RaceFail 09

[naomikritzer]

For the people who are not even aware of this drama, or who've heard people talking about it but have been overwhelmed by the information and don't know where to start:

There is a brief overview in a comment here. A longer and more detailed explanation of what happened is here. The full list of links in reverse chronological order is here.

I have been following RaceFail aka The Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of Doom off and on since the beginning, and I have made comments in other people's journals but have not commented here up until now for a number of reasons. As haddayr said back in January, there were already plenty of white people talking, most of them had more intelligent things to say than I did, the whole thing made me sad because I honestly like lots of the people who were acting like idiots, and most of what I had to say was "me, too!" and there was already too much to read out there.

But in the last few days it has been clear that many of the people on the anti-racist side feel abandoned by the pro SF authors (/editors/other industry people) on LJ, and would really LIKE those of us who've been following this mess to say something, even if it's just, Me Too.

So: Me, too.

This is not a situation where both sides have behaved equally badly. There are people on the anti-racist side who've been critical and harsh; however, the response from the other side has included open threats to people's careers and a genuine attempt to silence people. Most recently, coffeeandink was outed repeatedly, even though she's stated a desire to have her real and online identities kept separate. This is appalling.

It needs to be okay, in the SF community, to raise the issue of racism and racist tropes. The fact that racism still exists in our society, and that we are a reflection of society, and that things are not going to get better if critics are silenced -- this is all pretty damn obvious. I can understand the impulse to be defensive. I can identify with the impulse to get defensive. (I hate finding out about stupid things I've done in published work, because it's too late to fix it. Ignorance is bliss!) But I can't understand the Internet equivalent of swearing a vendetta against someone who has, at worst, misread your book (or your friend's book) and been rude about it. Outing someone online is a punishment. It's what our community does with traitors and criminals -- Rachel Moss was outed because she was a threat to the community, and could not be properly shunned unless people knew who she was. It is a reasonable response to a genuine threat. It is not a reasonable response to criticism.

I have more to say, but I'm going to come back and do it in another post, I think.

Comments

[davidlevine]

Although I think that outing people against their will is indefensible, I am disappointed that in one of the posts you linked to, popelisbet called for Wiscon attendees to write to the Wiscon concom expressing their "concerns" about the presence of some of the people involved in this fracas. I decry any attempt to exclude anyone from Wiscon, and I hope that no one will be scared off or denied participation because of popelisbet's call or any similar one.

[naomikritzer]

David, you do not decry any attempt to exclude anyone from WisCon. SURELY. You would heartily endorse the exclusion of Rachel Moss.

popelizbet was also mostly asking that people encourage the ConCom to take this issue into account when assigning panels. Which they will have to do anyway, considering that they ask all programming volunteers if there's anyone they'd like to not be on a panel with.

(I am very glad I'm not one of the people running WisCon programming, FTR, because dealing with this in a way that encourages discussion and not any serious blow-ups will be an enormous headache. I feel great sympathy for the people who need to figure out who to put on panels so as not to create more FAIL.)

[naomikritzer]

And to clarify tone, when I say, "Oh, COME ON. You want to exclude Rachel Moss, don't you?" you should picture me grinning while rolling my eyes at you.

I get that what you're saying here is that you don't want your friends to be excluded. I understand that. I like seeing people at WisCon. I think it is highly unlikely that the ConCom would exclude anyone over something like this (even the malicious outing), and more likely that people who've made really serious fools of themselves in public are going to decide not to come because they feel uncomfortable being face-to-face with people they fought with online. Embarrassment is kind of a natural consequence of being an idiot in public. I don't think there's any way to avoid this problem.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

A number of people who have been shit on the mostest in this fail or who just spend enough time feeling out of place due to race, are no longer sure they're gonna come to the con, because they don't feel that it can be even a little bit safe(ish) space if someone who will maliciously out folks is attending.

[badger2305.livejournal.com]

Thank you for some very thoughtful and worthwhile comments here. Although grad school prevented me from getting involved, Racefail09 has been somewhat overwhelming, and I'm very concerned about the fall-out from it.

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, I can't imagine dealing with keeping up with Race Fail '09 and doing grad work. I hope that's all going well. We gonna see you at Wiscon? I hope so.