorn shirts and accessories. More swag and a nifty tag line on the way!

http://www.zazzle.com/unicornherd

Thank you to glockgal for artwork and mad zazzle-fu skillz!

Ever since Barristagate, and especially since Racefail09.01, there's been an uptick in the number of people who have suddenly decided that (1) fandom is interesting and needs to be studied by academics and (2) people of color in fandom talking about race and representation are *really* interesting and need to be studied by academics, in depth .

Which I guess is fine, but there's this thing where some people seem to think that any and every time people of color discuss these things its fair game and free reign for 'research'. Regardless of just how much the POC involved are actually interested in being a part of their my little pony herd research and analysis.

So. Let me make this really, really clear. In the same way it deadbro does not exist for purposes of 'educating' people who want to learn about racism, it is also does not exist to provide lurking academics with free access to useful 'data' (ie, real live people of color discussing, analyzing, and reacting to genre and speculative fiction and media).

If you want 'data'? Go find some people of color in fandom to talk to.* If you dont know any? Maybe *that* should be the focus of your research.

I'm just saying.

But I'm seriously over some of the bullshit I've seen paraded in the last six months as academic interest in people of color in scifi. My priority is creating and maintaining a safe space for people of color-- not cossetting random voyeurs, even ones in the halls of academe.




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* There's also the part where plenty of people in this community are academics themselves, and would be writing this stuff up for academic consumption themselves if they wanted to take it there. And actually, some of them already have.

School Library Journal's Good Comics For Kids has a reading list up today of comics that celebrate cultural diversity, featuring the usual suspects, plus some others that were new to me.

My 7 year old owns and loves Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dodgeball Chronicles, by Frank Cammuso.  We picked also up The Elsewhere Chronicles by Bannister and Nykko at MoCCA this year.  I "pre-read" Satchel Paige, Striking Out Jim Crow by Sturm and Tommaso, with the idea of seeing if I thought she was ready for it a little over a year ago, and it was great, but I didn't think she was ready for it.  I think she probably is now.  I'll be keeping an eye out for some of the others as well.

x-posted

I know how hard it is to find comics that feature POC and are also appropriate to give to children. If you have a little one, you might want to give Luke on the Loose a try. You can check out sample pages at the book's website. So cute!

From my friend Sumana's recent post.....

WisCon 34 wants ideas for panels. I am thinking of proposing "HOWTO Describe Nonwhite Characters Sans Fail" (a.k.a., "Her Skin Was The Color Of A Delicious Coca-Cola")

Hathor is running a contest to win a free copy of the Strain. Details here:

http://thehathorlegacy.com/the-strain-guillermo-del-toro-and-chuck-hogan/

Please forward?

I'm mad at you all.

Nobody told me how incredibly hot Anthony Montgomery is. And since I avoided Enterprise like the plague, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't discovered what an awesome time sink Memory Alpha is--especially when writing in the Mirror Universe.

For some reason, I'm picturing Mayweather and Hardison together. Yum.

so when does it start?

and where can i find some alec/eliot shipping icons?

Pam Noles is her own damn unicorn stampede. OK?

Consider my praise napkin RAISED TO THE CEILING.

xposted.

Apparently the new Transformers movie is bringin' back Sambo.

I like how Bay says 'it was for the kids.'

I told y'all good stuff happened this month! Two black women were hired by DC to write comics. No, I am not joking. Really. Angela Robinson will be handling writing chores on the new series The Web. And Felicia D. Henderson will be taking over the reins of Teen Titans starting with issue #75.

These are the second and third black women to ever write a story for a major comic book publisher. And by major, I don't mean Marvel and DC. I mean Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Oni, Avatar, Boom, First Second, IDW...well, I could go on and on. The only black female writer at a major company who predates them is Marguerite Abouet over at Drawn & Quarterly. She arrived on the scene in the States in 2007. So, this is pretty big.

Okay, a whole bunch of good stuff happened in comics while I was hidden under a pile of writing assignments this month. So, I'm going to share them with you as I sort through three weeks of e-mail remember them. One important one is the upcoming Adrenaline TPB release. I liked Adrenaline for two main reasons. One, there's a kick-ass black female character that does not end up half-naked and bleached out by the end of the series. Two, the hot, sexy ladies' man in this series is a Asian dude. How often do we see this in American comics? And if you see it often, please tell me where so I can go buy those books. I've always been a sucker for a diverse cast of characters.

Anyway, if hard-hitting action is your thing, you can check Adrenaline out for yourself over at Wowio. Like what you see? Then pick up the trade and get a free sketch!

With Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana, CCH Pounder ('Supper-time!!' *you get a cookie if you know where that line is from XD!*) and many other POC actors as well, as this intriguing plot, which potentially has all kinds of interesting real-life parallels (hello Manifest Destiny, blood diamonds, colonialization etc.) and recent buzz.

Yeah, I'm excited to see where this goes. :)

Here's their admittedly old teaser trailer:

At Racialicious.

The new transformer 'bots: 'Skids' and 'Mudflap'? ORLY? Causing all kinds of "race issues"?

You don't say.

For the love of god, don't read the comments. Or the article. Just don't click. Say no to clicking! Have some cheesecake instead! Or a tasty doughnut! Or go for a nice walk! Pet a kitty!

...gah...

( click right here for your failtastic )

Is it wrong that my first thought after seeing this was "Where's Barbossa"?

( I am sending Aldis Hodge to the corner. Really.  )

xposted.