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If you haven't been following RaceFail '09, or you thought it was safe to go into the Internet again...it's not over. See the posts ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rydra_wong has been making with key links; she also has an entry here designed to catch people up by recapping some key links and major issues.
I've made a couple of posts, and I keep thinking that's it: people who are much more eloquent on the topic than I have been posting, and people who are much more knowledgeable, and I'll let them handle it.
The last few days, though, I've seen people saying, "That's it--I've had it with SF and SF fandom." They've had it because they don't see many [fans* see below] standing up to the ones doing truly offensive things. There are people who combine white privilege, educational privilege, and professional privilege--and take all those advantages and use their powers for ill on the Internet. They get paid to write or edit, so I've been thinking they must consider their time on the Internet part of their jobs; they seem to have way more time to post than most of us do, and yet they spend it so very badly.
No, I'm not naming these writers and editors who have done harm. Rydra gives plenty of links above, and you can find more detail than you ever wanted to know; I do encourage you to go there for more information. Rydra's doing a public service. I feel like if I just repeat their names, though, I'm giving them attention they don't deserve. These professional writers and editors have:
• thrown insults at people who disagreed with them, including racially-tinged (if not outright racist) and gendered epithets at people of color and especially women of color;
• taken disagreement as personal attack and then claimed that their own attacks are merely defense against people who attacked them, although for people who quote and link quite a lot, the quotations and links they offer seem curiously measured and tame compared with the insults these writers and editors have been hurling;
• at least two of them have accused those who use pseudonyms of behaving like "criminals" and "the KKK";
• and at least those two have actively and repeatedly outed someone, connecting an LJ name with a legal names despite being asked not to do so.
I don't think that's a full accounting, but it's more than enough.
These behaviors are just wrong. It may be that some of the people responding to these writers and editors have gone too far--but honestly, the posts and comments on posts that I have read have overwhelmingly not been unreasonable attacks on these writers and editors but critiques. I don't agree with all of the critiques and arguments, and some are angry--but very, very few have been hateful. Even if these writers and editors are suffering attacks I haven't seen, that does not excuse the behaviors I've given bullet points above (and rarely has the term "bullet points" seemed more appropriate).
People of color and true allies of people of color are getting hurt, and they're feeling that sf&f fans aren't supporting them because they hear so many loud voices attacking and too few opposing. I think a lot of people have been doing what I've been doing: not replying to the aforementioned writers and editors, because they're not listening; making few and little posts, because like me you feel that there are already way better posts than you can make; reading the thoughtful posts on cultural appropriation, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, but reading them quietly.
I don't know if I can make any difference by posting, but I sure can't by not posting.
I don't want to waste any more time on the haters. I recommend instead "Better stuff to read" bylivrelibre.
* ETA: Naturally, once I'd gone and written the post, a couple of people pointed out to me they didn't mean fans so much as other pro writers and editors, andoyceter makes a distinction between media fandom and book fandom here. I still don't think this post can hurt, but I did misunderstand a couple of other posters, and I don't want to misrepresent them.
rydra_wong has been making with key links; she also has an entry here designed to catch people up by recapping some key links and major issues.I've made a couple of posts, and I keep thinking that's it: people who are much more eloquent on the topic than I have been posting, and people who are much more knowledgeable, and I'll let them handle it.
The last few days, though, I've seen people saying, "That's it--I've had it with SF and SF fandom." They've had it because they don't see many [fans* see below] standing up to the ones doing truly offensive things. There are people who combine white privilege, educational privilege, and professional privilege--and take all those advantages and use their powers for ill on the Internet. They get paid to write or edit, so I've been thinking they must consider their time on the Internet part of their jobs; they seem to have way more time to post than most of us do, and yet they spend it so very badly.
No, I'm not naming these writers and editors who have done harm. Rydra gives plenty of links above, and you can find more detail than you ever wanted to know; I do encourage you to go there for more information. Rydra's doing a public service. I feel like if I just repeat their names, though, I'm giving them attention they don't deserve. These professional writers and editors have:
• thrown insults at people who disagreed with them, including racially-tinged (if not outright racist) and gendered epithets at people of color and especially women of color;
• taken disagreement as personal attack and then claimed that their own attacks are merely defense against people who attacked them, although for people who quote and link quite a lot, the quotations and links they offer seem curiously measured and tame compared with the insults these writers and editors have been hurling;
• at least two of them have accused those who use pseudonyms of behaving like "criminals" and "the KKK";
• and at least those two have actively and repeatedly outed someone, connecting an LJ name with a legal names despite being asked not to do so.
I don't think that's a full accounting, but it's more than enough.
These behaviors are just wrong. It may be that some of the people responding to these writers and editors have gone too far--but honestly, the posts and comments on posts that I have read have overwhelmingly not been unreasonable attacks on these writers and editors but critiques. I don't agree with all of the critiques and arguments, and some are angry--but very, very few have been hateful. Even if these writers and editors are suffering attacks I haven't seen, that does not excuse the behaviors I've given bullet points above (and rarely has the term "bullet points" seemed more appropriate).
People of color and true allies of people of color are getting hurt, and they're feeling that sf&f fans aren't supporting them because they hear so many loud voices attacking and too few opposing. I think a lot of people have been doing what I've been doing: not replying to the aforementioned writers and editors, because they're not listening; making few and little posts, because like me you feel that there are already way better posts than you can make; reading the thoughtful posts on cultural appropriation, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, but reading them quietly.
I don't know if I can make any difference by posting, but I sure can't by not posting.
I don't want to waste any more time on the haters. I recommend instead "Better stuff to read" by
livrelibre.* ETA: Naturally, once I'd gone and written the post, a couple of people pointed out to me they didn't mean fans so much as other pro writers and editors, and
oyceter makes a distinction between media fandom and book fandom here. I still don't think this post can hurt, but I did misunderstand a couple of other posters, and I don't want to misrepresent them.Tags:
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Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, though. I've heard from some other people they're not getting the "work with them" part despite accepting the risks.
If SF isn't welcoming, then, crud, what's it all about? I thought SF was very much about social critique and trying to imagine how things could be better--or how easily things could be worse, so that we stop making them worse.
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Also jmho, I'm not a fan of discouraging most things. Better to try and fail than never to have tried and be left with a lifetime of 'what if'. (Of course this doesn't mean I'd encourage dangerous/bad things like trying smoking or trying bungee jumping.)
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Someone has to discourage would-be academics. Good students are told they can be professors and live a life of ease: they can get their PhDs just like they got good grades in high school and then spend their lives reading and talking about books. That's just not the way it is. I tell people straight up, "If you're willing to spend five to seven years getting a degree that may never lead to a job, then go for it. If it's going to eat you up that you 'wasted' those years of your life if you're among the half that never get a job in academia, then don't do it." Trying here involves years--years when their friends get good jobs and start making money that will give them a salary advantage over my students that never goes away, years when they might want to have kids but may be afraid it will wreck their already slender chances. (I would not advise grad students against having kids, but no one has ever asked about that.)
Of course, I wouldn't have to discourage students if they hadn't had previous teachers who spent years building up unrealistic expectations. I do wish someone had given me the talk I give, because I was on the job market before anyone told me that it really doesn't matter how good you are; you have to be lucky too. I'd have gotten the PhD anyway, but I think I wouldn't have been so badly hurt at how long it took to get a job and how brutal the process was.
I do think that's entirely different from discouraging people because they might be competition for your work!
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ARRGGHHH!!
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WTF is WRONG with people?!
Between that and your icon, I think you've got the situation covered--and much more succinctly than I did!
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It saddens me that after the initial discussions, things haven't improved, they've got worse. Outing somebody because they don't agree with you? That's just spiteful! I have lots to learn and I'll be taught by anyone who can help me.