Classism and Working-Class Characters in Fandom

[alixtii]

This post by kattahj made me think about the intersection of racism and classism in deciding who gets written in fanfiction. Now, of course I think it is silly to say that "it is really just about class" or "it's really just about race"; the two work intersectionally in complicated ways. But if we agree with kattahj that CoC's are more likely to get written if they aren't coded as working class (and I've come to this conclusion about my own writing already long ago) then it'd be interesting to see if we tend not to write working-class white characters in the same way.

I'm not including the crew of Serenity at all in this analysis, since they exist within a completely constructed fictional socio-economic system created precisely for the purpose of making the main cast's lives seem interesting, but I think we certainly do respond differently to Simon than, say, Jayne (in my part, with identification with the former and almost complete disinterest with the latter). The Weasley family, were I even to know enough Harry Potter canon to speak intelligently about them, would probably be set apart under the same logic. Similarly, I'm not including vampires or other characters that are unable to participate in the normal socioeconomic structures because they are set apart as nonhuman.

I don't tend to watch shows with a lot of working-class characters, since they are less likely to provide me the type of wish-fulfillment I'm looking for in my entertainment (which is precisely the kind of dynamic I'm talking about here), so, um . . . it's a rather short list. Please help me add to it!

Notes
By "class" I mean the sociological something-or-other (I'm much less versed in class theory than I am in gender, queer, or even race theory) which is the cumulative result of economic status and a complex system of social markers (occupation, neighborhood of residence, accent, speech patterns, education, circle of friends, etc.). I'm assuming that fandom could[n't] care less what Rupert Giles' salary as a Watcher was, but that his education and breadth of knowledge make him attractive to write; Buffy's ability to quote Sartre and Arthur Miller seemingly without effort disqualifies her from being working-class. (And yes, this assumption is itself classist in fascinating and disturbing ways, ways which I wish I knew enough class theory to be able to problematize further.)

I'm taking it for granted that our source canons deal horribly with class issues (as they do with racial ones), but that there are objectively interesting working-class characters in our canons (in the way that there are interesting female characters and interesting characters of color).

Nonwhite racial cultures are (almost?) automatically coded as working-class. I feel this is important to mention despite the fact that since all of these characters are white, it doesn't apply to any of them. But this is a reason why even if classism seems a sufficient explanation for why working-class characters of color get written less, that classism would still in all probability be racially-motivated. The way we construct the class structure is itself racist.

Feel free to criticize any of my assumptions in the comments; I'm in over my head here.

Okay, now let's get to the list. . . .

Faith
It certainly cannot be argued that Faith does not get written in Buffy fandom, especially concerning her status as only being a recurring character to has nowhere near the screentime of an Anya or Tara. Now part of this just down to Eliza Dushku being Eliza Dushku. But if we look at her character, what do we see? A character whose working-class coding and Slayerness are so caught up in each other that they interact in interesting ways. While at the beginning of her arc Faith is living her life in a run-down motel, her Slaying provides her an outlet to escape from the very beginning, as she manifests the "want, take, have" mentality (she is effectively able to rely on her Slayer capabilities to produce cultural capital), and the overall structure of her story is ultimately one of upward mobility; by "Chosen" she is still coded as working-class in terms of social markers, but she is relatively free of economic concerns and so those social markers are able to be fetishized without playing any meaningful part in the actual life of the character.

Xander Harris
Like Faith, Xander gets a lot of fic. Not much written by me, but in m/m slash fandom I know he's commonly paired with Spike. Angel, and other men.

Now Xander's family is coded as poor and in some ways working-class (and this is uniformly portrayed as a negative), but I'd argue that while Xander is made to materially feel the effect of his family lower economic status, he is always coded as firmly middle-class in terms of social markers. As a geek figure, he is an easy and deliberate audience identification figure, and speaks a language which is coded in many ways as middle-class white male. Note also that like Faith he is upwardly mobile; by the end of the series he is, however implausible, solidly middle-class in terms of not only social but also economic indices.

Cindy Mackenzie
When Mac was introduced, her class issues dominated her character: she was the perpetrator of an elaborate con in an attempt to get back at the rich kids and to get money for a new car which she desperately needed. Then the show itself went on to seriously drop the ball on these issues, never bringing up money in regard to Mac again, focusing only on her solidly-coded-middle-class computer skills, having her date an 09er, and show up at college without a word as to how she was paying for it. Mac gets a decent amount of fic, being involved in several popular het and femslash pairings.

Veronica Mars
Everything above for Mac goes double for Veronica. Veronica was never meaningfully coded as lower-class, as she spent her childhood as a honorary 02er. As the eponymous character, she features in a large share of VMars fic.

Rose Tyler
Obviously, there is a whole lot of Rose fic, by virtue of her being the female lead of the first two seasons of new Who. Just as obviously, Rose is freed from the constraints of her working-class life when the Doctor rescues her from the shop where she works while retaining several of the relevant social markers (her accent being the most obvious, I believe? British culture is not my specialty).

Jackie Tyler
I don't know how the fic writers respond to Jackie, who unlike Rose maintains her class identification until the very very end (when she and alt!Pete get together). Obviously she is written less than Rose, but exactly how much so I have no clue.

Dean and Sam Winchester
I don't watch this show, and thus don't know anything about them (except that Sam makes a really hot girl--I do read the genderswap). I know, of course, that there's a massive amount of fic written about them.

Kendra, Normal, Sketchy, and Other Dark Angel Characters
Do these even get written at all? I'm not really familiar with the fandom, but my impression that the main white characters to get written were Logan--obviously not working-class--and Jensen's character (who probably falls under the nonhuman exemption). Lydeker's not exactly working-class either (although his coding is rather complicated).

Conclusion (tentative since the preliminary sample size is so small)
There does seem to be some interest in working with characters who still carry the social markers of a working-class identity, as in the cases of Faith and Rose Tyler. (How deep and accurate these social markers are, both in the source text and in fic, is a question I am not qualified to answer, although I think there are meaningful ways that both characters do begin to act in accord with a middle-class ideal as they become upwardly mobile economically.) Re-reading the comments to my March 2007 post linked above, it seems fandom is perfectly willing to play with characters who are coded as working-class in what heyiya calls a UK discourse of class, in which "class is experienced as written and performed in the body," but less eager to do so according to what she calls the American discourse in which class is more closely linked to cultural capacity and thus "is experienced as mobile: you get educated, you become middle class." (I'm condensing a lot of thought here; heyiya, is there something crucial I've missed or misrepresented?)

I do think that fandom is less likely to write working-class characters, in general, than middle-class (and upper-class) characters. My intellectual and emotional responses to how problematic this is are somewhat in contradiction.

Even if the true nature of their working-class status is in dispute, it does seem that enough working-class white characters do get written to be able to say that they get written more often than working-class characters of color, and thus classism in fandom is not a sufficient explanation for why working-class characters of color are not written as much as one would otherwise expect. This conclusion shocks approximately no one.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Something has occurred to me, which whilst slightly off topic I bring up here because it may provide part of the answer to a question that I know has puzzled you and others for some time.

In the US, racial issues are interpreted as a divide, which must be battled.
In the UK, racial issues are interpreted as a harmony, which must be preserved.

Both situations naturally arising from our different histories and the blunt statistics of race they have produced.

That is not to say that Brits believe the racial situation in this country to be entirely harmonious, but that they do see the overriding sense as one of harmony, and that that harmony is fragile and can be disrupted by ill considered actions. This perhaps explains why so many Brits are resistant to a US analysis of British racial problems since by their very existence such analysis can be seen to be risking the disruption of the harmony. When you add that on top of the expected annoyance at members of a country with so many racial problems presuming 'to tell us what we should think', the inevitable confusions arising from lack of personal knowledge of the situation in one another's countries, and the differences in national discussion style between the two countries, perhaps the old problem of Yanks complaining that Brits are denying all racial problems becomes a little more explicable.

And why am I talking about this? I'm supposed to have given up discussing race. It's like picking at a bloody scab! Still, you can be flattered by yet more evidence that I consider your journal a safe environment. ;o)

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

This makes a lot of sense. I think the interesting thing in Australia at the moment is that we're straddling the two approaches you've described: for many, many years, we ("we" being the intelligentsia, I guess) were all about multiculturalism and how grand (and fragile) that was. (Witness the small-l liberal reaction to Pauline Hanson, the anger at Bill O'Chee for being a member of the National party while having an ethnically Chinese background, etc.) "We're" still clinging fairly hard to the "multiculturalism is good" banner, but the Howard Government (the right-wing intelligentsia and not-so-intelligentsia) were battering away at it.

Okay, so my analysis sucks and is totally incomplete and I ought to just have stayed with "Your post made so much sense to me, especially in the context of why I get seriously annoyed by a lot of the US-centric race discussion in fandom. Even though I am American. But I don't live in that context!"

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Thanks, I'm glad it made sense.

I think the thorny issue of multiculturalism and how and why it should be unpicked, what should be kept and what discarded, is at the heart of the debate for most European dominated countries (sorry, clumsy term but I hope you can see why that covers Europe and Australia and New Zealand). By contrast, most Americans that I have known don't flick an eyelid when multiculturalism is mentioned, I suspect the term itself doesn't mean anything to them because they normally aren't shy of expressing an opinion.

[redsnake05.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I know this was ages ago, but I just spotted it.

I think the thorny issue of multiculturalism and how and why it should be unpicked, what should be kept and what discarded, is at the heart of the debate for most European dominated countries (sorry, clumsy term but I hope you can see why that covers Europe and Australia and New Zealand)

Actually, in my opinion, that's not at the heart of the debate in NZ at all. All too often here, multiculturalism is used as an excuse to ignore the rights and issues around Maori (the indigenous ethnic group in Aotearoa, if anyone reading this didn't know). Multiculturalism has a vexed contestation, seeing as how it is used as a weapon. It would possibly be more accurate to speak of biculturalism first, followed by the unpacking of multicultural diversity amongst Pakeha and other ethnic groups.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

And why am I talking about this? I'm supposed to have given up discussing race. It's like picking at a bloody scab! Still, you can be flattered by yet more evidence that I consider your journal a safe environment. ;o)

Bwah, I could totally have written that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

In some ways I suppose it is good that even when we know we shouldn't we are drawn to continue to participate. Silence may be a safe strategy but it ultimately doesn't achieve much.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I know--I just don't come at this from the perspective that's considered to be the only proper one in some quarters of fandom, which is that your intentions don't matter and if someone says you're racist you are, period, just suck it up, apologise and figure out on your own what you did wrong--so there's a certain amount of non-communication that's inevitable since I don't quite swallow that one. I believe that people of colour are definitely more expert in matters of racism than white people are generally; I also know it's not impossible for experts to be wrong.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Except for the part where there are almost always other Brits, both white and PoC saying the same things, yet everyone gets shot down as being Americans who don't know anything about how race works in the UK.

A lot of white people in the US get defensive about race for those same reasons. They think talking about race is disturbing the fragile harmony. It's called privilege.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I was debating whether to post something to this effect and had more or less decided against, but I completely agree.

There are different levels of dominance of different kinds of discourse about race in the US and UK, and in that sense peasant_ is right: there is more emphasis on racial conflict in the US public sphere than in the UK equivalents. BUT the kinds of critiques of privilege that get made more and more often in fandom are not the dominant US discourses but critiques of them, and that's why it annoys people so much when they are countered with slightly different dominant discourses from a different (but not all that radically different at the end of the day) location.

I tried to post about this once here though I think I hedged too much with the personal to actually make much of an intervention.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

the kinds of critiques of privilege that get made more and more often in fandom are not the dominant US discourses but critiques of them, and that's why it annoys people so much when they are countered with slightly different dominant discourses from a different (but not all that radically different at the end of the day) location.

Thanks for that. I have a tendency these days to knee-jerk to a default 'it's the bloody Yanks thinking everyone is the same as them again' position. It interferes with my ability to express things calmly so it is good to have an alternative POV stated.

One of the problems is that as the largest minority nationality on LJ, we Brits tend to dominate the non-US centric discourse ourselves, so as with largest minorities everywhere we have a tendency to think we are always right :oD

Of course in my case I always am right ;o)

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Okay, to use your own tools back at you - you are only saying that because you have American privilege. Reading your profile you are an American, or at least sufficiently immersed in their culture that you read as one. So you have been immersed in the 'antagonism' model of racial situations, hence it is not surprising that you will interpret any response to them, including this one, according to the antagonistic model.

Yes, some Brits do use the American tools that were developed in an American context to address American problems, because people will use any toolset that attracts them. But that does not mean they are any more correct to use them in a British context than the Americans. For every Brit who likes those tools I could easily produce five of every background who thinks the whole methodology of the argument is a load of bollocks. Who is to say who is right and who is wrong? Could such a concept of rightness even be applied to a socio-political situation where you can only ever hope for majority consensus of opinion, never universality?

Besides, I was not addressing the question of whether the British analysis of race is any better than the American one, I was simply trying to describe the contrast between the two systems as I have observed them, to help explain to alixtii why there is so frequently a problem - a thing he has commented on several times.

I am aware that a lot of people involved in these sorts of discussions are heavily invested in the idea of whole-world problems and solutions, and therefore wish to play down the national differences. As a geographer I naturally am more interested in the contrasts and similarities between nations just as as a historian I am interested in the differences and similarities between time periods. I therefore tend to focus on them and raise them where other people tend to blur things together. And of course as a Brit I am very aware of what US dominance of the LJ fandom space means.

Personally I think we can learn some things from American analysis of racial problems - I think multiculturalism sucks and has been a failed experiment and we need to start to look around for alternative models, in which case the US one can have things to offer. But the US model also has deep flaws, and to take the whole thing on board without due consideration for the differences between our countries would be insane.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Who is to say who is right and who is wrong?

The people being oppressed. In this case, not white people, regardless of country. If PoC in the UK say that something is a problem, the Nice White People of the UK do not get to say, "no it's not, because you're coming at it from an American perspective", which is what I consistently see happen.

To save you a trip to my profile page, I live in the UK

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a student of anthropology [are we exchanging qualifications now?], and I understand the need for different approaches in different cultural contexts, but: The US and UK are not that different. There are different historical contexts and the major minorities are different (which need to be taken into account), but at the end of the day, it's not the completely alien context you make it out to be. Why do you think the same 'tools' appeal to people living in America and Britain? And to say that they were developed entirely in an American context is plainly erroneous, do you really think that there was no exchange of ideas across the Atlantic before the Internet allowed black Americans to mind meld with minority groups around the world? Or do you just think that only white people were capable of travelling and writing?

And I would think that the POC/BME people living in both contexts who find that they do have a lot in common would have a little bit more knowledge of the contexts in which they live than you. Which I actually thought that you might be acknowledging in your original post, because you just might as well slap a 'By white people' in the middle of both those sentences for all you thought about what the people who are most affected by all this philosophising might think themselves.

Of course we don't even have the right to decide whether we're oppressed or not.

[How's my tone?]

[bana05.livejournal.com]

Here from deadbrowalking.

In the US, racial issues are interpreted as a divide, which must be battled.
In the UK, racial issues are interpreted as a harmony, which must be preserved.

Both situations naturally arising from our different histories and the blunt statistics of race they have produced.

That is not to say that Brits believe the racial situation in this country to be entirely harmonious, but that they do see the overriding sense as one of harmony, and that that harmony is fragile and can be disrupted by ill considered actions. This perhaps explains why so many Brits are resistant to a US analysis of British racial problems since by their very existence such analysis can be seen to be risking the disruption of the harmony.

Speaking as an American woman of color (i.e., Black) it seems to me that regardless of national affiliation in the west, the "harmony" or the "divide" that is being contested is the current racial hierarchy, and regardless of which country in the Western world, there is a need to preserve it--White folks>everyone else. Of course there are people who deny this--mainly white folks--but it doesn't make it not true. Probably part of the reason there is so much frustration during the "race discussions" because PoC, regardless of nation of origin in the West, are pretty much saying the same thing. It's not good when you are an immigrant in a country and you don't feel like you belong--even if you were born there, and your mother was born there, and your grandmother was born there . . . I know ethnic pride works differently in Britain than in the US, but I have to say, the US tends to make it okay to be Italian and American (okay, so those are white people, but the gist is still the same). There is a divide in the US, maybe because the US claims one thing and does the complete opposite. There's something to be said about Britain--Britain never presented the "illusion of inclusion" like the US does. However, just because Britain tries to maintain "harmony" doesn't mean that's a better model than the US's tending divisive nature. You can't grow, can't get better without contention. Can't solve problems if no one ever mentions them, or makes light of them. What happened in France with the racial/religious riots was the perfect example of that. Britain was involved in slavery, made massive amounts of money of it; it was/is involved in colonialism, made/makes massive amounts of money of it. Maybe it's not exactly the same as what the US did or is doing, but from my American woman PoC perspective, the results are decidedly similar.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

However, just because Britain tries to maintain "harmony" doesn't mean that's a better model than the US's tending divisive nature.

Oh absolutely. As alias_sqr points out down thread, it can lead to complacency, the assumption that there is nothing that needs to be fixed and even greater quashing of minorities' attempts to be heard. I personally think our current system is deeply flawed and will lead to ever increasing divisiveness and misery all round.

I do think though that it is vital to remember the differences and not try to apply the same solutions across the board. As you point out, the US has a very different attitude to immigrants compared to the attitude in the UK. Both countries seem to have got it wrong but we have got it wrong in different ways and for different reason.

You can't grow, can't get better without contention. Can't solve problems if no one ever mentions them, or makes light of them.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. The most successful changes seem to me to always arise when people work from within the system and use existing power structures, and those often happen best in the least confrontational and challenging fashion. Obviously you can't solve problems if you don't discuss them at all, but the idea that there is some intrinsic merit in confrontation per se is not one I can agree with. (But to assume that by contention you meant direct confrontation may be to read too much into your words, in which case I apologise.)

[bana05.livejournal.com]

The most successful changes seem to me to always arise when people work from within the system and use existing power structures, and those often happen best in the least confrontational and challenging fashion.

Well, direct confrontation doesn't necessarily mean violent. However, it took a war to end slavery in the United States. It took a war to end the Holocaust in Europe. It took protests and breaking laws to get Civil Rights for people of color in the United States. True, most of my examples come from the United States of which I have the most information. But working within the system is not always the answer--I prefer that method, trust you me--but sometimes you literally have to light a fire under the establishment, rock it, and then fix it. The establishment is there because it works for the people at the top, and sadly, usually they ain't people of color or people without penises or people who don't have two dollars (or pounds or euros or other currency of choice) to rub together.

As a fellow non-American...(admittedly not a Brit)

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm. See, on the one hand I get the feeling that the UK is like Australia, and people are a lot more resistant to thinking/talking about race, and do tend to see ourselves as (comparatively) unracist and harmonious. When I first skimmed your comment over breakfast I thought I agreed with it.

But on second thoughts I get the feeling you're missing what to me is the most important point: that people in the UK and Australia are wrong. We're hugely, horribly racist countries with giant gaping horrible racial issues. We're just more in denial about it than America, because we have no large clearly discriminated against ethnic minority like African-Americans to act as a constant reminder. (At least, this is my experience of Oz, and afaict it's true of England too)

Also: annoyance at members of a country with so many racial problems presuming 'to tell us what we should think'

So..people from racist countries aren't qualified to talk about racism? I've not seen any Americans saying "Your country's policies need to be more like Americas", I've seen them saying "You, personally, (like most white Americans) could stand to benefit from the lessons we American PoCs have learned thanks to living in such a racist society".

Sorry if this comes across as a bit confrontational, but the last time I tried being polite about this subject everyone assumed I was agreeing with the person I was disagreeing with so I'm trying a different tack :/

(Also: here from metafandom. And I would comment on the actual point of this post but I have nothing to add but "Hmm.. interesting". And I'm not going to comment on whether or not America is more racist than England, because what do I know? I'm not sure you could really measure such a thing anyway)

Re: As a fellow non-American...(admittedly not a Brit)

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

But on second thoughts I get the feeling you're missing what to me is the most important point: that people in the UK and Australia are wrong. We're hugely, horribly racist countries with giant gaping horrible racial issues. We're just more in denial about it than America, because we have no large clearly discriminated against ethnic minority like African-Americans to act as a constant reminder. (At least, this is my experience of Oz, and afaict it's true of England too)

Nope, we agree on that. I think the UK is in denial about racism in the same way that Americans seem to agree they are in denial about class. Especially since I can see ever increasing levels of racism all around me all the time.

I've not seen any Americans saying "Your country's policies need to be more like Americas", I've seen them saying "You, personally, (like most white Americans) could stand to benefit from the lessons we American PoCs have learned thanks to living in such a racist society".

Sadly that is not how it has come across to me. In my less generous moments I think it is that Americans want to see all other countries as having exactly the same problems as they do so they can feel better about themselves. In my more generous moments I think that it is they have found a model that works very well for them in their country and they are excited about it and want to apply it as widely as possible because they are convinced it will work universally.

Re: As a fellow non-American...(admittedly not a Brit)

[pennysdreadful.livejournal.com]

Sadly that is not how it has come across to me. In my less generous moments I think it is that Americans want to see all other countries as having exactly the same problems as they do so they can feel better about themselves.

So you bring this defensiveness to fandom race discussions because The US Folk R In Ur Internets, Disruptin' Ur Commonwealth Monopoly on Smug English Speaking Voice?

That's what it sounds like to me. Because your points about the specifics of location and cultural difference mattering in anti-racism are discussed by many anti-racists actually, many of them in the UK and USA, without such attempts to divert attention away from responsibility for white privilege by attacks on [still normalised white] US dominance of online voice.

If Commonwealth people's are really interested in the inter-sectionality of British legacies [including cultural], contemporary racism and political voice, then things like whiteness theory and Indian post-colonialism are a better place to start than rehashing always false UK/USA stereotypes.

Re: As a fellow non-American...(admittedly not a Brit)

[alias_sqbr]

Nope, we agree on that. I think the UK is in denial about racism in the same way that Americans seem to agree they are in denial about class

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. I guess your actual point is about halfway between my two first impressions.

See, the thing is, like heyiya I have found american discussions of racism very useful. I'd say 90% of what I've read has been applicable, and 90% of the unapplicable 10% was just written with the assumption of an american audience. The remaining 1% (where americans give spurious advice about how to deal with race in other countries based on false assumptions) can be pretty annoying, but in my experience those americans will admit they're wrong when politely corrected. But I realise that sort of thing is very subjective, and obviously your experiences have been different.

Then again (based on your responses to other people in this thread) I tend to disagree with your perception of "conflict based" attitudes to race being a primarily american thing. I was brought up in a socialist/marxist environment (so, not your typical aussie :)) and thus was taught to see everything in terms of a class struggle and class privilege, of us working class against the rich oppressors. Now, there are some aspects of that attitude I've come to disagree with (especially as I become increasingly rich!) but it still very much informs my viewpoint, and it feels, to me, very much of a piece with similar ideas about race, gender etc (which were, too a lesser extent, also part of my upbringing). I think it's also worth mentioning that my family despise Americans as symbols of everything that's wrong with capitalism, so would be deeply offended at the idea they have an "american viewpoint" :P

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

This perhaps explains why so many Brits are resistant to a US analysis of British racial problems since by their very existence such analysis can be seen to be risking the disruption of the harmony.

That might be why so many white Brits pretend we live in a "colourblind" non-racist society but the general analysis in your comment doesn't reflect my views as a non-white Brit or the views of most of the non-white Brits I know. I and other non-white Brits involved in fandom have expressed our views repeatedly and been told they don't count because, apparently, there are still very many white Brits who don't want to hear or understand our points of view (plural) about the society and communities in which we live.

perhaps the old problem of Yanks complaining that Brits are denying all racial problems becomes a little more explicable.

Except that many of my non-white Brit friends who discuss race online are wrongly assumed to be USians even after they've corrected that misconception on multiple occasions. I have also been told that my views about British racism don't count because I'm "in a minority" and supposedly "don't really understand" Britain/Britishness/British people (which is, of course, a racist response to my existence as a non-white Brit).

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

That might be why so many white Brits pretend we live in a "colourblind" non-racist society
I'm glad you agree.

but the general analysis in your comment doesn't reflect my views as a non-white Brit or the views of most of the non-white Brits I know.
Do you mean my analysis of the difference between the two countries? How do you consider it flawed then?

Except that many of my non-white Brit friends who discuss race online are wrongly assumed to be USians even after they've corrected that misconception on multiple occasions.
Doesn't that rather reinforce my point rather than contradicting it - Brits are so averse to seeing racism as an issue of confrontation that they will assume anyone who treats it as such must be an American, even when repeatedly told otherwise. We hate discussing race.

I and other non-white Brits involved in fandom have expressed our views repeatedly and been told they don't count because, apparently, there are still very many white Brits who don't want to hear or understand our points of view (plural) about the society and communities in which we live...I have also been told that my views about British racism don't count because I'm "in a minority" and supposedly "don't really understand" Britain/Britishness/British people (which is, of course, a racist response to my existence as a non-white Brit).
I don't know how to respond to that beyond the usual sick feeling of flailing helplessness when confronted by racism, I am quoting it though to show you that I am not ignoring what you are saying.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Doesn't that rather reinforce my point rather than contradicting it - Brits are so averse to seeing racism as an issue of confrontation that they will assume anyone who treats it as such must be an American, even when repeatedly told otherwise. We hate discussing race.

Only if you insist on defining "British society" as "the society made up by white British people who agree with you."

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

a question that I know has puzzled you and others for some time.

Mostly I've been willing to stand back and think "Well, she stepped in it" and let others do the responding (although I do tend to agree with their points) but I do want to point out that "puzzled" isn't the right word, exactly. While you might not know it from online discourse, there is plenty of resistance to the types of analytic tools fen call on when they discuss racism in America itself. There are huge numbers (the majority, probably) of Yanks who these particular Yanks might (and do) complain are denying all (but the most blatant) racial problems in their own country, and in particular in their own non-Deep-South regions.

If one goes into white middle-class America outside of the South and starts talking about race, the response one gets is almost identical to the tee to the types of responses sometimes heard from the British faction online.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Ah, I see. I've picked up from you the wrong impression then, I thought you were genuinely interested in the cultural differences, I hadn't realised you were - what, just whinging? Fair enough, my mistake.

Mostly I've been willing to stand back and think "Well, she stepped in it"
Hee. Nothing has been said that I haven't seen said many other times in many other places, so I dare say I'll manage. Most people seem to be just having the conversation they had nine conversations ago with someone else who clearly wasn't saying what I was saying - but you know you have to expect that because that is what always happens. It is all so tediously predictable.

And any minute now someone will go off and post about 'why do these discussions always end in an argument?'

The answer being of course that we all see the world in different ways and look for our solutions accordingly.