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J The Fashionista ([info]jerry_ds_girl) wrote in [info]fandom_wank,
@ 2003-05-04 15:04:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Sarah---
Insists those weren't really racist remarks she made.

Gee, she disabled the comments, too.



EDIT: link now fixed thanks to phoenixchilde.

(Post a new comment)


[info]sagralisse
2003-05-04 10:29 pm UTC (link)
Perhaps she friends locked it? From what I understand, Sarah_T doesn't care much for being linked over here. [/snarky understatement]

(Reply to this)(Thread)

?
[info]jerry_ds_girl
2003-05-04 10:35 pm UTC (link)
I got to it off the live journal site, and I sure ain't on her friends list. I don't even have an lj account.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


phoenixchilde
2003-05-04 10:34 pm UTC (link)
Should be .html, not .htm: Here.

My personal favorite line? "I suggested that one non-native-speaking fan's English skills weren't so great....Rude to the fan in question? Perhaps." Because, sweetie, you didn't "suggest," and there's no "perhaps" about it.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

Link
[info]jerry_ds_girl
2003-05-04 10:37 pm UTC (link)
Oops. Duh. Thanks, should have worn contacts instead of glasses today. Will fix.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]phosfate
2003-05-04 10:52 pm UTC (link)
"Comments disabled because, as I said, I don't want to rehash the original debates again."

"...which is why I'm putting them all here in handy digest form."

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]backfromspace
2003-05-04 10:59 pm UTC (link)
Shredded Wank, now with dehydrated human heads.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]phosfate
2003-05-04 11:04 pm UTC (link)
Yay! Now I can get wank and roughage at the same time!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]backfromspace
2003-05-04 11:05 pm UTC (link)
And what's the point of being a demon if you're not regular?

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]mpoetess
2003-05-05 01:16 am UTC (link)
Eh -- gotta say I agree with ST on that one issue (not touching the potential wankiness of presenting her side in a nice neat little bundle then disabling comments so that she doesn't have to discuss it) of alleged racism. It was an incredibly snotty, bitchy comment, in a war of incredibly snotty bitchy comments, but it was a personal comment: you don't agree with me, you happen to speak English as a second language, so I'll say that your English sucks and imply that it's because you're a moron. Totally rude (and incorrect, since Miss Windy's written English is impeccable from what I've seen), but in no way that I can see, implying that other people who speak English as a second language speak it badly, or do so because they're stupid.

I mean, of everything anybody's said here responding to ST's phrasing in this most recently linked post ("rude to another fan perhaps???" etc.) I don't see anyone contesting her logic in stating that it was a personal insult, and didn't imply anything about anybody's race.

Dead, dead horse, but then so is the entire argument, really; doesn't stop people from bringing it up. I can see why ST felt she needed to do a post like that, because the things she's accused of saying do get shifted and spun and then accepted as fact by the next generation of people who don't like her. I don't think she denies that she's said rude things -- but I understand her recognizing that some people aren't going to like her, and wanting them to at least not like her because of the things she actually said/meant.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]ingrid
2003-05-05 01:25 am UTC (link)
... of the things she actually said/meant.

If what she says is so vague as to be taken in the worst possible way by the reader, yet still be able to be retracted when she feels the need, that's disingenuous in the highest degree, wouldn't you say?

The quotes are there, plain as day, as muddy as they are in meaning. It's only the interpretation that's left to question, and frankly, if someone wants to take in the worst way possible, well, she's the one who's left it wide open for speculation, no?

If she doesn't want to be mistaken from now on, ice cold clarity might be the way to go. She's proud of her higher education and I'm sure she can handle saying *exactly* what she means the first time, so no one will mistake her words ever again.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]mpoetess
2003-05-05 01:52 am UTC (link)
if someone wants to take in the worst way possible, well, she's the one who's left it wide open for speculation, no?


If someone wants to take it in the worst way possible, then I'd say they have an agenda in interpreting the statement, wouldn't you? I don't feel responsible when I speak, for phrasing things such that people who *want* to see insults in my words, don't. If they want to, they'll turn "Have a nice day" into an insult.

Personally, I try to phrase things so that people won't be hurt by what I say. (Not that I'm always successful, and not that I don't sometimes forget this in the middle of a heated argument, to my detriment.) Obviously, not everyone feels this way -- but I don't hold other people responsible for making sure they don't say things that I could take as a slur if I'm actively *looking* to be insulted.

At most, I'd expect them to respond honestly if I said "Can't you see the way in which that *could* be seen as an insult?" and if they say "Yes, but it wasn't meant that way" I accept their statement. People have been not accepting Sarah's statement on this ...thing... for a long damn time now, and it seems to be people of the "wants to take it in the worst possible way" opinion. In which case, I don't see it as Sarah's problem or responsibility.

Meh -- neither party is a close friend of mine; neither am I (as far as I know) an enemy of either. I've gotten in heated debates with both, on other subjects, and I think they're both intelligent and talented in various arenas. I don't have a side or a drum to beat.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ingrid
2003-05-05 02:07 am UTC (link)
If someone wants to take it in the worst way possible, then I'd say they have an agenda in interpreting the statement, wouldn't you?

Um, no. Because you could say that about interpreting it in the best possible light too then, couldn't you?

Personally, I try to phrase things so that people won't be hurt by what I say.

Sure, that's what most intelligent people do.

eople have been not accepting Sarah's statement on this ...thing... for a long damn time now

Maybe because she's never retracted it, until now. And frankly, I didn't see a real retraction, I saw yet another accusation of "poor text reading" -- something she's very fond of accusing her detractors of.

We're still running along the "yer jus' dummeees" line of rationale here, and frankly, that's not making me feel a whole lot more confident that the original interpretation isn't the correct one.

Meh -- neither party is a close friend of mine; neither am I (as far as I know) an enemy of either.

I don't have very close or bad ties to either myself in the grand scheme of fandom. But I know bullshit when I smell it, and I know which direction I'm smelling it from.

YMMV, of course. Yadda, yadda, blah, blah.

Wanking over now.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]deeablo
2003-05-05 05:45 pm UTC (link)
People have been not accepting Sarah's statement on this ...thing... for a long damn time now
Maybe because she's never retracted it, until now. And frankly, I didn't see a real retraction, I saw yet another accusation of "poor text reading" -- something she's very fond of accusing her detractors of.
People have been not accepting Sarah's statement because Sarah's statement is wrong. Plain and simple. She may have meant it as snarky, but that doesn't change the fact that she said it. Also, when I provided CONTEXTUAL PROOF -- the entire blog entry that included the "elder stateswoman" comment -- she and TE promptly attacked me. "The phrase didn't turn up when I used the search function on my blog, so I went to look why. It turns out I had a database corruption a couple weeks later, and I lost my old files. It's not *in* my current blog database. So this person must have saved this file for months! I'm just picturing the poor bastard rubbing his or her hands together, muttering, 'Yeah! I got her!'"

As I've said before, for the record, I was NOT muttering. Hee. Now Sarah says "I think someone helpfully quoted it in Te's LJ." Hmmmm. I love revisionist history, don't you?

Hate me if you must, folks, but do try to hate the stuff I actually do and say.
Will do.
l

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]mpoetess
2003-05-05 07:20 pm UTC (link)
I wasn't going to touch this again, because honestly I'm tired of thinking about things that don't amuse me much at the best of times, which would include this ongoing feud. However, I thought I should clarify:

When I said, "People have been not accepting Sarah's statement on this ...thing... for a long damn time now" I was referring to her statement of how she meant the words to be taken (personal comment) and how she didn't mean them to be taken (racial insult). I was not saying that people haven't been accepting the factuality of the original insult, which I said not two comments ago, *I* don't accept.

So "People have been not accepting Sarah's statement because Sarah's statement is wrong. Plain and simple. She may have meant it as snarky, but that doesn't change the fact that she said it" doesn't have a lot to do with what I was saying. "Sarah's statement" as I phrased it above was her statement of what she meant, which pretty much by definition can't be 'wrong.' (It can be a lie, which I'm not arguing about one way or the other, but it can't be 'wrong.')

Now Sarah says "I think someone helpfully quoted it in Te's LJ." Hmmmm. I love revisionist history, don't you?

I rather think she was being snarky, as are you. The difference here, which sort of harks back to what I was pointing out, was that you are calling it "revisionist history" (when I suspect you know full well it was just snark) in a forum where people have a habit of picking up phrases and running with them without checking the source material. So a month down the line, someone could be saying "Sarah T. tries to pretend that people who hate her and post things to prove she's wrong, are actually doing it for her benefit. What a delusional, egocentric bitch."

That's pretty much all I was saying in the first place -- that I understand why she feels the need to specify what she did or didn't say, did or didn't intend, or even doesn't remember saying until called upon it, but is piecing her intention back together as best she could when forcibly reminded that she *did* say it.

FWIW, I think the classy thing to do *would* have been to say "Damn, ok, I did say that. Look, here's what I meant by it; I can see how it could seem self-aggrandizing, but I didn't mean it that way. Now can you all please get over it?" instead of denying having said it with reasonable fervor, then mocking the fervor or the people who took the time to find the proof that she did say it.

That said? I read the thread when it happened, I re-read the thread just now, and you were not attacked. You were reacted defensively against, and everybody on both sides got shitty -- but you were in Te's LJ, on the attack to begin with. You're welcome to present the encounter to other people in any light you like, of course, I don't agree with your assessment.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]deeablo
2003-05-05 07:55 pm UTC (link)
When I said, "People have been not accepting Sarah's statement on this ...thing... for a long damn time now" I was referring to her statement of how she meant the words to be taken (personal comment) and how she didn't mean them to be taken (racial insult).
Ah. I was referring to her "elder stateswoman" comment. Sorry for the confusion. There were five points in her post, and two of them directly refer to me, and I was responding to the ES one.

"People have been not accepting Sarah's statement because Sarah's statement is wrong. Plain and simple. She may have meant it as snarky, but that doesn't change the fact that she said it" doesn't have a lot to do with what I was saying. "Sarah's statement" as I phrased it above was her statement of what she meant, which pretty much by definition can't be 'wrong.' (It can be a lie, which I'm not arguing about one way or the other, but it can't be 'wrong.')
Again, I was referring to the "elder stateswoman" comment, not her "I know your English isn't very good" comment to Miss Windy. My point is that Sarah denied that she said any such thing about "elder stateswomen." I then provided the ENTIRE POST with the ES phrase as proof. She said she didn't say it. She did. Hence, Sarah was wrong. Perhaps she forgot, which is entirely likely, but she never said, "Oh. My bad. I did say it, but I meant it in jest." She just immediately said anyone who didn't know she was joking was an idiot. Sarah's refusal to own up to a mistake is one of her most annoying qualities.

I rather think she was being snarky, as are you. The difference here, which sort of harks back to what I was pointing out, was that you are calling it "revisionist history" (when I suspect you know full well it was just snark) in a forum where people have a habit of picking up phrases and running with them without checking the source material. So a month down the line, someone could be saying "Sarah T. tries to pretend that people who hate her and post things to prove she's wrong, are actually doing it for her benefit. What a delusional, egocentric bitch."
Again, I have always provided links and posts and requoted Sarah's words whenever I have disagreed with her. A lot of what I've done is point and laugh. She has her friends, she has her foes. If others choose to pick up phrases and use them without referring to the original source, I can hardly be held responsible for that. Is that what you're suggesting?

I would be more than happy to debate anything with her. However, she chooses not to do that. That's fine; her prerogative and everything. No worries.

That's pretty much all I was saying in the first place -- that I understand why she feels the need to specify what she did or didn't say, did or didn't intend, or even doesn't remember saying until called upon it, but is piecing her intention back together as best she could when forcibly reminded that she *did* say it.
Of course she has the right to say whatever the hell she wants. As do I. As do you. As does everybody. However, I also have the right to interpret her words as I see fit. She meant it as snark? I didn't read it that way. Not because I am "less educated," not because I have some sort of vendetta, but because Sarah's tone is very often condescending. If she is surprised by how often she is "misread," then perhaps she would like to clarify her writing style. She doesn't have to "dumb it down." Just clarify. Then again, her writing style, her life.

"forcibly reminded"? I did NOT strong-arm her into a corner and force her to read her own words. There wasn't some sort of virtual anvil. She said she didn't say it; I provided contextual proof that she did. Period. That I interpreted that post as different from what she meant had nothing to do with it, until she and Te brought it up.

FWIW, I think the classy thing to do *would* have been to say "Damn, ok, I did say that.
Yes, but she didn't do that, did she?

You were reacted defensively against, and everybody on both sides got shitty but you were in Te's LJ, on the attack to begin with.
I don't think providing proof was "on the attack." True, it was Te's journal, but that doesn't mean I went to her playground to tear shit up. Again, my take on it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

PART TWO
[info]deeablo
2003-05-05 07:56 pm UTC (link)
Added because of length:

You're welcome to present the encounter to other people in any light you like, of course, I don't agree with your assessment.
And I don't agree with yours. However, we can continue to debate this here or over e-mail, if you wish, or to drop it all together. Your choice. And thanks for being civil as we disagree. (That last statement is meant with all sincerity. No wank intended.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]jerry_ds_girl
2003-05-06 01:59 am UTC (link)
Sarah's refusal to own up to a mistake is one of her most annoying qualities

WORD. Anyone who does this loses big points, IMO.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]mpoetess
2003-05-06 06:35 am UTC (link)
Ah. I was referring to her "elder stateswoman" comment. Sorry for the confusion. There were five points in her post, and two of them directly refer to me, and I was responding to the ES one.

Gotcha. In that case..er. I really don't have a lot of argument with your take on that issue. I think you're right, about the refusal to admit when one is wrong, etc.

If others choose to pick up phrases and use them without referring to the original source, I can hardly be held responsible for that. Is that what you're suggesting?

No - I'm not suggesting that you're responsible for what other people pick up and run with out of context, at all. Just saying that I can understand why Sarah might feel the need to make such a post in her lj, presenting what she feels is the real take on issues that seem to have grown legendary.


"forcibly reminded"? I did NOT strong-arm her into a corner and force her to read her own words. There wasn't some sort of virtual anvil.

No, I didn't mean that you did anything untoward in that situation -- I simply meant forcibly in the sense of, "presented with evidence she couldn't deny."


And, bad punctution in my last line -- it was supposed to read, "You're welcome to present the encounter to other people in any light you like, of course. I don't agree with your assessment." Though to clarify, I simply meant that I didn't really see either side as being deliberately hateful in that discussion in Te's lj -- more defensive/evasive/hostile. Which, ack. Is why I try to stay far, far from such arguments usually. :)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]deeablo
2003-05-06 09:00 pm UTC (link)
Just saying that I can understand why Sarah might feel the need to make such a post in her lj, presenting what she feels is the real take on issues that seem to have grown legendary.
Indeed. However, I have a real problem with her constant paraphrasing and refusal to provide any support for her opinions. The fact that she bitches about her statements being taken out of context yet fails to provide a single link "allowing" people to see said disagreements in their entirety is a perfect example of the hypocrisy Sarah herself claims to abhor.

I simply meant that I didn't really see either side as being deliberately hateful in that discussion in Te's lj -- more defensive/evasive/hostile. Which, ack. Is why I try to stay far, far from such arguments usually. :)
I should, but I don't. Heh. But thanks for clarifying as we agree to disagree.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]misswindy
2003-05-05 03:25 am UTC (link)
I know what you're trying to get at, but I have to disagree with you. Had I not made it known that I didn't learn to speak English til I was 11, I don't think Sarah would have known. I believe it's a gratuitous way of calling my ethnicity up to bat in a purposely embarrassing way. She knows very well that my English is at least as good as hers (because frankly judging by her fanfic, her current betas hate her). She only said that to attempt to denigrate me by using my ethnicity, knowing full well it wasn't true. "I know your English isn't that good, but even YOU should understand..."

Basically, I understand that she was not saying "All Hispanics are morons". However, I do think she was saying "You're a moron on account of you being Hispanic." How that is NOT racist and hateful is hard for me to see, sorry. It's nice of her to at least obliquely acknowledge that she fucked up and try to cover her ass after the fact, though.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ivyblossom
2003-05-05 06:51 pm UTC (link)
I don't know much about Sarah T., but I can make an educated guess that she's a white American from a) the comment, and b) the rationalization. I'm fairly sure that it's only Americans who believe that being bilingual is a bad thing. Hell, up here in Canada the french immersion program, where you toss your English-speaking five year old into a French language ONLY classroom for the next eight years, is elite, and most Europeans learn English as a second language and speak it, write it, and read it pretty damn fricking well.

There have been studies about synapses and language learning that indicate that people who know more than one language tend to be quicker, as the brain needs to fire up new synapses to cope with the second language. There was a nun in Quebec who died at a ripe old age perfectly healthy, and THEN doctors discovered that she had had Alzhemier's. They couldn't tell before because she kept learning new languages all her life and her brain actually developed so much in her old age that the signs of Alzhemier's never appeared.

Is the bilingual comment racist? Yes, I think it is. Because for some reason if you speak Spanish in the United States your English is bound to suck. Darn Spanish-speaking people can't hold more'n'one language in their heads. *grunts*

d00d. That comment is just gross.

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[info]hopeluthor
2003-05-05 08:54 pm UTC (link)
Well, I'm a plain old white natural born speaker of English, and Sarah has said essentially the same thing to me in the past; she corrects anyone's grammar, she corrects anyone who makes a linguistic error. Sarah is just plain rude, it doesn't matter who you are, or where you're from. Conflating her calling one person stupid to her calling an entire segment of the population stupid is completely unfair. Now, plainly Sarah hasn't done a lot to make people want to be fair with her, but you win more points in the boxing match if your punches are clean, in my experience. The best way to get people on your side is to be right.

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[info]ivyblossom
2003-05-05 09:02 pm UTC (link)
Hmm perhaps. But I don't know her, my experience with her and the SV fandom is limited, so I can really only go by the comment we have here before us. And frankly, it doesn't matter to me how many other times she's picked on someone's grammar...here she said, you're grasp of the english language is poor because you're bilingual, and like...d00d. I mean, I've never picked on anyone for spelling/grammar before, but if I said something like that I damn well hope someone would call me out for it.

*shrugs*

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[info]hopeluthor
2003-05-05 09:09 pm UTC (link)
The thing is, that's NOT what she said. She said, "I know your grasp on the English language is questionable..." (slightly paraphrased, I'm not digging through the archives to find it.) Miss Windy is the one who brought up the fact that she was bilingual, after Sarah already said it. (And you've certainly read some of Miss Windy's writing so far- does she sound like she's non-fluent?) I watched the whole thing unfold at the time, and they were both jabbing at each other like penned scorpions, and it was meant to be a slam over a willful misinterpretation of a previous statement. Like I said, Sarah is incredibly rude, and she was definitely trying to piss Miss Windy off, but it'd be no different than if said to you, "What, are you stupid or something?" Undeniably rude, but it has nothing to do with your race at all.

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[info]hopeluthor
2003-05-05 09:14 pm UTC (link)
Edited to add... or rather, adding to add- the actual beginning of the argument was on the TWoP boards in the SV Fanfiction Discussion Thread. I don't know if they purged those threads too or not, but if you're inclined to get the entire history of the argument, that's where it begins.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]ivyblossom
2003-05-05 09:36 pm UTC (link)
Ahhhhhhh Hokay. :) What would we do without you to clarify? Wither in despair, I tell you. Sink into the swamp of despond, sink!

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]sporky
2003-05-05 09:50 pm UTC (link)
Uh huh. I don't care how angry Sarah T. was. The fact that she would base a jab (for whatever real reason) of off Ms. Windy's background shows what sort of person she is, especially in the context of American culture.

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[info]hopeluthor
2003-05-05 10:13 pm UTC (link)
The point being, Sarah didn't know Miss Windy's background when she said it. Miss Windy's friends know her particulars, but the rest of the world doesn't. Sarah didn't find out that she was bilingual until -after- she slammed her. She was being a bitch, not a racist.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ymfaery
2003-05-07 03:45 am UTC (link)
Speaking as someone who is not in the Smallville fandom and whose knowledge of Sarah T. and Miss Windy is based only upon what's been hashed out on this forum in its various incarnations, I must say that your statement about Sarah not knowing Miss Windy was bilingual when she made the bad English comment doesn't make sense.

When I read that statement, I inferred that Sarah T. knew Miss Windy's primary language wasn't English. I also inferred that they had spoken/clashed/argued before. Combining those two assumptions, and adding other people's comments about not knowing Miss Windy was bilingual until she mentioned it, makes me wonder *how* Sarah T. could not have known Miss Windy was bilingual. Unless you're arguing that Sarah T. assumed Miss Windy was a high school student flunking her English class, or something along those lines?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]hopeluthor
2003-05-09 12:38 am UTC (link)
Okay, let me give you an example...

[Example]After everything you just read, how could you possibly still have a question? Is your English that bad?[/Example]

Miss Windy's English is just fine. The argument was about Miss Windy deliberately and willfully misinterpreting something Sarah said. (Actually, I believe it was about incest fiction to start with, but this is what it denigrated to.) Sarah was calling Miss Windy stupid for going round and round and round with her claiming Sarah said one thing, when Sarah could, and did, cut and paste to prove exactly what she said. Sarah could have (and has in the past) said this kind of thing to all flavors of people; it had not a thing to do with Miss Windy's heritage. The whole argument at this point was semantic quibbling with venom.

I realize that Sarah is not a pleasant and polite person by any stretch of the imagination, but when people are going to fling the -isms around, I think even the most unpleasant person deserves the benefit of the doubt. Which was pretty much what the original post in this thread was all about: hate her for what she says, not for what other people claim she says.

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[info]ymfaery
2003-05-09 09:24 pm UTC (link)
So in other words Sarah was trying to convey that Miss Windy was being dense/obtuse/contrary/etc.

If that's the case, she definitely used a poor choice of words since I and a heck of a lot of other people didn't read it that way. If she had said, "I know you're dense, but..." then the whole bilingual and racism aspect wouldn't have been dragged in. (Although to be honest I didn't see why people were yelling racism to begin with. *shrug*)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]hopeluthor
2003-05-10 12:00 am UTC (link)
Right, that's exactly what she was doing, and I agree- Sarah has a real bad case of "poor choice of words"-itis; I wouldn't have said anything at all if the racism charge hadn't been brought into it. She can be many mean things, but the rudeness is pretty evenly spread. :) The social skillz, dey are important after all!

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]cimorene111
2003-05-05 07:55 pm UTC (link)
i have to agree. that's how i read it too. she seems to be implying, maybe not that all hispanics are morons, but at least that they're more likely to be or something.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]telesilla
2003-05-05 02:12 am UTC (link)
Whoa, defensive much?

(Reply to this)

  
   
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