*headdesk*

[rushthatspeaks]

The word miscegenation is racist. Seriously, seriously racist. IF one feels the need to tag work featuring relationships between humans of different ethnicities and skin colors as a kink-- a tag I personally find problematic-- 'interracial' would be the less-offensive tag.

Also, the equation of relationships between humans of different ethnicities and skin colors with relationships between humans and non-humans, an equation specifically spelled out by the definition used of miscegenation by the persons creating the tag, is abhorrent.

So far, I haven't said anything new to this discussion. In other people's comment threads, I've noticed a set of answers to the statements I just made that can be summarized as 'but if we change the terminology, we are deprivileging non-human sentient races, because we can't tag them with interracial because that would continue this equation of human and non, which is bad, and we can't tag them with bestiality because that would be inaccurate-- therefore clearly we cannot change the terminology at all'. Seriously. I'm not going to link to specific threads right now, but I've seen this in liviapenn's, witchqueen's, jonquil's, and oyceter's LJs, at the very least.

I have two things to say about this reaction:

One, nonhuman sentient races are at this point in time not real/extant/present. Persons of color in fandom are right here. Worry about the feelings of the people who are actually being hurt, please.

Two, this is a non-existent definitional problem, because there is a word for the kink that involves relationships between humans and non-human sentient species. It isn't a term I've seen kicking around this discussion yet, probably because I've mostly seen it used in fandoms that don't overlap Harry Potter very much, such as video game fandoms.

The correct word is xenophilia, sometimes abbreviated to xeno. Literally translated from the Greek, it means loving the stranger; a more general usage would be 'loving the other'. This is a good term to use when discussing work involving humans and nonhuman sapients. It does not have the connotational racism/dehumanization effects of tagging this kink (which *is* a real kink, and one that probably does need a tag) with either 'interracial' or, gods help us, 'miscegenation'. And it does not mean bestiality.

Persons having people turn up in comment threads with the non-human races definitional thingie? Send them here, or link.

And I will also point out that even if the word 'xeno' did not exist, so that the definitional problem was an actual issue-- the correct response is to coin a word, because it is *still not okay* to equate persons of color with nonhumans, even if you don't know how to express what you are trying to say otherwise. The English language is endlessly accepting of neologisms. *Make something up*.

I'd be willing to bet that 'xenophilia' is in the dictionary of sexual terms that the mods at daily_deviant were using, and that it didn't occur to anyone to look for a word with that meaning in the dictionary, so they tried to include it in the definition of something that came up. As I said, the English language accepts neologisms-- but portmanteaus can be another story. I have heard that the first language of these mods is not English, which probably explains the portmanteau attempt. It's clinging to the meaning they insist on for the word, denying all other meanings, and then insisting that the meanings they insist on cannot possibly be insulting that is stupid, and on this occasion racist, behavior.

ETA: and said mods have changed the term and apologized. Leaving this up because the vocab may still be relevant.