The Politicization of the SFWA? (A Mini-response to Michael Z. Williamson)
I had intended to post the following as a response to this post by Michael Z. Williamson on the politicization of the SFWA. I don’t know much about Mr. Williamson, nor his politics (frankly, I don’t care as long as those politics don’t involve shitting in my yard — reference!), but I do think he raises several interesting points. Granted, he uses as examples people who, for the most part, couldn’t identify sexism, racism, or downright poor behavior if it bit them on the nose. So it goes. In any case, you should read his post to get a sense of what he’s talking about before you read farther. And here is my comment: While I agree with you that the SFWA should be as politics free as possible, this is a two way street. It cannot remain politically neutral at the same time as members within it see fit to thrust their politics into the dialogue within the organization, and vice versa. Many of the most recent “turf wars” are responses to behaviors from members who have used official SFWA channels to share their politically-charged opinions (even Reznick and Malzberg were anything but politically neutral, as their most recent column in the Bulletin was practically a petty screed against people who criticized them primarily *outside of official SFWA channels*). So in order to cut all of this stuff out, that means everyone gets cut out, and all those “turf wars” will have to occur in entirely different arenas. There’s probably something really good about doing this, but it won’t prevent attacks against the organization or between or against its members. Understandably, you don’t have many methods for stopping such behavior, but you can remove such behaviors from the SFWA’s official channels. In rare circumstances, you can (and should) remove members (and I honestly believe this should be for those circumstances when a member’s presence within the organization causes notable harm to the reputation to that organization — i.e., quite rare indeed). I just don’t think that’s possible given the type of rhetoric being used in the most recent “turf war.” Vox Day seems hell bent on pissing on the organization and the members within it (for which he holds a personal grudge). He doesn’t really care to have a dialogue, in part because he is motivated by a supremacist’s mindset. It would be lovely if we could ignore him, but he has intentionally used SFWA channels as a soapbox for his ideology. And he likewise doesn’t seem to care if he breaks any rules doing it. At some point, you pull the plug, I suppose. It’s up to the SFWA board to figure that out. The other problem here is that the organization is supposed to represent as many people as it possibly can. That means women, people of color, liberals, conservatives, mad scientists, and regular old doctors (provided they write genre, of course). The official voice of the organization must therefore present a unified, reasonable, and respectful narrative. To depoliticize the SFWA in the manner you seem to desire, you would have to excise anything that could reasonably offend or disrespect members of the organization (here I use “offend” in its malignant form; lots of people get offended for stupid reasons). And that means something like the recent Reznick/Malzberg column shouldn’t have happened. It was not a positive examination or discussion of something relevant to members; it was an irrational attack on people who didn’t like the direction of the Bulletin in the past couple of issues. There’s nothing rational about crying censorship or what have you in an official document, particularly when no such action had occurred. And that also means something like Scalzi’s post on race/gender difficulty settings, even if retooled for the writing market, wouldn’t belong either. But I think we have to accept that the Bulletin cannot entirely avoid political issues (it can’t); it can remain neutral, but sometimes neutrality prevents action. You can’t truly de-politicize the SFWA. There are too many issues within the SF/F writing world that are political issues. If the SFWA represents the writing interests of its members, that means addressing things like race or gender, which are factors that have and sometimes still do affect publishing and publicity prospects for members. It also means addressing abuses against members within the writing world. If Brad Torgersen really was denied the award by official staff of the organization (or if they tried to influence his nominations or wins so he wouldn’t receive either), then the SFWA must address that (I don’t know anything about this, so I will assume it’s false until I see otherwise). Point is: the politics aren’t going anywhere; the best we can hope for is lessening the hurt. De-politicizing the SFWA is part of the process to make it a safe environment for everyone, but it doesn’t work, in my mind, by allowing some things, but refusing others. Either it must become absolutely neutral, or it has to tread carefully and deliberately. Lately, it simply hasn’t done that. And that’s the real problem.
Dear Regal Cinemas: Insane People and How Your Staff Responded
I’d like to share a story with everyone. Today, I went to see World War Z. It’s a zombie film, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while (zombies are the only thing that legitimately scares me anymore, with rare exception). So I put on some pants, shuffled out the door, and walked the 2 miles to the nearest Regal Cinema (#14 in Gainesville, FL, in case you were wondering). Don’t feel bad for me about having to walk that far, though. I got to read comic books on my Nook HD+ on the way, and I purposefully chose to walk (buses don’t run often enough on the weekends anyway). In any case, I’ve been going to this theater since I moved to Gainesville (except when I have to go to the other one to see things Regal #14 doesn’t carry). It’s a decent enough place. Nothing special, but I’ve never had any issues with the theater before, except the occasional annoying jabberface. Unfortunately, jabberfaces are common at all theaters. I say this so you’ll understand why I was so shocked by what I experienced there. About 30-45 minutes into World War Z, another patron decided to start having a conversation with his female companion (girlfriend, sister, or something). Occasional comments don’t bother me; I do that myself when I’m with others. But this fell within the “full blown conversation” territory. That annoys the hell out of me, and for good reason. I don’t go to the movies to listen to other people talk; I go, obviously, to see a movie. And that’s what I expect when I go to a theater. A movie experience. An immersive experience. I want to get lost in the movie. I want to forget that I’m in a theater so I can enjoy the hell out of what is going on up on that big screen thing. And when a jabberface ruins that experience, it understandably annoys me. Jabberfaces suck you right out of that immersive experience. They inject something from the real world into the fantasy one. They destroy the movie experience entirely. I dislike jabberfaces quite a lot, you see. And so do a lot of other people. So it was with trepidation that I turned and offered my first-line-of-defense: the “shhh.” I shushed this individual and his companion not just once, but three times before I and another nearby patron finally got fed up, turned around and told him to please be quiet. I think my exact words were, “Could you please stop having a conversation?” I don’t think the other guy was so nice (there may have been a “fuck” in there), but I don’t fault him for such language. It had to be said. And here’s where it gets insane. The jabberface decided that instead of kindly shutting up so the rest of us could enjoy the movie, he would instead flex his little muscles and confront us for our behavior. I honestly can’t remember half of what he said, since most of it was incoherent crotch-grabbing nonsense, but here’s the gist: “You don’t know me. You shut the fuck up or I’ll come over there and shut your face for you. And as for you (me), you just sit there and shut your mouth.” That’s the really watered-down version. His actual tirade went on for a full minute, in which he primarily flexed his manly muscles at the other annoyed patron. There were borderline threats made during the tirade, along with a sea of n-words and other swear words. Unfortunately, when these things happen, I shut down. In all honesty, I think most instances of physical confrontation are moronic, and since I’m not a glutton for pain, I tend to avoid them as much as possible. In this case, I didn’t see a point in engaging with someone who clearly couldn’t disentangle “greatest offense against my person EVER” from “please don’t have a conversation in a movie theater.” I shut down and ignored him as best I could, partly out of fear and partly out of a refusal to give in to childish antics. If he was willing to fight over something as stupid as being asked to shut up during a movie, then there was no point engaging with him any further. Eventually, he realized the other patron wasn’t going to back down, so he sat his little childish toosh down and tried to play the “now where were we” card. But he’d clearly lost. There was no saving face when you’re the guy that looks like a petulant child in front of hundreds of other people. At some point during all this, someone had gone to tell a manager. Several minutes later, the manager came in and had a talk with the two men. I don’t know what she said to them, as she apparently had the magic gift for conversation-in-a-theater-that-nobody-else-can-hear. However, I gathered what she had done: issued the warnings that would put jabberface in his place. From that moment on, the theater was quiet (except for the occasional giggle from someone who found amusement in teeth-chattering). When the film ended, there were no further confrontations. I spoke briefly with some other folks who stayed behind in the theater and came to the conclusion that we all were rather shocked by what had happened. One of the other patrons (an un-involved one) told me that he had asked his son to move to the other side of the theater to avoid the confrontation entirely. I don’t blame him. When someone stands up in a theater puffing and throwing out borderline fighting words, it’s entirely reasonable to take precautions (and certainly so in this day and age). He was doing what a good father does: protect his family. Afterwards, I went to talk to the manager. Honestly, I don’t remember her name, but she was a nice individual who listened to my concerns and answered my questions about appropriate procedure. How exactly does a
A Comic Journey: New Comics, New Reading, and the Happy Shaun
Nothing I’m about to say here will seem cohesive. I’ve become obsessed with comics, if you didn’t already know. Gloriously and deliciously obsessed. You all probably saw it coming, though, particularly after I wrote this post about my first trip to a comic shop in years (and this review I wrote some time back). What follows will be a rough outline of my journey into this new obsession…thus far — by way of what I’ve read. Since my first trip to the comic store, I have read the following comics or hardcover/softcover collections (in print or digital form)(I’ve included quick thoughts under each item): Batman (New 52) Vol. 1: The Court of Owls (Snyder, Capullo, and Glapion) I freaking loved it! So much so that I have officially become a Batman nut, and this despite having almost always been a Marvel guy. Snyder is an amazing writer, in my very humble and ignorant opinion. If you are interested in superhero comics, I definitely recommend The Court of Owls. I’m not sure you could get into it if you weren’t already familiar with Batman as a character, but if you’ve seen the Nolan Batman movies and enjoyed them, then I think you’ll love The Court of Owls. Green Lantern (New 52) Vol. 1: Sinestro (Johns and Mahnke) Honestly, I was not impressed. This collection contains the full narrative arc for the start of the new Green Lantern series, but it moves so quickly that all the character development is shoved to the side. I love action in comics (see some of the stuff that I’ll mention later), but I need something more than thin character conflict amidst lots of fighting and flashy stuff. I don’t know if this is a reflection of the entire set of Green Lantern comics (there are many), but this one didn’t impress me enough to check them out. The Avengers Disassembled (trade paperback)(Bendis and Finch) I bought this because it forms the basis for the huge shifts in The New Avengers series. Unfortunately, so much happens in such a short series that I couldn’t get into it. Essentially, the Scarlet Witch alters all of reality, killing off a lot of characters, turning people against one another, exposing some of her friends’ worst fears, etc. And why does she do this? Because she’s sort of gone insane. The problem? None of this is explored in any depth. We start with action, we continue with action, and we end with action. Maybe there’s more to this that I’m not seeing, as sometimes happens in Marvel (other series might address what occurs here, for example), but considering how good the Avengers vs. X-Men cross-over has been thus far, I don’t really see that as an excuse. Basically, I was not impressed. The New Avengers: Breakout (Vol. 1, trade paperback) (Bendis and Finch) Following the conclusion of The Avengers Disassembled, this first volume in the new-ish series actually improves upon the flaws of its predecessor. But it still does not reach the same level as some of the things I’ll list here that I actually loved. Yes, there is a lot more character development (particularly surrounding Stark and Captain America as they deal with trying to make a new response team in a drastically different world), but I found the initial “OMG, all da mutants got out-a-da jail” plot pretty dull. This stuff happens so often in superhero comics that I honestly can’t figure out why humans and mutants alike haven’t bothered trying to figure out ways to stop jailbreaks from happening. That said, I do think this moves things in the right direction. Uncanny X-Men #1 (Marvel NOW) (Bendis, Bachalo, Townsend, Mendoza, Vey, and Caramagna) First, I do not recommend starting with this particular incarnation of the classic series (what is referred to as Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3). The first issue refers to a number of huge events that occurred in the Avengers vs. X-Men cross-over, which you can find in trade paperback collections. Basically, you need to read that cross-over before you dive in here, unless you don’t care about what happened to some of the classic X-Men characters (deaths, people switched sides, etc. etc. etc.). However, the first issue is really good. For some reason, Bendis does an excellent job creating balance between character and the group-focus of the X-Men (something he didn’t do all that well in the New Avengers stuff). X-Men #1 and #2 (Stan Lee) That’s right, the classic X-Men! And they are bloody terrible. Yes, I know they are representative of the time period and that many of the things I can’t stand about the classic Stan Lee comics existed for a reason, but I definitely prefer reading newer stuff. Nostalgia is nice, but I can only take so many sexist jokes at a time… Marvel Point One: Behold the Watcher (2011) (too many names to list) Everything I have to say about this can be found here. All of the following are part of a narrative sequence — hence the odd order. I gave up trying to list all the names (sorry): The Avengers: Sanction #1 – #4, The Avengers #24.1, Avengers vs. X-Men #0-#1, Wolverine and the X-Men #9, New Avengers #24, Avengers vs. X-Men #2, Avenger #25, AvX: Versus #1, Uncanny X-Men #11, and AvX #3. Honestly, I’m still neck deep into this particular series, and I’m loving every single issue. There’s a lot of action, of course, but one of the things I really like is the attempt to get into the heads of each character as the action ramps up. Basically, most of these issues actually explore the personal conflicts of the characters leading up to the physical conflict. There are a few hiccups here or there, but I think the series is fantastic overall. If you like group-based superhero stuff, I definitely recommend this one, not just because it’s good, but also because it also sets up a lot of the stuff that happens in the Marvel NOW Uncanny X-Men series. I am currently reading the following (w/ brief
Shocking Revelations: Pointing Out Racism Doesn’t Mean You Hate White People
A certain someone has written a brilliant little post in which they argues that John Scalzi should be impeached as SFWA president and N.K. Jemisin / Saladin Ahmed should be removed from the Nebula Awards short list because they apparently hate white people. You read that right. And you will also notice that I haven’t linked to said individual’s post, if only because it is mind-numbingly stupid. If you’re desperate enough to read it, though, you can do some clever Google searching. For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to this individual as Mr. Frosty Pants. The post that has most offended Mr. Frosty Pants seems to be Scalzi’s rather popular “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.” I recommend you read that post, since it is obviously a steaming pile of anti-white nonsense (this must be what the white nationalists mean when they huff and puff about the genocide against the white race; damn you, Scalzi, for your word murder). Of course, in the real world, it is a somewhat humorous way to explore how racial privilege works. This is not what Mr. Frosty Pants takes from it, of course. Instead, he argues the following: And let me add this: defamation is not a numbers game based on how many people are in a country or room at a given time, however much some people would like to pretend otherwise and so think they have a free-fire zone. Defamation is defamation, and it is always wrong. I defy anyone to tell me in what instance defamation would be correct. Setting aside the fact that he doesn’t actually understand the legal definition of defamation, or the fact that defamation cases are nearly impossible to prove, since a requirement for proof is to demonstrate material damage from a given set of statements, I find the notion that Scalzi (or anyone) can possibly defame an entire race by pointing out even a perceived reality (boy, our politicians are truly fucked if Mr. Frosty Pants is right!). Since Mr. Frosty Pants is, we can assume, a straight white male, it is highly unlikely that discussing the benefits his status entails in a society that remains, even to this day, race-conscious will result in anything approaching material damage. After all, how can Mr. Frosty Pants defend the notion that Scalzi’s, Jemisin’s, or Ahmed’s words have had a realistic impact on his ability to function in a society where straight white men are, not surprisingly, still generally considered to be “at the top of the pack”? But Mr. Frosty Pants doesn’t accept the premise. Instead, he demands that these three anti-white bastards provide evidence: There is no racial or gender conspiracy in America to hold back N.K. Jemisin or Saladin Ahmed from doing a single thing in this country. If they believe otherwise, I publicly demand they start producing facts and names and address those specific individuals and stop attacking complete strangers based on the most childish stereotypes of the race and gender of millions of people they have never met. If either John Scalzi, N.K. Jemisin or Saladin Ahmed feel someone in America is contributing to racial stereotypes or cultural xenophobia, name them and confront them and leave the rest of us out of it as co-defendants or guilty parties. You may even find us on your side in such a matter, but not if we are demonized for waking up in the morning or for what we looked like the day we were born. Of course, since he also rejects the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP, and other organizations that actually study this stuff, it’s pretty much impossible to present him with actual evidence, since he won’t believe any of it anyway. But I’ll take a stab by presenting this. In short, that link takes you to the text for the second session of the 109th Congress on July 24th, 2006, in which the speakers point out that race-based discrimination in a great deal of the voting districts originally covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act is still happening. Congress were debating whether to reauthorize that bill, which would allow, among other things, the Federal Government to maintain oversight on historically “racist” voting districts in a number of States. Submitted during those debates were numerous documents and studies showing that most of those same districts had the same problems as they had had in 1965, when Congress decided they had to step in to protect minority votes in areas teaming with racists. We all remember the Civil Rights Movement, don’t we? They weren’t just hosing black people because it was a winter sport, or tossing bricks through Martin Luther King, Jr.’s windows because that’s how you show love in the South. No. They were doing those things because of deep-seeded racial hatred. And it was the white folks who were the primary perpetrators of those crimes. Not all the white folks. Just a hell of a lot of them in certain areas of the country. The point is that Congress determined that we’re really not over all that stuff yet. While angry white folks are not hosing people anymore (or actively tossing bricks through windows or assassinating Civil Rights leaders), the same racial hatred still exists. Racism certainly has changed over time, generally speaking, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve magically moved on. So when Scalzi, Jemisin, and Ahmed point out, perhaps with a great deal of snark, that racism isn’t over, they’re not speaking from a position of racial hatred against whites. When they talk about white people doing racist things, they aren’t talking about all of us (there were a lot of progressive-minded white folks in the Civil Rights Movement; some of them were assassinated, too). Even when they are talking more generally about white people, such as in Scalzi’s post, they don’t do it to piss on the white race, or to suggest that the white race is inferior to another (which is the default root of
To the Hugo Defenders: Check Your Financial Privilege at the Door
If you have been following the Hugo Awards discussion, then you’ll be familiar with the various forms of this argument: if you don’t show up and do the work, then you should stop complaining. In the Hugo discussion, it translates to the following: you don’t like how the awards work, but you don’t bother to show up to the meetings, so your opinion is really irrelevant; if you don’t like it, show up and change it…or STFU. To illustrate, I present you some actual examples: Firstly, the WSFS Business Meeting is entirely self-selected. It is not a representative body of any description : the people who participate are there entirely on their own recognizance, & the only opinions they can reasonably be expected to bring are their own. So, to expect them to “engage with wider debates,” when the people who consider themselves to be part of those “wider debates” don’t bother to come themselves, or to form committees & send delegates to represent their views (thus splitting among ten or twenty people what can be the problematic costs of attending a Worldcon), or to “engage” with the people who do attend in any other fashion than writing derisive comments about them on the Internet, seems a bit (to use your words) “self-serving”. And: Want to be a SMOF? Volunteer to work on conventions. Come to Business Meetings. Get involved. Be competent. Convince others to vote for things you want. In short, cooperate with other people and show that you’re not a crank. But even that relatively low bar is too much for some people. And (this one is actually ironic, since the WSFS system is not actually properly democratic): I had complaints and gripes about the system. People told me how hard it was. They said, “Don’t bother.” I did it anyway, by the book and within the rules. Sometimes I lost, sometimes I won, but the fact that Democracy is Hard Work wasn’t by itself sufficient to discourage me. If you really think this is important enough, then do it already! Otherwise, I’ll continue to consider it whinging. And: So let me pose a hypothetical. You own an apartment in a building, or a flat for the British. And your complex has a management committee that sorts out things like communal gardens, upkeep, roof maintenance and the like. Typically these things are voted on and people take part. Would you feel just as entitled to moan about how decisions were taken if you’d never been to a meeting, never attended and done nothing other than write letters complaining about how everybody else did it? Because I’m sorry, that’s what I am seeing a lot of, and I see it pretty much every year, either complaining about the Hugos, or moaning about how expensive Worldcons are to attend and how unfair it is to charge so much. That can’t be helped. But as you point out, there’s a lot more to Fandom than the Worldcon and the Hugos. But just because you are a Fan, it doesn’t mean that that is a two way street. These arguments are repeated over and over, defended ad naseum, and accepted by a select few as “the way things are, and the way things should be.” Jonathan McCalmont has called this a strategy of derailing and silencing. I’m not convinced of the latter, but it is certainly a variation of the former. At worst, it is a tactic used to devalue an entire subset of opinions by identifying them as “outside” a given arena of engagement, where only quality action occurs. If you are not an attendee of that arena, your opinion is inherently worthless (or at least worth less than anyone who takes the time to follow the “proper channels”). These arguments should sound familiar in another sense, too: they are often used against marginalized groups to de-legitimate civil disobedience. I don’t want to suggest that the folks speaking out about their frustration with the Hugos are a marginalized group; rather, I make this connection because I find it strange that a tactic of the immensely privileged has been re-purposed to marginalize “dissent,” even when that dissent arrives from other privileged individuals (most of us are white males, after all). The problem with this tactic is that it is completely impractical, and downright classist. In an ideal world, you could easily verbally slap someone for bitching about something in which they take no part. In that ideal world, we’d all have access to cheap and fast transportation. In that ideal world, we’d all have Star Trek transporters in our living rooms. But we do not live in that ideal world. In a very real sense, we live in a far less ideal world than we lived in as little as 6 years ago, before the recession took its toll. Many of us are making less than we ever did before, or aren’t making anything at all. Some of us are trying to get our degrees. Still others live in parts of the world where the cost of transportation is prohibitively expensive — hence why the World SF Travel Fund exists. I happen to be attending Worldcon this year. There are a number of reasons for this: I made more money in 2012 than I did in 2011. I will make close to the same amount in 2013, which means I won’t have to stress over paying for summer this year or next. Worldcon is in San Antonio, which is reasonably close to where I live, and thus less expensive to fly to from my current city of residence. If #1 and #2 weren’t true, I wouldn’t attend (and I’m not sure if I’d pay for a supporting membership). For me, Worldcon is prohibitively expensive in general. Maybe fortune will change that in the future. Currently, I am both a graduate student at a major public university and adjunct faculty as a state college. In terms of my finances, that means I
Dear Media: Please Stop Reporting Things That Ruin the Ending…
I’m talking about this. Do not click or scroll over the link if you don’t want a beloved science fiction series ruined for you. There will be no specifics below, so don’t worry. Whether you’ve read the link or not, the basic gist is this: a certain someone has confirmed that they will or will not return to a TV show, and the media has reported this fact with glee. Why is this a problem? Because the moment I know an actor or actress is or is not returning to a TV show, I know howhow the show ends. In this particular case, that is bad news indeed because it means the emotion I would normally feel at the end of a show like this will never come. I have no reason to be emotional. I know what’s going to happen before the series is even over. In this case, the season has already been filmed, which means whatever has happened at the end is already written into the narrative. Nobody is surprised. Nobody has to find a way to get this person out of the show (or keep them in) without pissing off the fans. They’ve already settled the issue. None of this has anything to do with spoilers in and of themselves. I don’t have a problem with the media talking about things that have or have not already aired. I do have a problem, however, when the headline is the spoiler. In this case, that’s exactly the problem. The headline doesn’t say “Will X be back next fall? We Ask X About It” or something like that. It just says “X will be back next fall” or “X will not be back next fall.” Unless I stop reading stuff on the Internet, I cannot avoid this bit of information. Color me pissed off.