This is what has been going on with race and SF/F

[zdashamber]

Racefail 09 has been in my head a lot, and I happened to start collecting actual words to post while reading Jim Hines's post which seems to have a cross-section of the whole debate in the comments. Oh, and by the way, in case you didn't know, there are two useful LJ tricks which may help you out as you go from journal to journal: to see the comments listed in order of time, so you can catch them all, at the end of a LJ URL type ?view=flat ; to switch a journal from some horrible viewscheme like teal text on purple background in a 3 inch wide column, at the end of a LJ URL type ?style=mine.

An incredibly common thing for ignorant white people to say is,

One of the 'arguments' I was linked with had to do with a writer depicting a white woman enslaving a black man and putting a leash on him. I said, ...and? Apparently the position was that creating such a scene was insensitive and racist. Yet, it is perfectly admissable for a black writer to create this same scene. ?

Actually, the people pretending that black people don't sometimes write racist things are white people inventing BS so that they have a dodge. Actual black people involved in anti-racism write essays like "We worry about it too." Here's another common "they're too mean for me to hear" line of thought:

This would have been a good and worthwhile conversation if it had stayed connected to the text ... If you have a personal disagreement with someone that you feel is treating you poorly, then talking to or emailing them privately is the correct way to handle it ... The debate was "good and worthwile" for a few people who "matter" who wanted to exercise their anger and outrage.

This all comes from basic denial of the problem, which is that shallow offensive treatments of race, and dismissiveness of those who point these flawed treatments out, are endemic to SF/F, and part of a long pattern online and off. cathshaffer also says, "If the idea is to raise awareness about cultural appropriation, then writing and publishing an essay either on the internet or in a magazine seems like a good way to go"... Actually, publishing a fascinating essay about cultural appropriation is exactly what Deepa D. did--exactly what kicked this off.

After deepad published her essay, Avalon's Willow linked it in a more firey essay, and Elizabeth Bear responded to Avalon's Willow. Bear's commentors got all jerkish and snooty about Willow's read, and posted snarky denial-filled things on their own journals. People who thought that blowing off people of color's (POC) reads was BS commented on Bear's commentor's journals. Patrick Nielsen Hayden teleported in and jammed his foot in his mouth from not understanding context, then retreated. That was the first part, January 13-19ish.

His wife, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, with complete ignorance that you could just click on someone's LJ and see how long they'd been talking about stuff like this, introduced the idea that everyone who thought it was BS to blow off POC was a single sockpuppet, or at the very least, they were all trolls; and also introduced the idea of making lists of people who had bothered Patrick to punish them. In her comments, Kathryn Cramer took ahold of the idea that people were hiding behind pseudonyms and worried it endlessly; it hit one of her buttons since apparently she'd once had the crowds of rightwing shitheads at Little Green Footballs after her. This percolated. That was the second part, January 26th-early February. Then things died down for a few weeks.

End of February-early March (perhaps earlier? I can't tell), the percolation ended when Kathryn Cramer and Will Shetterly attacked coffeeandink (Mely), connecting her real name to her LJ name. Apparently this was because Mely has been a clever, visible voice among the anti-racists, and was personally affronting to Cramer because more than a decade ago she worked with the Nielsen Haydens for some months. (Shetterly, well, he came in at the very beginning when his wife Emma Bull [who has since apologized] was among those snarking at Willow; and he and his sycophants have no honor.) That was the third part.

March 4th, Elizabeth Bear screwed up enormously when she took it upon herself to tell everyone it was time to shut up, and BTW, she had been lying when she said Willow had a point, she was just saying that to look good. (She has since tried to apologize.) Combined with Cramer and Shetterly's thuggery, this kicked up a flurry of WTF big enough that finally authors started weighing in on the original issue, which was, again, that shallow offensive treatments of race, and dismissiveness of those who point these flawed treatments out, are endemic to SF/F, and part of a long pattern online and off.

The whole damn thing has existed because some white people can't take criticism of their works or people they like. They won't admit that they don't know everything about race, and they blunder around like idiots.

I'm interested to see that the call for shunning has gone out. Six months or so ago, when I was still following the Nielsen Hayden's blog Making Light, PNH posted related to how a couple white SF/F guys got caught chortling about ragheads, and I commented about how screwed-up it was that the attitude was "oh those guys! la they are jerks"... It was like how Harlan Ellison's assholishness was tolerated for so many years, letting him hurt scores of people before Connie Willis. Why, I asked, weren't we shunning unapologetic bigots? You can see in that comment thread the result: a few people saying Wooo! and a few people saying OMG STAR CHAMBER and most people ignoring the issue entirely until they could divert it into another thread on how to apologize. So that! to the people who are like "well if we were just talking nicely among people of our own type in a controlled environment surely this would get solved".

Anyway, do I still feel like unapologetic fucks should not be invited to take part in cons, anthologies, all that professional-ish stuff? Yes. And I'm glad to see that author/bloggers like Jo Walton have come to the same conclusion.

Some other author-type people who have done well (many found from the list at sheafrotherdon's): Justine Larbalestier, Naomi Novik, Ann Leckie, Sherwood Smith, Kate Elliott, Liz Williams, Martha Wells, Claudia Gray, Alistair Reynolds, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Eleanor Arnason, Stacia Kane, Tim Pratt... I'm missing some, please fill in, I heard Pamela Dean but I don't have links? Editor-type people who have done well: Susan Marie Groppi, Debbie Notkin, Christopher Barzak, Niall Harrison, L. Timmel Duchamp. Oh! And of course there's the authors who have been great all along: K. Tempest Bradford, N.K. Jemisin, Moondancer Drake, Helen Keeble...

And here are some other brilliant posts about this whole schlmiel: ciderpress points out that it's not like POC feel all happy with these continual blowups even if white people learn stuff; bossymarmalade writes a lovely response to Bear's fail; asim peacefully fills in some historical MLK Jr perspective; thingswithwings notes how the antiracists are the ones with posts jampacked with links and attributions because they've learned about being blown off. rydra_wong links everything said by everybody if you want to know more. I rarely recommend videos, but this one on how to tell people they sound racist is awesome.

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I think I've finally figured out what sort of TLA POC is.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Hee. It's the term I see people using for themselves. You also see WOC, FOC, and MOC sometimes, for women, fans, and men of color.

[denyse.livejournal.com]

oh, so THAT's what an FOC is.

[karjack.livejournal.com]

I'm still reeling from the craziness of all this.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

I'm a low expectation having motherfucker. Here in the Bay Area on New Year's Day around 2 in the morning, BART cops stopped a train where there were reports of obstreperous black men, pulled a bunch of guys off the train, one (23 years old, worked in a grocery store, 4 year old daughter) was mouthy, and a cop shot him in the back while he was lying on the platform. The only reason that cop is charged with murder is that he did it in front of trainfuls of people recording it on their cell phones--the two cell videos that made it to the news came from a train that pulled away before the cops confiscated everyone's phone. The comments of every article on the case are 2:1 in favor of letting the poor innocent cop go because the black thug got what he deserved.

I guess I'm sometimes surprised by who has gone how far in RaceFail09, on a personal level, a la "I wouldn't have thought that X was such a fool". On a systemic level, eh.

[karjack.livejournal.com]

I remember that story. One of many emerging in 2009 alone of black people (recently, in Seattle, a fifteen year old girl) being brutalized or killed by cops. That plus the couple of racist cartoons, plus this epic race fail, and I just want to punch the next person who implies that we live in a post-racism society because we elected a black president.

Most comment sections infuriate me. I'm not sure I can remain a pacifist and read them with any regularity.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Comment sections make my head explode from the unvarnished unexpurgated Stupid in them. They also go a long way in thwarting any attempts to improve my opinion of humanity.

[beth_leonard]

Thanks for the summary. akiko also posted on the topic of RaceFail09. I linked to your summary for one of her commenters, I hope you don't mind.

--Beth

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

No problem. Since I wrote it I saw like four other summaries, but I forgot to note down the ones better than mine. :)

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugs me most about it is even if Mely parted badly from Tor, so /what/? The post in which she directly addressed TNH was polite, calm, reasoned, to the point, and did not trade on any personal relationship whatsoever.

It has not changed my opinion of her post (and her other writings) one iota to know that she parted badly from Tor. (I don't care how and I don't care why, either, since I am not a personal friend and I /don't need to know/.)

Her post was a post /about the substance/ of the debate.

Maybe it would have changed how TNH and PNH (and some other Tor-folk) read it, but (according to TNH 3-4 days ago-- I'd source it but I'd have to go wade in Shetterly's comments. Oh, I'm compulsive, here (http://shetterly.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/because-the-internets-love-to-be-documented-as-recursively-as-possible-updated/#comment-17513)) TNH hadn't known Mely's post existed until about March 4th. (I find this hard to credit, but I had it from the horse's mouth.)

And aside from all /that/, so the hell what? It's a great way to contend the whole discussion, across umpty-million blogs, is about Mely's personal animosity, when it is nothing of the kind, it's about appropriation, cultural information, and sanity in writing. Oh, and race and racism. (And cookies.)

And it started /years/ before Avalon's Willow breathed a breath about Blood & Iron, and years before EBear discoursed on the subject, either.

Gnar.

(edited, again, to note that (perhaps obviously) I'm here from Rydra. And then to fix something.)

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I agree.

I also think it's neat how the people who think a 9-month gig 13 years ago is relevant, but no one thinks the current polyweb of lovers, ex lovers, and lovers of lovers is important. The current financial arrangements are somewhat out, but not precisely explicit, either.

[chomiji]

That video really does follow the current situation almost point by point, doesn't it? Thanks for posting it, along with the summation and the other links.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

I forget where I got it from first, but I found it again at
http://community.livejournal.com/fight_derailing/1725.html .

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Pamela Dean, pameladean, also made pertinent and unfaily comments as di Liz Williams, mevennen, who also posted at least one unlocked journal entry on the subject.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointers!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

The whole damn thing has existed because some white people can't take criticism of their works or people they like. They won't admit that they don't know everything about race, and they blunder around like idiots.

Yes. And every single time it blows up again, it's because they can't let the criticism go (or, horror of horrors, actually learn from it) and they feel the need to blame/attack the people who brought their faults to their attention.

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

I like this. I enjoyed reading it. Thank you for posting it publicly.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this.

[brownbetty]

Hah, I recognized that commenter from your quote.

here via metafandom

[leana106.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this!

Re: here via metafandom

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, thanks for the metafandom headsup!