EP198: N-words

[Talia]

The only story response thread I recall getting heated was that incredibly divisive politics one from a while ago (the U.S. divided into red state/blue state territories or something like that).

[Russell Nash]

Heated debate is welcome.  I normally split it off to Gallimaufy if it isn't about the story itself.  It used to be if a character just said, "oh god," we'd have a 8 page argument about ID.

[Doom xombie]

WOW.... lol did you ever see XKCD's list of google searches without results? One of them was "People on the internet are too civil" but that soon changed as people saw that and made new websites and now there quite a few results.

[LadyIndigo]

Does it make a difference if the other is truly other or we're just pretending it is?

I should think it would matter to the other, or the people identified as such.  You can't claim to write about a big issue, then turn around and use the exact same lies that helped contribute to that issue on the premise of "what if"?  Who are you writing this story for, if you do?  Not victims of racism, in my opinion, and so it's a club of back-patting like others have said.
 
I'm not the race relations police, I'm white to boot, so I hope I don't show my own ass here.  But this story bothered me a lot.  It is so, SO easy to show a raving bigot with a bullhorn and some rocks to throw.  It's much harder to realize when you are: fetishizing someone from a different place or culture, citing some physical or cultural aspect of yourself as "normal", creating a "noble savage" image even if it's a "positive" one, viewing a mixed-race child as some sort of symbol, stating that your pain is somehow worse than another's because you are not a minority and you're still daring to be an activist...

The protagonist of the story does all those things, all of those subtle ways that many well-meaning and genuinely good people show internalized prejudice all the time, and yet we're hearing from HER as the hero in this big metaphor about racism, not from David who is a symbol and not a character in his own right.  I don't think she's an intentional symbol of this, though of course people are welcome to read it how they want.  But we're meant to identify with her and see her pain, she never receives any consequences for her own flawed views and how she "others" her husband, she never realizes she does this, her marriage never strains, and her reaction to finally strike back may even be heroic depending on listener values.   I won't even get started on the "positive" stereotypes of the other race, or eventually interbreeding to create another race that will wipe the majority out just like the KKK raves about...  I hope it's a subversion, I really do, but it'd be ineffective if so.

The one true moment in the whole story to me, from my own very limited perspective, was their argument over the magazine cover.  That's the kind of day-to-day racism I can see happening - well-meaning, unintentional, born from differences of experience.  It's also the one time we see anything of David's pain or struggle.  It's only hinted at elsewhere, and never seems like the strain it is for the protagonist.  If she IS meant to show her own flaws on the subject, I'd have liked to see much more of what her own prejudices were causing for him and their son, rather than feeling like the author is on board.

I'm curious as to what would be a helpful way to handle an idea such as racism in a story.  It strikes me as a strange assertion, to demand or hope or expect that stories be helpful.  Helpful to what?  To whom?  How would a story be an effective anti-racism story?  Can you show me an example? 

Seriously? 

Stories aren't written in a vacuum.  They influence our day or, if it's good enough, our tomorrow.  Why would someone write about racism?  Because they care, presumably.  If so, what feelings do they want to stir in others?  What actions?  If they want to help end racism, or remind others of the issue, they might want to write about racism in a way that can encourage change.  And you can't fix someone else - as others have noted, it's not that simple.  It starts with self-reflection, then the encouragement of that in others.

[BethPeters]

Does it make a difference if the other is truly other or we're just pretending it is?

.

I'm curious as to what would be a helpful way to handle an idea such as racism in a story.  It strikes me as a strange assertion, to demand or hope or expect that stories be helpful.  Helpful to what?  To whom?  How would a story be an effective anti-racism story?  Can you show me an example? 

Seriously? 

Stories aren't written in a vacuum.  They influence our day or, if it's good enough, our tomorrow.  Why would someone write about racism?  Because they care, presumably.  If so, what feelings do they want to stir in others?  What actions?  If they want to help end racism, or remind others of the issue, they might want to write about racism in a way that can encourage change.  And you can't fix someone else - as others have noted, it's not that simple.  It starts with self-reflection, then the encouragement of that in others.

That is well said and I totally agree.  Chris Matthews isn't changing the way people think about things, he's just making people more divisive.  Good fiction gets in under the radar.  I'm not saying that about this story, which the delivery totally killed, but I think good storytelling does this so frequently and subtly that many examples are obvious while the best examples are too subtle to even know about.

[Anarkey]

Does it make a difference if the other is truly other or we're just pretending it is?

I should think it would matter to the other, or the people identified as such.  You can't claim to write about a big issue, then turn around and use the exact same lies that helped contribute to that issue on the premise of "what if"?  Who are you writing this story for, if you do?  Not victims of racism, in my opinion, and so it's a club of back-patting like others have said.

I'm sorry, I believe I was vague in my first phrasing, because your reply alongside my quote indicates that perhaps I was not clear.  Instead of saying 'Does it make a difference', using that super vague 'it' as a catchall, I should probably have said 'Does the outcome change, do the reactions of people change if the other is truly other or we are just pretending they are?'  My secondary 'it' in reference to 'other' was also probably unnecessarily dehumanizing (though I didn't mean it that way, since I was intending to speak in the abstract as opposed to the concrete i.e. real othered peoples).  IOW, I'm not asking whether it's important to people whether they are or are not othered.  That's not even a question that entered my mind (because duh, of course it matters to them).  Rather, the question I was taking away from the story was whether racism (or speciesism) must necessarily play out over and over again, just as bloodily and painfully for all involved because blah blah Santayana.  In which case, since you're on about the purpose of the story, I would say that the purpose (or a purpose?) of the story was to lay out the history, in order that somebody might wisen up enough not to repeat it.  Though I have to caveat, because I'm not big on stories with purpose, and I'm always loathe to impute author motivations because of the gulf the text creates between author and reader.

I'm not the race relations police, I'm white to boot, so I hope I don't show my own ass here.  But this story bothered me a lot. 

If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads.  I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.

It is so, SO easy to show a raving bigot with a bullhorn and some rocks to throw.  It's much harder to realize when you are: fetishizing someone from a different place or culture, citing some physical or cultural aspect of yourself as "normal", creating a "noble savage" image even if it's a "positive" one, viewing a mixed-race child as some sort of symbol, stating that your pain is somehow worse than another's because you are not a minority and you're still daring to be an activist...

You know, it's my opinion (as I stated further up) that the story showed the whole spectrum, though I'm clearly in the minority on that interpretation, even though I believe I can back it up with textual examples (and did).  And you did the same, but then said that those examples didn't count because the author did it on accident or didn't mean it.  Alas, that's a place where I can't debate because I don't deal in authorial intent when I can help it.  Though I will say this:  I didn't believe the main character to be heroic, and I don't believe she gets out of the story without consequences. 

I'm curious as to what would be a helpful way to handle an idea such as racism in a story.  It strikes me as a strange assertion, to demand or hope or expect that stories be helpful.  Helpful to what?  To whom?  How would a story be an effective anti-racism story?  Can you show me an example? 

Seriously? 

Yes.  Seriously.  Totally.  I want someone to point me out a story and tell me: "SEE! That's an effective anti-racist story."  And you know, I'm totally on board with all fiction is political.  I'm not on board with stories as activism, though.  In the first place, stories as activism are a waste of time, you get your point across much more effectively by protesting, voting, rallying and/or waving guns around.  Actual activism > story activism.  In the second place, stories as didactic lessons are usually didactic first and art second, and I like my art to be art first and everything else second.

I'll also point out, just so you know, that my question was specifically directed to eytanz because, in the past, I believe eytanz and myself were pretty much in the same boat re:art that is art first and didactic (or anything else) second.  So he's either changed his mind generally, or only with regards to this story, which is what I find curious...why does dealing in the subject of race change the bar on what the story is supposed to accomplish?

[Zathras]

If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads.  I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.

This disturbs me.  Why would a person's color prevent them from coming here?

[Talia]

If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads.  I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.

This disturbs me.  Why would a person's color prevent them from coming here?

Furthermore, how do you know?? (tho I suspect you are right....)

[eytanz]

I'll also point out, just so you know, that my question was specifically directed to eytanz because, in the past, I believe eytanz and myself were pretty much in the same boat re:art that is art first and didactic (or anything else) second.  So he's either changed his mind generally, or only with regards to this story, which is what I find curious...why does dealing in the subject of race change the bar on what the story is supposed to accomplish?

Ah - if that was what was you were after, I think I can answer this without re-listening to the story.

I wasn't talking about what the story was trying to accompish. The story, as a story, stands on its own. And, like you, I do not wish to ascribe the author with goals that I do not know for a fact he has, and even if I did know, I would be unlikely to care much. Note that, taking it as art, I do not feel it has much merit beyond technical competence, but that is a seperate issue.

However, this story can also be taken as part of a cultural discourse about race. This is not something that the story attempts. This is something readers - as illustrated by several of the commenters on this thread - can do with the story. And, it is my belief that this story introduces more problems than it addresses.

[Russell Nash]

If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads.  I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.

This disturbs me.  Why would a person's color prevent them from coming here?

Furthermore, how do you know?? (tho I suspect you are right....)

For the irony of it I thought about digging up the thread where Anarky and Rachel strung a guy up for calling Rachel a he.  At the time she was using a SN that didn't give any hints either way.  It came down to them saying that even though it's a Science fiction forum (pre-PC days), no one should assume someone is male. 

Anarky is using the fact that the SF community is overwhelmingly white to make assumptions about our forums.  About half of our posters have said (or posted pictures) that they are white.  She's just assuming everyone else is too.  Just because nobody has stood up (except for stePh) and said they were a purple hermaphrodite, doesn't mean we don't have a green hermaphrodite sub-culture here. 

Our female percentage is higher than SF norms.  Maybe our POC percentage is too.  I know of one minority group that is highly over-represented here, but it only took one person.  Our sample size here is so small, we can really mess up the ratios.

[Portrait in Flesh]

If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads.  I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.

This disturbs me.  Why would a person's color prevent them from coming here?

Furthermore, how do you know?? (tho I suspect you are right....)

It took me a bit to suss out what POC meant; then I realized, hey, I am. 

Although exactly what type is sometimes open to debate, depending on what part of the world I'm in and the purported ethnicity of the person who's labeling me.  (I've been mistaken for Hawaiian, Chinese, and, yes, even Caucasian.) 

Must be due to my Super Chameleon Powers.

I do have a whiter-than-white Bitter Half, BTW.  And I now live in a part of the country where my ethnic group is pretty sparse.  (I tried to order a cheese quesadilla once at a local fast food franchise, only to be told they didn't make quesadillas with cheese.)

At any rate, I didn't comment earlier on the story because once I got the basic gist ("oh, racism"), I could pretty much tell how it was going to end.  And...the...pauses...so very Shatnerian.  The story just didn't do much for me.  It just struck me mostly as a "racism=bad so let's stick it to the Man" kind of deal, which may have worked for me a bit more had there been a Shaft-style soundtrack playing softly in the background.

Oddly enough, I'd say the most overt racism I've experienced is from people who categorize themselves with the same ethnic background as mine.  I was born and raised in SoCal, and I can't count the number of times I was given somewhat astonished looks when I replied in English any time somebody automatically started speaking in Spanish to me (I don't speak Spanish, although I can sometimes make out most of what's being said).

[Zathras]

Woot!  We might get a split thread!

Seriously, though...

This discussion goes to show that no matter how hard we try, we can't be a "color blind" society.  I remember bringing home some of my Army buddies to rural, small town Illinois.  One was black, one was Hispanic.  I didn't think a thing about it - until we got there.  One of my other friends pointed out the situation.  Nothing was said or done, but there were looks.  I offered to take my friends somewhere else, but they said they were cool.  

This brings up a point that I am sure I will inadequately explain.  My friends weren't "black" or "African American" or "Hispanic".  My friends were my friends.  Menendez was Menendez and Stanley was Stanley.  I was a lot more naive then, but I was color blind.  Most of the time I would only pay attention to someone's race when trying to point them out.  

Isn't that what the goal should be?  Stanley was black, quite possibly the blackest man I've ever known.  That is not describing his race, it's describing his skin.  He was also a soldier, a gamer and a motorcyclist.  I'd have been far more likely to point him out as "the guy over there with the reflective vest on and the blue motorcycle helmet" than as "the African American" or "the Person of Color".

I'm going to stop for now, because I'm getting irritated thinking about this stuff.

[Talia]

Dont mind the weird time stamps on this post I screwed up the quoting, because i am awesome.

 It came down to them saying that even though it's a Science fiction forum (pre-PC days), no one should assume someone is male. 

Or the other way 'round! (sorry stePH )

Anarky is using the fact that the SF community is overwhelmingly white to make assumptions about our forums.  About half of our posters have said (or posted pictures) that they are white.  She's just assuming everyone else is too.  Just because nobody has stood up (except for stePh) and said they were a purple hermaphrodite, doesn't mean we don't have a green hermaphrodite sub-culture here. 

Our female percentage is higher than SF norms.  Maybe our POC percentage is too.  I know of one minority group that is highly over-represented here, but it only took one person.  Our sample size here is so small, we can really mess up the ratios.

Heheh. The community is small enough I know exactly who you mean.

[Russell Nash]

Heheh. The community is small enough I know exactly who you mean.

You totally throw off our Wookie ratio.

[LadyIndigo]

Instead of saying 'Does it make a difference', using that super vague 'it' as a catchall, I should probably have said 'Does the outcome change, do the reactions of people change if the other is truly other or we are just pretending they are?'

I don't think they necessarily do, but I think the implications of the story are too important to play around with that.  We have too many people who still believe race is real to subvert the myth through a story like this.  Besides, it's not new, not at all, to use species as a metaphor for race in fantasy and sci-fi.  And this is one of the few things I have heard explicitly expressed by people of color as Not Helpful.  You can't create a metaphor for "we are just like you" when the "other" in question is literally NOT "just like you."  You can't talk about treating everyone as brothers and sisters when people of color are metaphorically not human and therefore (this is important) "human" means "white."  Did you picture the protesters at David's funeral as Japanese or Latino or Haitian, would you even be able to, when modern human is supposed to equal white and Neanderthal is supposed to equal people of color?  Yes, it does matter.  A lot.

In which case, since you're on about the purpose of the story, I would say that the purpose (or a purpose?) of the story was to lay out the history, in order that somebody might wisen up enough not to repeat it.  Though I have to caveat, because I'm not big on stories with purpose, and I'm always loathe to impute author motivations because of the gulf the text creates between author and reader.

Precisely why the story bothers me - there's a lot more to racism than the history of its most egregious offenses.  We aren't seperating water fountains anymore.  We still enact prejudice ever day.  And you don't change that behavior just by knowing about the big stuff - if anything it distracts from the now.

You know, it's my opinion (as I stated further up) that the story showed the whole spectrum, though I'm clearly in the minority on that interpretation, even though I believe I can back it up with textual examples (and did).  And you did the same, but then said that those examples didn't count because the author did it on accident or didn't mean it.  Alas, that's a place where I can't debate because I don't deal in authorial intent when I can help it.  Though I will say this:  I didn't believe the main character to be heroic, and I don't believe she gets out of the story without consequences.

You misunderstood, I hope I was clear - I said that the examples don't work (if they're intentional at all) because she learns nothing from them and suffers nothing from them.  Of course they're mistakes she doesn't mean to make, and it'd be great if the author meant them that way, because that's how covert racism works - almost no one MEANS to do wrong, at least in my naive view.  And I'm not saying you need a clear black and white righteous punishment or something, or to preach her wrongs, but to have her say a ton of very racist things and then say she's the heroine and never directly address it makes it feel almost like the author is on board - that he doesn't understand the implications of what she's saying either.  The narrator suffers from her anger, she suffers from the loss of her husband - I don't know how that relates to her own racism.  I'd be interested in how you think she does, as I was really uncomfortable by the end of the story so maybe I missed something myself.

Yes.  Seriously.  Totally.  I want someone to point me out a story and tell me: "SEE! That's an effective anti-racist story."  And you know, I'm totally on board with all fiction is political.  I'm not on board with stories as activism, though.  In the first place, stories as activism are a waste of time, you get your point across much more effectively by protesting, voting, rallying and/or waving guns around.  Actual activism > story activism.  In the second place, stories as didactic lessons are usually didactic first and art second, and I like my art to be art first and everything else second.

Even though I see this isn't actually to me in the end , I'll respond anyway: first, I'd be careful with 'tell me how to do ______ if you know the way,' because it's often used by others to derail conversations about race and put the responsibility on the person who was offended - plus I don't think it's the most accurate premise in the world.  I could never write a story about a big, complicated issue and have some gold standard of effectiveness.  I can tell you what worked and didn't work for me, but there is no one angle to approach subjects like this from, or one part of the issue that needs talking about.  It is far too big for that.  "Native Son" and "Beloved" are both about race.  They are two entirely different books.  And they're only about one of many races that suffer prejudice, for that matter.

As far as the purpose of a story, why on earth would you write about a complicated and divisive issue and not be prepared for a fallout of some kind?  It's inevitable whether the author intended it or not.  And the dialogue it creates, as eytanz said very well, is problematic.  It's flawed.  

If you are, you're not likely to get called on it, because, unfortunately, there are very few active POC posters on the EP forum threads.  I would honestly like to see/hear analysis and deconstructions of the story by POCs, because it's pretty much a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber in here, but I don't believe I'll get them, and I can't blame POCs who choose not to come into this space.

This disturbs me.  Why would a person's color prevent them from coming here?

Assuming that's true, and I wouldn't know, it's probably because sci-fi is a whiteywhitewhite echo chamber as I've heard others tell it.  It's been written (or at least published) mainly by white people for a long time, it's been built on tropes created by white voices - we don't mean to make an unwelcoming space, but it's never fun to be the only one coming from another experience.  What I've heard would be helpful would be to reach out and make it welcoming - write about people of color while being respectful and not appropriating or stereotyping, and extend a hand to invite POC authors of sci-fi and make sure any sampling of authors is diverse (in multiple ways).  A lot of these words aren't mine and I hope I'm using them correctly - I'm at work on my lunch break so I'm not in the position to give due credit, but I'll try at my first opportunity.

[Talia]

Heheh. The community is small enough I know exactly who you mean.

You totally throw off our Wookie ratio.

I'm actually an Ewok who poses as a wookie on the internet

[LadyIndigo]

Heheh. The community is small enough I know exactly who you mean.

You totally throw off our Wookie ratio.

I'm actually an Ewok who poses as a wookie on the internet

There's a furry joke somewhere in here but I don't have the heart to make one.

[izzardfan]

I was born and raised in SoCal ...

Having just moved to Oregon from south Orange County, may I ask what city, out of curiosity?

[Zathras]

Well said, Lady Inigo!

[LadyIndigo]

Well said, Lady Inigo!

LOL I might just change my name to that.  If I had a Spanish accent and a memetic tagline it'd cut down on how long-winded I can get.

[Zathras]

Well said, Lady Inigo!

LOL I might just change my name to that.  If I had a Spanish accent and a memetic tagline it'd cut down on how long-winded I can get.

Whoops.

[Anarkey]

Ah - if that was what was you were after, I think I can answer this without re-listening to the story.

Only part of what I was after...I also wanted you to give over on the 'conversion' of the sister, because I don't buy that a bit, but you won't do that without a re-listen (and maybe not then).

However, this story can also be taken as part of a cultural discourse about race. This is not something that the story attempts. This is something readers - as illustrated by several of the commenters on this thread - can do with the story. And, it is my belief that this story introduces more problems than it addresses.

But on some level you're still leveling the accusation at the story?  It's the story's fault we're having this muddled convo about race?  And it's the story's fault the convo is muddled instead of helpful?  Or no?  If the story were about something else we wouldn't have to go through it?  Where is this onus for 'helpfulness' stemming from?  I think the story should act as the genesis of the conversation, not the end of it.  If it presented clear solutions I (and I suspect you) would be offended that the story was without nuance or ambiguity.  

I believe the story is meant to be unsettling, and I believe it succeeds.  There's all kinds of uncomfortable stuff in there.  I think most of that uncomfortable stuff was put in there deliberately, and I don't think it's as shallow as 'oh we're so great because we're magically not racist', though as I said in the wayback, I'll grant that an element of self-congratulation does seem to be present.

Actually, thinking over what Portrait in Flesh said (thanks for weighing in), and some of what Lady Indigo has said, I wonder if the target audience for this story isn't white people.  I think the choice to use only a regular human POV character was intentional (it was the only way to set up the contrasts/levels of othering plus the 'you're swimming in it' subtext, which I thought was totally blatant but no one else seems to believe is there), and if people's interpretations that human=white and neanderthal=black or other are accurate then maybe the object lessons were for the clueless white folks and not meant to speak to POCs.  I dunno.  And maybe POCs would find the whole thing obvious and dull given their day-to-day experiences.  Even if all that is true, though, I still don't think the story wasn't worth writing, or that it's wrong, or not helpful, or that because this topic is so flammable the author should have just set it down and walked away from it.

[Anarkey]

As far as the purpose of a story, why on earth would you write about a complicated and divisive issue and not be prepared for a fallout of some kind?  It's inevitable whether the author intended it or not.  And the dialogue it creates, as eytanz said very well, is problematic.  It's flawed.  

I would not assume the author has not prepared for fallout.  I would not assume the author did not intend for there to be fallout.  Unless proven otherwise, I would assume the author stepped into it knowing full well what they were doing and where they were going and what might come back at them for their trouble.  At the very least, the title gives a strong indicator that he knew exactly what he was doing.

I don't understand your description of dialog as flawed.  This particular forum thread is flawed?  Please explain further.

[eytanz]

But on some level you're still leveling the accusation at the story?  It's the story's fault we're having this muddled convo about race?  And it's the story's fault the convo is muddled instead of helpful?  Or no?

No, obviously that's not the story's fault. I can't see what that has to do with anything.

If my car broke down and I attempted to get it started by swinging a jackhammer at it, you would be entitled to tell me that it's an inappropriate tool, even though it was not the jackhammer's fault the car broke down. This story does not belong in our racial conversation, even though it did not create the cultural situation we're in.

Where is this onus for 'helpfulness' stemming from?  I think the story should act as the genesis of the conversation, not the end of it.  If it presented clear solutions I (and I suspect you) would be offended that the story was without nuance or ambiguity.  

It was without (much) nuance or ambiguity. That is why I am offended. You are reading a lot of nuance into it, but I suspect - again, based on memory of the story, so I may be off - that the nuance is coming from you and not from the story itself.

Actually, thinking over what Portrait in Flesh said (thanks for weighing in), and some of what Lady Indigo has said, I wonder if the target audience for this story isn't white people.

If that's true, and your assumptions as to the makeup of EP's listenership are correct, then the author did not do well in choosing a market.

[Anarkey]

If my car broke down and I attempted to get it started by swinging a jackhammer at it, you would be entitled to tell me that it's an inappropriate tool, even though it was not the jackhammer's fault the car broke down. This story does not belong in our racial conversation, even though it did not create the cultural situation we're in.

Still, using a metaphor of story as tool kind of implies some innate usefulness on the part of the story, doesn't it?  Not sure I'm willing to grant that metaphor's aptness.  And I'm still not sure where the line we're drawing is.  This story doesn't get to be part of our racial conversation because...?

It was without (much) nuance or ambiguity. That is why I am offended. You are reading a lot of nuance into it, but I suspect - again, based on memory of the story, so I may be off - that the nuance is coming from you and not from the story itself.

Ehh...maybe.  Maybe I'm putting stuff in.  I'm certainly off the bell curve of the generally accepted view.  Though I still think there's textual support for my position.

If that's true, and your assumptions as to the makeup of EP's listenership are correct, then the author did not do well in choosing a market.

Oh, my total bad...I meant to say the target audience IS white people, I just phrased it the fucked up way because I'm wondering whether it isn't white people rather than everyone, or POC or whatever.  Sorry about that.  Half the sentence stayed in my head.  Though the blather that followed should have made it clear what I was trying to say.