RaceFail09--My Turn to Speak Up

[dmarley]

I was putting off this post until I had two good hands, but as it happens I'm just going to have to type with one freakin' finger because I am that angry. I can't say all that I want to because I would still be pecking at the keyboard by the time my cast comes off. So, I'll bottom line it:

I will no longer be buying books written or edited by Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear or Kathryn Cramer. I will not be completely boycotting Tor Books, but all other choices being equal I will certainly be less likely to choose to give money to a company so closely associated with Patrick and Teresa Nielsen-Hayden.

If you're familiar with the massive imbroglio that has come to be known as RaceFail09, then you probably know why I feel it's important to post about this. But I also know that several people on my friends list probably aren't, and are no doubt wondering why the heck I'm suddenly refusing to have anything to do with writers I've been reading since the beginning of their careers.

Here's why:

An overview of RaceFail09, pasted here courtesy of snacky. I've added links and footnotes.

white_serpent writes:

Professional SF author Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) wrote a post in her livejournal about "writing the other." [1] This was linked to. Avalon's Willow saw the post, and wrote an open letter in her own blog to Elizabeth Bear [2], saying, in essence, "you're not as good at this as you think you are." Elizabeth Bear responded in her LJ to this open letter, saying, in summary, "you might have a point." [3]

All good so far?

However, many of the regular readers of Elizabeth Bear's journal (among them several professional authors) decided that AW absolutely did not have a point, EB's work was in no way racist, anyone who thought the book played into racist tropes was a racist herself, AW didn't finish the book (and thus had no right to an opinion), AW's technique of reading was inferior, she just didn't understand what she read, etc., etc. (Standard fare of racism wanks). [4] other fans of color entered the debate to try to emphasize that, yes, other people saw the same thing in the book, fans had rights to opinions, etc. Emma Bull (Will Shetterly's wife) made one of the more offensive comments in the original debate. [5] Will Shetterly leapt into the fray, and he hasn't left it since. [6]

Things rapidly spiraled out of control from there. EB decided she wasn't playing anymore. Patrick Nielsen-Hayden made a comment many found offensive. When called on it, he deleted his journal. [7] Teresa was infuriated, and posted insinuating that people on one side of the debate were not arguing in good faith, and saying that she hoped that she never encountered these people... Or else. Further, she insinuated that she knew who many of us were. (But it wasn't a threat! We know this because she said so!) [8]

Basically, many professional science fiction authors have decided that they're absolutely not racist. Also, since fans are so obnoxious, they're not going to write characters of color-- which will show us, HA! [9] Also, we're clearly all sockpuppets and trolls, because we use pseudonyms. [10]

In the meantime, there have been many interesting and thoughtful posts by fans of color. [11]

It's all been infuriating.

Notes

Even as I pecked this out, Elizabeth Bear--despite her statements that she would not be locking or deleting posts--has locked several older posts. I will add links to cached versions where I can find them. My apologies. That was apparently a genuine oversight on Bear's part. She has now unlocked the posts. I jumped the gun assuming bad faith on her part, and I apologize for that.

[1] Whatever you're doing, you're probably wrong by matociquala.

[2] an open letter to Elizabeth Bear by Avalon's Willow

[3] Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver by matociquala. After this post, a lot of people cooled off in regards to Bear, feeling that she'd made a sincere apology and begun to make amends. Unfortunately, she didn't follow up her apology with action, allowing commenters to make further racist remarks in her journal's comments without challenge. This made a lot of fans wonder about her sincerity, fears that turned out to be well-founded. If you compare this post with the recent Cease Fire, it calls into question much of the presumed good faith of her previous apologies and contrition.* She's further edited the new post, but not surprisingly a lot of fans, having been fooled once by her seeming sincerity, aren't buying it.

[4] -race(-class-sex) by truepenny contains many of these sentiments in the comments. See also the comments on the posts in notes [3] and [5].

[5] Emma Bull's thread of fail She is coffeeem. She did offer an apology later, but her recent apologies aren't so much apologies as excuses that she's too old to learn how to not sound like a racist in these new-fangled times.

[6] Endangering somebody is okay when you do it under your real name written up by bof in unfunnybusiness

[7] pnh has since unlocked his journal, but either deleted or kept locked all the posts related to the issue.

[8] The last comment that went up before I flocked the previous post by tnh Screen caps here

[9] My Only Statement On The Cultural Appropriation Imbroglio by davidlevine

[10] RaceFail: Once More, With Misdirection by coffeeandink

[11] rydra_wong has compiled a huge and comprehensive list of links. I've hit most of the highlights in the previous notes. If you want to read further and feel a bit overwhelmed, I would recommend starting with posts by deepad, coffeeandink, zvi_likes_tv, shewhohasahope, brown_betty, vito_excalibur, kynn, ktempest, spiralsheep, nojojojo and Willow's Avalon/Seeking Avalon.

I've been in the SF fannish community for 25 years. For a community that prides itself on progressive thinking, on open-mindedness and acceptance, it's truly appalling that we supposed progressive thinkers have closed our minds to the fact that SF fandom isn't a comfortable or welcoming place for fans of color. We have to change. This has to stop.

So, I'm doing what I can to help. I'm going to stop rewarding this bad behavior. I'm going to post in my journal to let other fans know what the supposed professionals in the field are doing. I'm going to try my best to listen and learn and promote change.

This has to stop. We have to change.

---------

*I have edited this sentence in light of this discussion.

I will be leaving comments enabled, but I won't, for obvious reasons, be able to reply quickly or consistently. This doesn't mean "don't express your concerns"--far from it--but it does mean that I might not be able to be more eloquent than "Oops" and "Sorry" in reply.

Comments

[graculus.livejournal.com]

What an almighty mess.

It's always hard when people whose books you like/want to read turn out to be exhibiting various degrees of jackassery (see Orson Scott Card for details, whose books I will now no longer touch with someone else's bargepole...)

And welcome back, one-finger typing or otherwise! :)

[rydra_wong]

For reference, the locked posts by Bear have now been un-locked again and she's said this was a genuine error (tnh's are still locked).

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

thanks will edit :)

[brownbetty]

Thanks for this annotated list, the only thing white_serpent's summary was missing was hypertext.

[stargazercmc.livejournal.com]

FYI, your cached links are showing 404 Not Found messages. Maybe someone has caps they'll provide?

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

EB's post is unlocked now, and I've added caps to tnh post here:

http://s584.photobucket.com/albums/ss286/dorothymarley/Racefail09%20Caps/

Thanks for letting me know.

[blackmonkeymage.livejournal.com]

If you compare this post with the recent Cease Fire, Bear pretty much admits that every one of her apologies and contrition were lies told to make herself look better.

I read the post, and I don't see the same thing you do. It looks to me like the only admission she makes is to say that she responded to a criticism of her books in an inappropriate manner, by giving the critic too much attention.

Can you perhaps point out what else she admitted in the post? Most of the rest looks to me like she's just ranting about the nature of the racefail.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

In the "Cease Fire" post, Bear says:

It's my fault because I accepted criticism of my book that I knew to be untrue....

The earlier post responding to the criticism says, and again I quote:

You're right.

You're pretty much right categorically and without exception, and I'm sorry to have mislead you for a moment into believing I think anything different. I will say that the book of mine you threw across the room is, in part, actually intended to address the point you make about it, but I obviously failed for you as a reader in doing so, and I'm sorry.

In the first statement she says she 'admitted to criticism she knew to be untrue.' In the second, earlier statement, she says that criticism is 'right.' I don't see how that can be interpreted as anything but lying.

Edited for clarity.

[blackmonkeymage.livejournal.com]

OK, I agree that she lied about that.

However, dmarley said that Bear pretty much admits that every one of her apologies and contrition were lies told to make herself look better. I do not see her even speaking about apologies and contrition.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I remember distinctly having the impression she said she was lying about more than just that, but the post has been edited and I've read far too much to remember where the direct quoting was. Maybe someoen else will remember better.

Cease Fire--Part 1

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

"Admit" is a bad word choice, and I'm going to revise that statement. But I do feel that Bear's more recent statements demonstrate that her previous apologies and expressions of contrition were made in bad faith. Here are a few points where I felt that the Cease Fire post undermined or downright contradicted things she had said before. It's not by any means a point by point refutation, but it demonstrates the reasons I have for feeling that the latter post calls into question the sincerity of the former.

From Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver:

You're right.

You're pretty much right categorically and without exception, and I'm sorry to have mislead you for a moment into believing I think anything different. I will say that the book of mine you threw across the room is, in part, actually intended to address the point you make about it, but I obviously failed for you as a reader in doing so, and I'm sorry.

[...]

My intention really is not to earn brownie points. It is, hopefully, to do something about your pain and lack, and my own pain and lack, and the pain and lack of my friends and family and random strangers on the street.

From Cease Fire:

I had tried to be a good cooperative white author, and listen to criticism from a person of color with open ears, and try to engage in a helpful dialogue of how to address one's own unconscious racism.

But you know, I was doomed from the moment I decided that I could try to do a little very basic education aimed at people who have never tried to write somebody not exactly like them, and maybe help writers avoid writing a few POC characters who were basically middle class white people with a coat of well-meaning shellac.

From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":

-matociquala

The way characters of color are generally treated in the media makes me crazy, too, and I can try to understand the frustration that arises from seeing yourself marginalized again and again.

The problem's obvious. The solution's not.

From Cease Fire:

in internet debates of this sort, at least against well-meaning white folk who really do want to help, the persons of color do have privilege. It is not systemic, like white privilege, and it is not as toxic as white privilege.

But it is perfectly capable of turning any internet debate on race into a slaughterhouse, because the white progressives will generally either back down from or react with defensive panic to any accusation of racism, which makes it a nuclear option and an I Win card.

From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":

-juliansinger

On the other hand, part of the point is that we're reading this book in the context of this culture, and that does, at times, bleed in. So if someone has taken more of their experience of this culture than you did, into the book, it merely means they took more of this culture in than you did, not that they read it wrong.

-matociquala

You are correct.

From Cease Fire:

It's my fault because I accepted criticism of my book that I knew to be untrue, that I knew to be based on a shallow and partial reading (a reading of the first chapter of a 160,000-word novel), because I felt it was important to serve as an example of how to engage dialogue on unconscious institutional racism.

Cease Fire--Part 2

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

More quotes:

From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":

-matociquala

I think there's two overlapping problems with the discourse. The first is that, yes, people would prefer not to acknowledge subtle prejudice because they have been told all their lives that being racist means you are evil, and they have an array of defensive mechanism they bring to bear to defend themselves when they feel attacked. It's very hard to admit you made a mistake, and it doesn't get any easier when people are invoking codes and prior discussions you don't understand.

The other is that it's very hard to use *any* language or answer any question without triggering a certain amount of righteous wrath in people who have been sensitized to expect dismissal by way too much insensitivity. If all you are used to hearing is dismissal and marginalization, eventually it's all you *can* hear.

From Cease Fire:

This is not to say that people's gut reactions are without merit. But once you have created a climate where it is assumed that the only reason one person can disagree with another is due to racism, you have created a climate in which rational discourse is impossible, and the question being asked is the age-old conundrum, "Have you stopped beating your wife, Senator?" Which is useful for venting justified rage, but not so useful for bringing about social betterment.

The problem arises when people of color are held to a different standard than white folks. Period. Whatever that standard is.

[...]

And yes, despite what one of the friends I have lost over this kerfuffle said to me in email, I do think that a person of color saying something patently racist and misogynist is as offensive as a white person's unexamined privilege.

I do.

From the comments of "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver":

matociquala

There is a scene in the book where the character who enslaves him--and it is slavery--literally uses him as a repository for the soul she's selling for power.

Um.

I didn't think that was all that subtle, actually.

He's also a POC because he's appropriated that identity, and he has no clue that there's anything wrong with the appropriation (he is a Celtic spirit)--and I was hoping that would also support some of the thematic freight of the book regarding conquest. (He is, after all, a sociopathic anthropophagous water demon. I didn't really intend him to be somebody whose politics bore up to much moral inspection. *g*)

But, you know. It's complicated, and stuff doesn't always work just because you wanted it to.

Next time I will try to do better.

From Cease Fire:

What I should have done is ignored the criticism and refused to engage the critic, which is generally speaking what we do with critics if we are sensible writers.

(If I was going to dignify it with a response, maybe I should have pointed out that the original critic's reading missed several important points. Like the fact that of the two characters she identified as white women, one is described as golden-skinned and I believe the race of the other is never stated in the book. Or the various other things I could have pointed out, like the fact that not all art is a depiction of Utopia. But, you know, I figured it was as pointless as trying to explain to a radical lesbian separatist that yes, Sting probably knows the narrator of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" is kind of creepy. And I shouldn't have engaged. I just shouldn't have.)

And that's what I meant when I said I had taken a hit for the team. I had tried to be a good cooperative white author, and listen to criticism from a person of color with open ears, and try to engage in a helpful dialogue of how to address one's own unconscious racism.

Re: Cease Fire--Part 2

[blackmonkeymage.livejournal.com]

Okay, I read her comments in Cease Fire ("based on a shallow and partial reading," etc.) as referring specifically to the action of opening the dialog in the first place. It didn't look to me like she was retracting anything she said, rather that she was mistaken in opening the discussion with seeking-avalon (http://seeking-avalon.blogspot.com/) in the first place.

Which is still a dick move, but it doesn't mean that she's taken back everything you've quoted there. And I think that refusing to buy her books is something of an overreaction. I don't know what to make of this business with the Nielsen-Haydens, though.