August 2012

(Disclaimer:  This post is a preliminary reaction.  I have not read the novel in question and can only respond to what others have said about it.  As such, what follows will not be based on what I know about the book itself, but rather a series of curiosities and questions that I suspect will be answered later this week.  An educated reaction will follow. Note:  I am collecting links to other responses at the bottom. Note 2:  The original Weird Tales post has been taken down.  An apology has been put in its place. Note 3:  Some new details have surfaced.  You can find my update here.) Twitter was in a rage this morning about this Weird Tales announcement involving the publication of the first chapter of Victoria Foyt’s Saving the Pearls:  Revealing Eden.  Authors/bloggers N. K. Jemisin, Celine Kiernan, Martha Wells, Nick Mamatas were among the most vocal hitters, decrying the selection as, at best, a phenomenally stupid choice of publication and, at worst, a throwback to the racism that might have made Lovecraft proud. If you’re not familiar with Saving the Pearls, then you’re not alone.  I am writing this post from a position of profound ignorance, having only read reviews of Foyt’s novel, and not the novel itself (such as this review or the numerous reviews on the Amazon page). What many seem most bothered by is Foyt’s portrayal of a reverse-racist society which uses blackface to make its supposedly anti-racist point (a historically derogatory practice originally used by whites to stereotype and denigrate blacks — the white-race-glorification film, Birth of a Nation, for example, used blackface in order to portray black males as sexual “beasts,” which, as it turns out, is another stereotype that Foyt, according to reviews, unsuccessfully “turns on its head”).  Coming from the outside, my first reactions were along these lines: Is it possible to reverse blackface without running into the problem of racist history?  In other words, can one take the history of making blacks feel inferior because they are “too dark” and reverse it so whites must now darken in order to “fit in”?  I’m thinking of a reversal of George Schuyler’s Black No More (a novel I am teaching this semester). What is the narrative context for the use of “pearls” to refer to whites and “coals” to refer to blacks?  Since the novel is a dystopia, is it possible these terms actually mean something very different in that world?  I wonder if (one, again, coming from not having read the book) perhaps coal has become a scarce, important resource, thus providing an added value to something we traditionally think of as prevalent and cheap (dirty, etc.). Why is it that whenever we have discussions about these very issues, there are a sea of loud-mouthed people proclaiming that there is no such thing as racism against whites, followed by condescending ad hominem attacks against anyone who suggests otherwise?  (I’m not referring to anyone named in this post.)  Racism is not colorblind.  Some white people are targets of racism.  The difference, as I see it, is a matter of degree and a matter of institution.  That is that whites are rarely targeted by the institutions around them, and only uncommonly the target of racist ideas from other “racial” groups.  Perhaps it’s a question of power dynamics? How many people coming into this discussion are screaming because they’ve already been tainted by other reactions?  Some folks who have chimed in seem to have read the book after reading or agreeing with people who hate it.  Is it possible that some of us are so emotionally driven against racism that we get trapped into knee-jerk-ism whenever something that appears to be racist shows its face? Now, I could be wrong about all of these reactions.  We’ll see.  I’ve said on Twitter that I will try to read the book, in part because I don’t want to offer a proper opinion on all this without knowing what I’m talking about (something some people will do in typical knee-jerk fashion).  That doesn’t mean, however, that the Weird Tales post deserves to be ignored. The book in question… I say all of this knowing that there are all kinds of red flags in the Weird Tales post.  Take, for example, the title:  “A Thoroughly Non-Racist Book.”  If it’s a thoroughly non-racist book, then why the insane overcompensation in the title?  Even my hackles were raised when I saw that title.  Or even Kaye’s need to reject the negative reviews on Amazon by saying “this is America and they have the right to express their opinion(s)” makes you wonder at which point he would acknowledge a negative review as intellectually valid.  Or if you disagree with a review, does that immediately mean it is only valid as “free speech”?   But perhaps what most concerns me is the level of condescension Kaye lobs at detractors of Foyt’s story.  Kaye says that it will be “very clear to anyone with an appreciation for irony” that the book is not racist, but an attack on racism itself.  Typically, one means satire, not irony; likewise, when one says “folks who are X will get it,” you’re essentially discounting the validity of contrary opinions.  The clincher, though, is this: The blessing is to wish they acquire sufficient wit, wisdom and depth of literary analysis to understand what they read, and also the compassion not to attack others merely because they hold a different opinion.  The curse is an integral part of the blessing…for if they do acquire those virtues, they will then necessarily look at their own behaviour, and be thoroughly ashamed. You’re right.  Because only people with insufficient wit, wisdom, and depth of literary analysis will not like Save the Pearls.  Only people without compassion could find something wrong with Foyt’s novel.  Because only becoming “like you,” oh Mr. Compassionate, Witty, Wisdom-filled, Literary Analysis Guru, can we fully comprehend the great wonders of the universe contained within Foyt’s novel.  And