Whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about privilege lately, and about what people really mean when they accuse someone of overreacting.

I can already feel hackles rising when I say the word “privilege,” because somewhere along the way, privilege became the realm of white dudes and white dudes alone. Any time you talk about privilege, it seems, one of the first reactions is to accuse the speaker of white dude-bashing.

But privilege, of course, is not limited to white dudes. Let’s look at what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say about it:

privilege, n. A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by an individual, corporation of individuals, etc., beyond the usual rights or advantages of others; spec. (a) an exemption from a normal duty, liability, etc.; (b) enjoyment of some benefit (as wealth, education, standard of living, etc.) above the average or that deemed usual or necessary for a particular group

It’s that second definition, the “exemption from a normal duty / liability” one, that interests me most. Because that can apply to lots and lots of people.

Where privilege seems to come into play most commonly these days is in situations like this, which I’ll try to illustrate in a mathematical way.

1. Person A, a member of X group, describes how Y situation made him / her uncomfortable or offended.

2. Person B, who is not a member of X group and has never been in Y situation, dismisses person A’s response as “overreacting,” “not having a sense of humor,” or “being too sensitive.”

Let’s apply that formula to a few different situations.

A black man says that being followed around by a security guard in a shopping mall was offensive to him. A white woman says he’s blowing the whole incident out of proportion.

A woman says she was uncomfortable when a workplace superior invited her to his apartment for a drink. A male coworker rolls his eyes and says she’s overreacting.

A man says it’s difficult to live on $20,000 a year. A woman / man (the gender really doesn’t matter here) who has never made less than $100,000 a year tells the man to quit whining.

I’d like to propose a radically simple mathematical solution to this problem: If a member of X group expresses frustration / discomfort / anger over an issue specifically related to X group, and YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER OF X GROUP, please don’t accuse that person of overreacting, being too sensitive, or not having a sense of humor. You might have reason to doubt their position. You might be offended by their assessment of the situation. But as a person who has never and will likely never experience the kind of marginalization / discrimination they are describing, you are still viewing their situation from a place of privilege, and you should not assess it as an insider or an expert. Disagree all you want, but don’t dismiss.

I’ve got plenty of privilege of my own. As a white woman living in Tokyo, the police leave me alone. Not so many of my male foreign friends, especially my non-white male friends, who report getting stopped by the police on a regular basis for no reason at all. Am I going to accuse them of whining? Fuck no.

I’ve also never been poor in my life. Sure, like a lot of grad students I refer to being broke or strapped for cash, but I have never lived in fear of eviction, never had to live in my car, never had to forgo medical treatment because I couldn’t afford it, never had to use food stamps. So when someone who IS using food stamps says that it’s really hard to live on them, I’m going to acknowledge that I don’t know shit about what it’s like to be in their shoes. I’m certainly not going to dismiss their complaints as overreacting.

Because really, what we mean when we say “You’re overreacting” is “Your feelings don’t matter” and “I understand this situation better than you do.” We’re negating the person’s experience, diminishing the person,  and dismissing their problem as trivial.

To sum up, then: maybe we should all think about our own privilege. In particular, think about whether you’re speaking from a place of privilege before you dismiss someone’s anger or discomfort. Really, just think before you say “You’re overreacting,” “You just don’t have a sense of humor,” and “You’re too sensitive”. It’s very, very hard to say those things and not sound like a dick.

Going on a break, everybody–it’s getting to that time when I can no longer ignore looming dissertation deadlines, and if I want to finish this puppy in time for a May defense I have to hunker down a bit. I’ll probably still stop in here occasionally, but expect fewer posts through mid-January, when I hope to have sent off a draft. Stay warm!

Menolly was braver than I ever felt as a teenager–after being told “no” time and time again, she kept going anyway.

In the case of Killashandra Ree, I just wanted her job. Who wouldn’t want to make a fortune singing to rocks on a hostile planet? Re-reading Crystal Singer recently, I was surprised to discover that Killashandra was a lot less likeable than I remembered–she kept whining about how everyone was invading her privacy and seemed to have a very, very high opinion of her talents. But she was nobody’s sidekick, she never needed rescuing, and she flew spaceships in mach storms. And when she had casual sex it was no big deal.

I only ever read three of Anne McCaffrey’s books–Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Crystal Singer–but they were enough to impact my life and reading habits for years to come. Like a lot of other confused teenage girls, I found solace in the struggles of McCaffrey’s mostly female protagonists. They might be battling monsters on distant planets, but they were fully-fleshed human beings, and they felt like kindred spirits.

“Harper, your song has a sorrowful sound,
Though the tune was written as gay.
Your voice is sad and your hands are slow
And your eye meeting mine turns away.”
–Dragonsong

Image courtesy AP / The Enterprise, Wayne Tilcock

I’ve run the gamut of emotions in response to the UC Davis pepper-spraying incident. I went from shock to rage to despair and have now settled into a state of bafflement.

Seriously, I’m really fucking confused.

What in the world do institutions like UC Davis gain from pepper-spraying students? When has violence toward peaceful protesters ever done anything but galvanize a movement? Were the chancellors and the police officers really thinking, “This’ll show them–if we pepper-spray these kids they’ll all go home and think twice about ever protesting again”?

For fuck’s sake. Protesting is what college students do. It’s as much a part of the U.S. college experience as freshman composition. Who in their right mind calls in police in riot gear to a university protest?

During my four years at the University of Texas at Austin (1996-2000), there seemed to be a protest every other day. People demonstrated in the name of labor inequality, a lack of rights for the LGBT community, meat eating, affirmative action (for and against), protecting the Edwards Aquifer, and against a Barnes & Noble replacing the local bookstore. Some protests were small, but some were huge.

I never once saw police react violently at these protests, even the ones that lasted for days and involved tents. There was a police presence, but they mostly just stood by and watched. They actually seemed to be there primarily to protect the protesters from anyone who might, you know, try to deprive them of their right to exercise free speech.

There is, of course, a historical precedent for violent reactions to peaceful protests. In the last few days the UC Davis incident has reminded many of Kent State and the violent responses to civil rights protesters in the 1960s. But for a while there, at least, it seemed that exercising one’s right to free speech was actually safe again.

At the university where I’m currently enrolled (in California), I’ve also witnessed plenty of protesting. One protest involved the school’s use of sweatshop labor to produce its official clothing. Students camped out in front of the president’s office. At one point they were told that if they didn’t disperse, they would be suspended. Their parents were also called (a gross violation of privacy). One parent reportedly told her daughter, “Stay right where you are.”

People were outraged at that level of response. But the idea that those students would have been beaten with batons, or had pepper spray forced down their throats, was pretty much unthinkable. They were college students. Protesting was what they were supposed to do.

What happened? When did students peacefully assembling on college campuses come to be seen as a threat? What is different about these protests?

Plenty of others have responded to that question eloquently. Reasons cited include the militarization of police forces (I particularly like the contrasting images in this article, of an unarmed police officer leading a student away at Columbia, and the UC Davis police, who look like they’ve ready to face down an army). The one thing that I keep coming back to is this: maybe these protests at Berkely and UC Davis, protests over outrageous tuition hikes and a growing income inequality, hit a little too close to home. Maybe the government has read its history and knows that protests which begin in places like Berkeley have a way of striking a chord with the nation. Maybe protests that have nothing to do with the university itself are fine, but when students protest something that actually might make people look a little more closely at how universities are run, they have to be silenced.

And then of course there’s the post-9/11 world, in which every gathering of more than two people in a public space seems to constitute a threat to public safety. In which linking arms is apparently NOT a form of non-violent protest. The behavior of the UC Davis police is inexcusable, but perhaps we should look more closely at the training they received–training which, I imagine, taught them to treat all groups, even college students sitting on the ground, as potential terrorist threats.

I’m still confused. And I don’t mean for my confusion to make light of what is truly a tragic situation that should provoke all kinds of outrage. But at this point my rage is all worn out, and I’m going for baffled.

In the meantime, here’s a video that makes sense. Lots and lots of fucking sense. When I grow grim over images of Penn State students rioting in favor of a man who enabled a child rapist, I look at this video instead. Thank you, UC Davis students and faculty, for bringing a little sanity to an insane world.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that online piracy is a problem and we need to do something about it, but this bill is a mess. You can sign a petition in opposition to it here.

When it comes to on-campus sexual assaults, universities are very good at sweeping things under the rug. To avoid tarnishing the university brand–and the multi-million dollar endowments that come with it–assault cases tend to be handled internally, and victims are put through a bewildering and often humiliating system which makes other victims reluctant to speak out.

In November 2010, a freshman at St. Mary’s committed suicide nine days after reporting a sexual assault by a Notre Dame football player. In that case, the university had not involved the police and subsequently refused to discuss its handling of the assault. St. Mary’s, for its part, was quick to point out that “no crime occurred on our campus.”

At Drake University in August 2010, a fraternity member sexually assaulted one of his fraternity brothers and was kicked out of the fraternity, but not out of school. These kinds of punishments seem to be the most common–the accused gets kicked out of clubs or suspended from certain activities, but does not get charged with an actual crime or even kicked out of school.

Maintaining the illusion of crime-free, assault-free campuses seems to be priority number one for more than a few universities. Students who do report assaults are sometimes threatened with disciplinary action if they discuss the assaults in public. The system in place for handling assault cases can be baffling and shrouded in secrecy. While cases are under review, accusers may be forced to attend classes with their attackers. Many accusers report pressure from other students to back off, especially if their attackers were popular.

The Center for Public Integrity’s multi-part study on university handling of sexual assault cases paints a fairly grim picture:

“One national study reports that roughly one in five women who attend college will become the victim of a rape or an attempted rape by the time she graduates. But while the vast majority of students who are sexually assaulted remain silent — just over 95 percent, according to a study funded by the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department — those who come forward can encounter mystifying disciplinary proceedings, secretive school administrations, and off-the-record negotiations.”

If there is one silver lining to the horrific events that took place over the last twenty years at Penn State, it’s that maybe, just maybe, people will finally start to realized the depth and power of the university code of silence surrounding sexual assault.

And how utterly fucked up it is to shelter pedophiles and rapists in the name of protecting a brand.

Readers who’ve been waiting for China Mieville to return to the levels of brilliance he displayed in Perdido Street Station and The Scar can rejoice. Embassytown may be his best work yet.

A plot summary doesn’t really do the story justice, but here are the basics: in a human city on a planet at the edge of the known universe, the native Ariekei, who have two mouths each, speak a double-tongued language that is inseparable from thought. Instead of “Hello, how are you,” an Ariekes would say “Hello / How are you” (imagine the “Hello” positioned above the “How are you”, like a fraction). Humans cannot mimic Ariekei speech because they have only one mouth, and the Ariekei perceive recordings of their Language only as meaningless noise. Without thought behind it, Language does not exist. Thus special Ambassadors, pairs of electronically linked humans who function almost as a single unit, are the only ones who can communicate with the Ariekei, whose planet is a valuable source of hybrid machine-organic technology.

Crucially, the Ariekei are incapable of lying, or of abstract thought. Similes must first be staged in real life. Humans are often asked to “perform a simile,” becoming a living part of Language in order to make abstraction possible. The narrator, Avice, is as a child asked to be bruised and eat what is given to her. From that moment, she is invoked whenever the Ariekei want to argue that something is “like the girl who was hurt and ate what was given to her”.

I’ll stop there, because one of the true joys of Embassytown is its many revelations, not only of plot but of the nature of language (and Language) itself. Suffice it to say that at some point something goes terribly wrong, and the novel alternates between life-and-death tension and the fundamental question of what language is.  The salvation of the entire planet ultimately depends not on some epic space-battle between humans and aliens, but on a linguistic revolution.

With Embassytown, Mieville pulls off the rare feat of creating a difficult, multi-layered story that requires the reader’s full attention AND spinning an endlessly entertaining yarn. It takes a little while for things to get going (something I also found to be true of The Scar), but the payoff is immense.

There are so many small things that are wonderful about Embassytown, things that weren’t even really necessary to the backbone of the story but that make it all the more vivid and pleasurable. The narrator, Avice, is a rare find in science fiction: a female protagonist who exhibits no overtly feminine or masculine characteristics. Her ambiguous / polyamorous sexuality fits right in with those around her, and though she’s driven by a basic desire to do the right thing, she frequently acts in her own self-interest. Though other characters are not quite as multi-faceted, many unique and flawed personalities come through–even that of a humanoid robot, who Avice counts as one of her best friends.

Appropriately for a novel about the nature of language, China Mieville’s virtuoso word skills are on full display here. The introduction of dozens of new words and concepts from the very beginning of the novel can be overwhelming at times, but it adds to the flavor of the story, in which language dissembles as much as it clarifies. There are passages of great beauty that rival the best of any modern genre.

I read the last hundred pages of Embassytown with my heart in my throat, not only because of the impending climax of the story (though that was gripping), but because, admittedly, I was terrified that the novel would crash and burn. China Mieville has a habit of creating fascinating worlds or concepts, developing a narrative, and then being unable to bring the narrative and the concept to a satisfying end (this was especially evident in The City and The City). But this time, he gets it right, right up until the last words. Though the second half of the novel at times focuses more on good old-fashioned suspense than on the deeper questions about language, the incredibly satisfying conclusion manages to tie the story together, remain complex, AND address difficult questions about language all in one go.

I don’t want to say that Embassytown is much more than science fiction, a somewhat backhanded compliment that has been thrown at Mieville and other writers who’ve taken the form in bold new directions. Embassytown is great literature and great science fiction. But it also transcends genre. It’s a work of grand ideas and mundane human / alien concerns, a story that takes us to the edges of the universe but forces us to repeatedly look inward, at the language that we take for granted that is in fact a rare, miraculous gift.

First off, comedienne Spring Day, who’s been cracking me up in Tokyo for years now. She’s played the Edinburgh Fringe, she just started a blog, and if you find yourself in Tokyo on the third Thursday or last Friday of the month, you should definitely check her out.

Next, a truly awesome website that’s written predominantly by ladies, though men are welcome. Check out The Hairpin for humorous essays on everything from how to decode movie reviews (“A sobering look” = narrated by Morgan Freeman) to how to make dandelions out of twigs and yarn balls.

Okay, I have a few issues with this video.

1. “Studies have shown that women are more likely to watch a video if it features a hot guy.”

Uh…which studies? Sure you’re not projecting there? In my case, I’m more likely to watch a video if it’s funny. Or if Jay Smooth made it.

2. Not all ladies like hot dudes.

It’d be nice if there was a version of this app that featured a badass lady telling you to check your breasts.

3. Why do we feel the need to use sex to sell breast cancer awareness?

Plenty of people have pointed out the absurdity of the misguided “Save Second Base” campaign (get a breast exam, because not having boobs to grope is way more tragic than people dying!). Breast cancer isn’t just a lady problem–as one commenter over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books put it, “If you’ve got nipples you can get breast cancer” (yes, it’s much rarer in men, but it does happen).

At the same time, I actually like this video’s brand of humor a lot better than “save second base”–at least it’s playing a bit with notions of objectification. And doesn’t feature any pink ribbons or teddy bears.

So the video’s got its flaws. But it still made me laugh. And was I alone in hoping the guys would start making out?

Especially when you’ve been working on them for four months.

My fourth chapter was going nowhere. I’d started it right before I started working full-time, and over the course of the next four months I had literally gotten maybe a few sentences a day written, and each sentence was like pulling teeth. I had twenty-five pages of notes and was quickly falling into a reading trap (reading more and more and taking more and more notes but doing very little actual writing). More and more often I would get home with plans to work but would find every excuse to avoid it, because just thinking about this chapter made me feel ill.

Part of it (no, really, most of it) was the subject matter. This chapter was on Akira, which I recognize as a super-important film in not only the realm of anime but cyberpunk / sci-fi / visual spectacle. But I’ve never liked the film. Sure, some of it is gorgeous to look at, but the story bores me. And I was trying to write via an angle that I had very little expertise in–the actual mechanics of anime-creation and graphics. So I felt a bit like a tap dancer who’d just been asked to perform in a ballet.

And then I took a week off from work, which gave me the time to get back into a good headspace and see things a little more clearly. I sat down to watch another movie–Oshii Mamoru’s Sky Crawlers–thinking that maybe it would give me some inspiration. And the movie was great.

I started writing about Sky Crawlers and had written fifteen pages in the space of two days. I’d thought those pages could be added to my fourteen Akira pages, but in reality I only saved about two of them. And once I abandoned the old stuff, I felt SO much better.

Even though everyone’s reluctant to abandon a piece of writing, especially one that they’ve slaved over, I think most of us realize that it’s essential to the writing process. Half of writing something good, whether it’s a dissertation or an email, is knowing what to cut out. And there’s a strange sense of satisfaction in taking something you’ve worked on–but that has also kept you up at night–and just dropping it in the virtual rubbish bin.

So, lessons learned:

1. Don’t try to write on a book / movie that you hate. Yeah, sometimes you have to, but avoid it at all costs. You don’t have to LOVE it, but something has to draw you to it.

2. When things get really bad, watch or read something random. Maybe it’ll end up as material, maybe it won’t, but it can shake up your brain a bit and get you out of a rut.

3. If writing is genuinely painful, consider starting over. Don’t stress about “wasted time”–even if all that work didn’t result in a finished product, it probably gave birth to plenty of meaningful thoughts and ideas that will show up in your next piece.

4. Destruction is an essential part of the creative process. This isn’t news to most people, but a lot of us kind of ignore it. Drafting and developing doesn’t just mean that you write a draft and then tweak it–sometimes it means that you write a draft, get rid of 60% of it, and then revise and add to what remains until it barely resembles your original work.

Chapter four is a completed draft now, 28 pages in about 3 weeks. I’m going to do my best not to cling to it too tightly.