I’m Reading: June 2014 (Week One)
The title tells you want you need to know. Here’s are the physical books I’m reading: And here are the ebooks I’m poking at: And here’s what I’m reading for my new Mass Market Paperback Bingo feature: Why did I pick this book from the suggestions? I realized that my “I’m Reading” pile is heavily populated by men. That, and I have liked stuff by Bear before, so I figure it would work out in the end. I’ll read it, review it, and throw out another snapshot of my bookshelf for readers to choose from. Now back to reading… ———————————– What are you all reading right now? Let me know in the comments!
Link of the Week: On Gender Disparities and Criticism in SF/F (from Natalie Luhrs)
The other day, Natalie Luhrs of Radish Reviews posted a compelling Twitter discussion about the different ways in which men and women are treated in sf/f when they criticize some aspect of he genre. It is a must read: [View the story “Community, Support, & Speaking Out” on Storify]
RIP: Jay Lake
If you haven’t heard yet, Jay Lake passed away this morning. Most of us who were paying attention to his struggle with cancer knew this day was coming, especially after his latest (experimental?) treatment resulted in his entrance into hospice care. Regardless, learning of his passing still came as a shock to me, as I’m sure it did to those who knew him much better than myself. I won’t pretend that I was good friends with Jay or that I knew him really well. What I will say is that I was enormously privileged to have met Jay a few times in person and to have interviewed him on The Skiffy and Fanty Show. That interview is very personal for me in part because I am also a cancer survivor, and it was because of Jay’s frank discussion of his struggles that I started to blog a little about my own cancer journey. It was also one of the best interviews I’ve ever conducted, for which I give Jay all the credit. He was always a joy to talk to. In person, Jay was friendly, kind, and hilarious. I had a handful of interactions with him (he even remembered me, which was cool) and even got to see a rough cut of his documentary about his cancer journey, Lakeside, at Worldcon last year. It was a beautiful thing, even in rough form. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room, which says a lot about the power of Lakeside. Most people, however, will not have met Jay. Most people won’t have had any personal experiences with him or, as a small few will probably discuss this week, have been good friends. Most people will remember Jay for his enormous body of writing. In a way, he left behind a little piece of himself for all of us to remember. We should enjoy that piece as much as we can because it is beautiful. I’ll miss you, Jay.
In Response to a Bad Argument About SF/F, Racism, etc.
If you haven’t seen Damien Walter’s piece on diversity and vocal opposition to it in SF/F, you’ll probably want to read it for context. One of the loudest voices in the comments section is a fellow who calls himself Fail Burton (I assume he’s a he, but I could be wrong — looked on his profile; he says he’s a he). He’s made a remarkable number of absurd claims. I’d like to respond to one of those here: There is no proof SFF needs any conversation of the sort. Innuendos about a “narrow set of authors” without documentation or any sort or definition of what “narrow” means in the first place are just that, innuendos. There is also no “compared to what?” If SFF needs this conversation then so does women’s romance novels, the NBA, rap music and Indian cricket. Surprise – the politically correct have no interest in that, and the reason is obvious. This is not being offended by a neutral principle everyone can benefit from. This is specifically and only targeting anything too white, too male, and too heterosexual because it’s an auto-KKK. Everything else gets a pass. The PC do the same with history – there is only ever British or European colonialism. Mughals, Aztecs, Incans, Arabs, Ottomans and Mameluks all disappear in their complaints, as if by magic. There has never been institutional white or male supremacy in SFF. The idea is as ridiculous as race, sex, gay = interesting literature. 1) That there are no conversations about biases in other fields does not invalidate discussions about such things in sf/f. This assumes nobody is having those conversations, but I gather you, like me, are not an expert in Indian cricket or romance novels, or the NBA, or rap music (though, I’ll accept that you might be an expert in one of those). This means the point is irrelevant. At best, it’s a faulty comparison fallacy. There’s also the assumption here that fans of sf/f who are critical of its representation of people are obligated to talk about representation issues in other fields. This would be like telling the Financial Times it is now obligated to cover Seattle Seahawks games or Nature to cover horse racing or a Congressman to represent the interests of people in another state. These things may be connected on some sort of common ground, but they are not contextually relevant to the declared interests of each thing. At best, this is absurd. 2) Context matters for what we discuss. People talk about European slavery in the West because it is the most relevant, immediate history of slavery *for the West.* Whether Aztecs had slaves isn’t relevant to the immediate history of slavery here, nor to the structural racism that followed the end of the slave trade in Europe and, eventually, in the United States. This applies to colonialism as well. If we were discussing a cultural context in which another form of colonialism or slavery were relevant, it would certainly be important to acknowledge such things. Indeed, even within discussions of U.S. slavery (and colonialism), there are long debates and discussions about, for example, black people buying and trading other black people as slaves (a fact which makes sense only if you put it in the context of the slave trade in the U.S., which was primarily run by and in service to white people — crazy, I know). These topics *are* discussed regularly in academic circles, but considering that most Americans couldn’t tell you much about a random African, Middle Eastern, or, hell, even European country (except, perhaps, random stereotypes (not necessarily negative ones) and little tidbits of info), this seems a moot point. I can no more control what people don’t know than you can. Yeah, all those other places (as far as I know) had slavery. Did the Aztecs have slaves during colonial times in America? No. So why would a conversation about slavery in America or England need to discuss these other issues? You seem to have a problem with the fact that people aren’t raising irrelevant issues in specific cultural contexts where that would be bizarre at best. If you want to hear about Aztec slavery, there are books on tlacotins. 3) Your claim that diversity arguments are exclusively an attack on white, heterosexual males is not quite a straw man, but close enough that I’ll call it one. Considering that there are women who have been criticized for their positions on various things (Elizabeth Moon and Sarah Hoyt, for example — not necessarily on the same scale) and plenty of folks who are white, hetero males have been part of the call for diversity, I can easily conclude that your statement is nonsense. Next, the argument that there has never been an institution of white supremacy in sf/f is laughable. Considering what Samuel R. Delany says here, and the fact that publishing in general was in fact structurally racist throughout much of the 20th century (earlier too, but that’s obvious), any claim to the effect that sf/f has not been affected by racism or white supremacy (this is the wrong term, but given your loose use for it, I’ll let it slide) is woefully ignorant of actual history. One would have to have read a lot about the Harlem Renaissance and learned about decades of sf/f history, and then one would have to pretend all of that never happened. That’s the only way this claim works. Blind, willful ignorance (or, technically, just ignorance). 4) Just because you don’t find certain kinds of literature interesting does not mean others do not. I don’t much care for a lot of things, but I’m happy to recognize that a lot of people do like those things. Good for them. 5) This whole thing is about you playing victim, not because you’re actually a victim, but because being one is convenient for your “cause.” And that’s sad. And that’s probably all I’ll ever say about this individual. Laters.
Criticism Does Not Equal Bullying (or, What Bullying Means to Me)
(Update regarding comments: if you’re here to leave a flippant comment about the issue in question, it is unlikely to get through. Either engage or move on. This is likely to become my comment policy from now on because I really don’t have patience for people who want to treat my comments section as if my blog were an opinion piece on HuffPost.) If you missed the events of the last 36 hours, you should probably catch up here. I linked to that post earlier today; in short, Charles A. Tan takes an editor to task for their problematic anthology submission guidelines, among other related things. Earlier today, that same editor, after declaring on Twitter that they felt persecuted by people like Tan, etc., decided to delete his Twitter account and make his FB profile inaccessible (I think the latter is true). This came on the heels of this editor’s belief that he was being bullied by the people who he had un-affectionately called “rotten meat” (you can see the Twitter exchange for part of that here). I’m not here to talk about the editor’s submission guidelines or any of the major criticisms offered by Tan or others regarding what this editor has said about Africa and other things. Instead, I want to talk about the charge that Tan, myself, and others who have criticized the editor (Natalie Luhrs and Jim C. Hines, for example) are bullies. In short, I will say this: criticism is not the same as bullying. First, bullying is not: Being told why a position you took is racist Being told why something you wrote could be misconstrued as X Being told why your editorial decisions are contradictory and are not as inclusive as you think Being told you got something wrong Being told you offended someone Being told you said something sexist Being told you need to think about things and stop resorting to name-calling because you got criticized These are not instances of bullying. The nature of these “instances” are not, in principle, irrational, though they may be unwanted, and so they fall more clearly under the domain of “criticism,” as they are, indeed, criticisms of a position. One could be wrong about any one of these, but it’s impossible to discover the truth of a given matter if one does not treat it as initially valid. Indeed, I’ve been criticized for many things in the past and have disagreed (and agreed) with a variety of different positions. Articulated properly, a disagreement about a position is far more useful than blanket condemnation of that position as “bullying.” Second, bullying is a far more pervasive and insidious practice than some who use its name seem willing to accept. A good definition of bullying can be found on the U.S. government website, Stop Bullying. I won’t include the whole definition here, but here is a relevant excerpt: Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. Let’s toss aside the bit about children because I think most of us would agree that bullying can happen between adults, too. The same page lists a number of behavior types which are defined as bullying, from taunting to unwanted sexual comments to name-calling (i.e., a variation of an ad hominem attack, to be honest) to exclusion , etc. Notice that the definition makes clear that power is an essential feature. If I could criticize this page, it would be that it doesn’t make explicit the difference between normal social control (wherein a behavior is rationally excluded on the basis that it is bad — i.e., someone who believes women shouldn’t have any rights and belong to men) vs. coercive social violence (i.e., using ridicule, public shaming, and other tools to prevent someone with legitimate concerns from engaging in a community, such as a woman who speaks out about a sexual assault being repeatedly told by a community and the police that she should shut up — see Steubenville). I think these are valid distinctions. The former is a normal consequence of a social culture (women wouldn’t have the rights they have now without some variation of social control); the latter is abusive and can happen in a variety of situations and in a variety of communities, even sf/f (such as someone being blacklisted on the sole basis that other people don’t like them). None of what falls under the “bullying” category should be misconstrued as “criticism.” Here’s what bullying means to me: It means being afraid you’ll get punched by someone with a spiked ring, but also so terrified to tell an adult because you don’t think they’ll do anything about it and because you’re afraid the kid will follow you home and punch you when you’re off school grounds. It means feeling helpless to protect yourself and feeling like nobody else will help you even if you really need it. It means being openly ridiculed for literally no viable reason (you’re short; they just don’t like you; they want someone to pick on; they don’t like your glasses; they don’t like your hair; you have freckles; you look different; you talk different; you wear the wrong clothes) and being unable to stop yourself form taking on the names and knock pegs off your self-esteem. It means running home from the bus because you’re afraid of what the other kids will do to you. It means closing in on yourself because you can’t reason with someone who hates you for no reason, who won’t listen to adults, who looks for every opportunity to punish you, who follows you around, who abuses you physically and mentally, who reminds you that you’re really just a worthless pile of shit. It means starting to believe that you just might be worthless, or close enough to it. For the record: most
Video Found: Women in SF (part three) w/ Karen Lord, Stephanie Saulter, and Naomi Foyle
No introduction needed. You can see the previous two parts here. Enjoy!