This year's IBARW will take place between July 27 through August 2.

Please do let me know if they overlap with major holidays though!

How Can You Help?

1. I need people to help compile links to posts. In 2007, there were four of us and about 500 posts; in 2008, there were about 250 posts. I have no idea what the volume for this year will be. Each person will basically take a day, put up a post in the ibarw comm, then tag links in the IBARW del.icio.us. If there aren't enough people to do one day/week, we'll rotate. We'll also keep track of requests to retag posts in case something is tagged wrong. Also, if you can read a language that isn't English, that would also be really useful for tagging non-English posts.



2. If you're not American by self-definition, I would really, really, really appreciate a post or posts from you, as the "international" part of IBARW is very important. Extra love and appreciation if you aren't from an English-speaking country/nationality. Posts in non-English languages are also very welcome!



3. Spread the word!
   
   I especially need volunteers for this this year; I'm a little short on mental health resources and won't be able to do much outreach.



4. Post! If you're white and don't want to take attention away from POC bloggers, I respect that. But if you still want to contribute without taking attention away, you can also links to posts by POC or drive traffic or search for IBARW links for the compilers.

Suggestions and critique welcome here.

This year's IBARW will take place between July 27 through August 2.

I know the dates are squashed between a lot of summer conventions, which I apologize for. Please do let me know if they overlap with major holidays though!

The completely optional theme is global. I'd particularly love entries on race and racism from a global perspective, on post-colonialism, on the aftereffects of imperialism, on grassroots movements coming out of the Global South, and etc.

Entries in non-English languages are especially appreciated!

Please help spread the word!

Suggestions and critique welcome here.

Hi guys,

oyceter and I have been talking for a while about using ibarw for a weekly newsletter collecting posts about sf/f, fandom, and race. rydra_wong has graciously given us permission to replicate her RaceFail09/Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of DOOM 2009 in the IBARW delicious account, and jinian and kate_nepveu have begun testing a script that will autopost delicious bookmarks here.

What we still need:
Volunteers who will set a consistent newsletter gathering and tagging policy, and who will take responsibility for gathering and tagging relevant posts.

Please comment on this post or email me with the Subject "IBARW Newsletter" at coffeeandink-at-gmail-dot-com to volunteer.

Thanks!

eta: I will be responding to people Monday 3/16. Sorry for the delay! Also, we still could use more volunteers. :)

I'm posting this late in the conversation, for which I apologize.

Although mac_stone has stepped down from diversity2009, the project is still one that I would not associate IBARW with, for the following reasons (please follow the links back, because the people writing there have much more eloquent and better fleshed-out arguments than I do):

• It is impossible to separate the community and the specific effort from the context and background from which it originated, and asking people to do so, particularly when they have had to put up with as many insults and condescension as Willow has, is dishonest and unfair and hurtful.


• Looking at the origins of the project shows that it assumes other groups in SF/F have been doing nothing, particularly other anti-racist groups, since this started out in an argument about racism. This is particularly galling, given Willow's commitment to social justice both in her own blog (linked above) and in her leadership in projects such as (but not limited to) the POC in SF Carnival.


• Most importantly: this is not an individual instance. This is part of a pattern*.
  
  These links are taken largely from the feminist movement, because that's the one I know best, but this co-opting, this lack of outreach, this constant re-writing of the narrative to ignore POC activities in favor of those started by white people is not new, to this community of SF/F fandom or to more communities than I can count. And it is not right.

This is not to say that a project similar to this one is futile. But for one to succeed, it must come from people who can prove their commitment to social justice and from people willing to work with—bottom up, not top down—the very communities they want to help.

* eta: To clarify, I am specifically singling out my own failure to engage in outreach and IBARW's origin as a project largely unaware of other POC efforts.

IBARW3 ran from August 4 through August 10 in 2008 and had a total of 236 tagged posts, 209 of which had content (i.e. were not just announcement-only posts). This is down from last year, which had around 500 some posts, but around the same level as IBARW1. On the other hand, the percentage of nonwhite people/POC posting is growing, from roughly 25% in IBARW1 to roughly 35% in IBARW2 to roughly 50% in IBARW3. The numbers are very loose, since the way we tag means one post can be by.multiracial.people, by.nonwhite.people and by.poc, or a combination thereof, depending on the preference of the individual poster.

Even though the numbers are imprecise and collected in less-than-rigorous circumstances, I run them because otherwise, perception skews things.

Up until now, I was a little disappointed that IBARW3 had substantially fewer posts; I know the effort I put in was less than the past two years, thanks to real-life chaos, and I was worried that lack of dedication from me affected the turn-out. I'm not sure if fewer posts are indicative of my own failure, of general burn-out, of the perception that IBARW isn't necessary, or a combination of the above and even more reasons. But I am glad to see the percentage of nonwhite people/POC posting going up every year.

In terms of numerically unsubstantiated trends, I saw fewer "this is the story of how I learned racism existed and how it made me feel," more posts that went deeper, and fewer posts examining whiteness. I don't think examining whiteness in and of itself is bad—in fact, it's often necessary—but it also shouldn't be the dominating subject. And setting the optional theme of "intersectionality" meant a plethora of awesome posts on the subject.

For IBARW4, I'd like to increase the number of non-English posts and increase the number of posts about non-US countries, with a particular focus on non-"Western" countries. This was my goal for IBARW3 as well, though not a successful one. There's also a noticeable lack of posts by Latin@s, as there was in the past two years; I need to do more outreach.

The following links are my favorites from this year, and as such, are a little idiosyncratic. I went less for generalized posts on racism and discourse on racism and more for posts that really looked into specific problems or issues. This is not to make a value judgment on generalized posts on racism or posts on discourse on racism, since I find both extremely helpful and useful, but more of an attempt to differentiate this carnival edition from last year's, which had more of the general posts.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality was this year's optional theme because many of us are not easily carved into parts, and so, racism affects our other oppressions and vice versa. Wikipedia has a definition and history of the term, along with a longer explanation. ( Read more... )

Internationality

Last year I noted that I didn't want "international" to mean "everything but the US" but couldn't think of a better term. This year, I still can't think of a better term, although this section is now specifically to highlight the critique of IBARW as "International Blog Against Racism Week." logovo1 is right; the English-centricity of IBARW should not be the norm. ( Read more... )

Nonwhite/POC voices, Nonwhite/POC experiences

Many of the posts on intersectionality could have gone in here as well, and I could have picked many more from the posts in IBARW3, but was limited by time and energy. ( Read more... )

Race and Racism and ____

More specific topics that deal with race and racism. ( Read more... )

Discourse on Racism

Because how we talk about things and what words we use matter. ( Read more... )

Last year, I forgot to link to 50books_poc, a community dedicated to reading 50 books by POC in a year, although each individual who takes up the challenge has her/his own way. This year, Skin Coloured, a site dedicated to photographing "skin" tone products on non-white people, started up.

Also, this year, IBARW ran through August 6, the day the US dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945 has information on how nuclear testing disproportionately affects nonwhite people/POC.

Finally, read more on the history of IBARW, check out recommended reading, make suggestions for IBARW4, or let me know if your posts were not tagged or tagged wrong.

Thanks for reading the IBARW3 edition of the POC in SF Carnival. The next carnival will be hosted by delux_vivens at deadbrowalking, and the theme is "Men of Colour in Speculative Fictions." Check out the main site for information on how to submit.

Hi all!

Any suggestions, brainstorming, or critique for IBARW4 is extremely welcome! I particularly want to focus on the "international" aspect of IBARW next year and encourage posting on more non-US and/or non-Western countries and in non-English languages.

Technical critique is also very helpful; how does del.icio.us work for people? Is there another format we should consider?

Thanks.

Thanks so much to everyone who's participated so far! And special thanks to xanphibian, melayneseahawk, hari_mirchi, and poilass for their help with link compiling!

Please let us know if you have a post for IBARW here. Or you can add the IBARW del.icio.us account to your del.icio.us network and tag links for us there using the "for: ibarw" tag.

You are free to use your own timezone's Sunday; each link compiler is responsible for a specific post and will grab things on that post.

PSST: It will help a lot on del.icio.us if you title your entry something topical, as opposed to just "Intl. Blog Against Racism Week."

If your entry has been tagged wrong, I apologize! Please comment here, and I'll go through and fix stuff.

If you have a post for IBARW, please let us know by posting a comment here or send your links via del.icio.us by using the for:ibarw tag. It will help with compiling if you title your blog entry with something topical as opposed to "IBARW".

You are free to use your own timezone's Saturday; each link compiler is responsible for a specific post and will grab things on that post.

If your entry has been tagged wrong, I apologize! Please comment here, and I'll go through and fix stuff.

If you have a post for IBARW, please let us know by posting a comment here or send your links via del.icio.us by using the for:ibarw tag.

It will help with compiling if you title your blog entry with something topical as opposed to "IBARW".

You are free to use your own timezone's Friday; each link compiler is responsible for a specific post and will grab things on that post.

If your entry has been mistagged, please comment here, so it can be fixed.

If you have a post for IBARW, please let us know by posting a comment here or send your links via del.icio.us by using the for:ibarw tag. It will help with compiling if you title your blog entry with something topical as opposed to "IBARW".

You are free to use your own timezone's Thursday; each link compiler is responsible for a specific post and will grab things on that post.

If your entry has been tagged wrong, I apologize! Please comment here, so it can be fixed

If you have a post for IBARW, please let us know by posting a comment here or send your links via del.icio.us by using the for:ibarw tag. It will help with compiling if you title your blog entry with something topical as opposed to "IBARW".

You are free to use your own timezone's Wednesday; each link compiler is responsible for a specific post and will grab things on that post.

If your entry has been tagged wrong, I apologize! Please comment here, and I'll go through and fix stuff.

If you have a post for ibarw, please let us know by posting a comment here or send your links via del.icio.us by using the for:ibarw tag. It will help with compiling if you title your blog entry with something topical as opposed to "IBARW".

If your entry has been tagged wrong, comment here so it can be corrected.

For 2008, IBARW will take place between August 4 through August 10.

If you would like to participate, here's what to do:

1. Announce the week in your blog.



2. ETA: If you use a blogging system that allows post icons/pictures, switch your default icon to either an official IBARW icon, or one which you feel is appropriate. To get an official IBARW icon, you may modify one of yours yourself or ask someone to do so. Here's a round up of IBARW icons.



3. Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of color, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc. (Linking back here is highly appreciated!) The optional theme this year is intersectionality.

For inspiration, here are the previous years' IBARW posts and last year's POC in SF Carnival IBARW edition. You can also check out this post or delicioused recommended reading for further resources.

We'll be compiling links for IBARW3 as well, both in the IBARW del.icio.us account and with daily round-ups on this journal. Here's the round-up post for Monday, Aug. 4, 2008.

Please to be noting that the nifty posting of links from del.icio.us to LJ is still undergoing troubleshooting, so right now, the best way to check for new IBARW links is the del.icio.us account.

PSST: It will help a lot on del.icio.us if you title your entry something topical, as opposed to just "Intl. Blog Against Racism Week."

Please let us know if you have a post for IBARW here!

Or you can add the IBARW del.icio.us account to your del.icio.us network and tag links for us there using the "for: ibarw" tag.

There will be a new link gathering post each day to help us spread out the labor of posting links.

You are free to use your own timezone's Monday; each link compiler is responsible for a specific post and will grab things on that post.

PSST: It will help a lot on del.icio.us if you title your entry something topical, as opposed to just "Intl. Blog Against Racism Week."

If your entry has been tagged wrong, I apologize! Please comment here, and I'll go through and fix stuff.

This year's IBARW will take place between August 4 through August 10 (although please let me know if the dates conflict with important holidays). The theme (completely optional) is "Intersectionality," as in, the intersections of various oppressions (ex. racism + sexism, racism + ablism). Suggestions and critique welcome here.

How Can You Help?

1. I need people to help compile links to posts. Last year, there were four of us and about 500 posts; I'm hoping this year will be bigger. Each person will basically take a day, put up a post in the ibarw comm, then tag links in the IBARW del.icio.us. If there aren't enough people to do one day/week, we'll rotate. We'll also keep track of requests to retag posts in case something is tagged wrong. Also, if you can read a language that isn't English, that would also be really useful for tagging non-English posts.



2. Volunteer to make icons! Examples from last year.



3. If you're not American by self-definition, I would really, really, really appreciate a post or posts from you, as the "international" part of IBARW is very important. Extra love and appreciation if you aren't from an English-speaking country/nationality. Posts in non-English languages are also very welcome!



4. Spread the word!



5. Post! If you're white and don't want to take attention away from POC bloggers, I respect that. But if you still want to contribute without taking attention away, you can also links to posts by POC or drive traffic or search for IBARW links for the compilers.

This year's IBARW will take place between August 4 through August 10 (although please let me know if the dates conflict with important holidays).

Poll #1186824 IBARW3 theme
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What optional theme should IBARW3 have?

Also, comments, suggestions, brainstorming, and critique for IBARW3 is always welcome here.

A brief history and explanation of IBARW

International Blog Against Racism Week (IBARW) originated in an email discussion among coffeeandink, liviapenn, minnow1212, rachelmanija, rilina and me, but for me, the origins go back to the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of DOOM. ( Read more... )

And now, massive linkage!

Please note that these were taken out of IBARW1 and IBARW2; there are about 700+ posts for both of them combined, and I encourage looking through the whole list, because there is no way I could cover everything. I've also kept all of my own posts out, though I am not above giving you all a link to them.

POC voices on POC experiences

I especially want to highlight POC voices because we are so often silenced, drowned out, and ignored. The disclaimer is as always: there is no singular POC experience, no one Asian or black or Native or Latin@ or multiracial experience. Not all written-by-POC posts are here; these are ones that focus specifically on being a POC, and they range from the very personal to the academic to every shade in between. I'm roughly grouping these by axes of affiliation. While there was relatively good representation of black and Asian posters, I still want more representation of POC, particularly of POC outside the US, indigenous people and Natives, and Latino@s. ( Read more... )

Intersectionality

Because race isn't the only thing some of us worry about, and because it's not as simple as saying "This is just race, this is just gender, and this is just sexuality." ( Read more... )

International perspectives

I wasn't sure what to title this. I don't want "international" to imply that the US is above nationhood, but I also didn't want to define the section by a negative. So really, it should be something like "the US is not actually the center of the world." Most of these are written about other English-speaking countries; I suspect this may always end up dominating given that IBARW started in English, but I really want to include more countries and continents going forward. ( Read more... )

Discourse on racism

A lot of what I've seen becoming more "mainstreamed" the past year has been talk on how we talk about racism. I use "mainstreamed" ironically, since a) the space I've been immersed in isn't really mainstream (media fandom), b) using that term completely ignores how this has been in international discourse for a very long time, and c) completely ignores the thriving anti-racist blogosphere. ( Read more... )

On privilege

White privilege, the flip side of racism. ( Read more... )

Unlearning racism

I had originally titled this "for allies," as some of the posts are specifically on being a white ally. But some are for people who just started thinking about racism and don't know what to do, and I am always aware that I can do more as well.( Read more... )

Race and Racism and ____

Tthese are posts that look deeper into a specific topic and show how race and racism works there. ( Read more... )

Critique and support of IBARW

There's been critique of IBARW from various angles. ( Read more... )

Finally, if you'd like to read more, check out the delicioused recommended reading or IBARW's race-related resources.

Thank you all for reading the special IBARW edition of the POC in SF Carnival! The fourth carnival will be hosted by sparkymonster at the end of October. Please see the main site on how to submit your links and articles next time.

My goals for IBARW3 are to get more participation from other areas of the blogsphere (fandom and non-fandom), more international participation, and more POC participation. I'd also like to see IBARW in other corners of fandom, such as the gaming community, off LJ, the RPF community, etc.

I'm also planning on checking in with the admins of various anti-racist communities to see if I can do a little "IBARW coming up!" post when IBARW3 gets closer.

I was also considering doing a topic for each year (ex. intersectionality for IBARW3); it would be completely voluntary, but may be helpful for some people as a place to start.

I'd love to hear your suggestions and what you thought was helpful this year and what we can do better.

If you posted an IBARW post after the official end of the project, you're welcome to let us know here. Please include a link, a brief description of your post, and any identifying/categorizing information here, or mark the post as "for: ibarw" in del.icio.us.

Also, at this time I believe we've made all the categorization corrections requested; if I'm wrong, please let us know here and we'll fix it by next Monday.

We may end up doing a weekly link collection post as a regular thing, but I'm going to try to troubleshoot the del.icio.us->LJ posting problems first.

ETA: OMG I SUCK! I want to say a really loud and public thank you to jinian, ladyjax, and poilass, who tagged and catalogued all the IBARW2 links this week! 500 some posts! They rock muchly, and if it hadn't been for them, it would have been impossible keeping track of how large IBARW2 got.

Also, thank you so much to everyone who helped out with icons! Please let me know if I left your name off the list, and I apologize for doing so!

Wow! Thank you all so much for participating in IBARW2! IBARW1 had about 200 posts, and IBARW2 seems to have around 500!!! I am so excited!

I wasn't able to read everything posted this week, but I saw a ton of interesting discussions and posts going on, and I'm really excited about reading all of them.

For people who weren't able to post for IBARW or who didn't post as much as they wanted to... *points to icon*

Seriously, though. Every week should be Intl. Blog Against Racism Week, and I personally live for the day when IBARW will no longer be necessary because race is a normal part of our conversations and actions. The goal of IBARW is to foster an environment in which anti-racism is safe, where allies and POC can go and have their concerns discussed and not have to worry about being slapped in the face by random acts of racism.

So if you want to post more about race, I cheer! And I say, don't wait for IBARW3! Post now! And bring the conversation into RL as well, because sometimes, just one person speaking out and letting others know that racist comments or actions are not welcome around him/her does make a difference.

I'm going to keep trying to bookmark recommended reading in the IBARW del.icio.us, and if you'd like your post bookmarked, just drop a note in the comments (let me know if you'd like it filed under "ibarw2" or not).

And again, thank you all so much for posting, and please please please keep doing so!