More fallout from the SFWA controversy

[annathepiper]

In my last SFWA post I linked off to N.K. Jemisin’s excellent Continuum GoH speech, and now that I’m home from work tonight I see rumblings that this has caused one of the most repellent people in the SF/F genre to shoot off his mouth again. What drives his hateful spewings over the top this time is that he apparently put them out onto the SFWA authors’ Twitter feed, in particular.

Trigger warning on all of these links: repugnant racism in the quotes being shared.

Jim Hines addresses the matter here.

Foz Meadows has an eloquent and passionate response over here.

Amal El-Mohtar calls for Beale/Day’s expulsion from SFWA here.

As I have posted in previous posts, I’m not in SFWA and I’m not likely to be any time in the immediate future. So I can’t add my voice to El-Mohtar’s to call for his expulsion.

But I can say this. The man can have any opinion he likes, and yes, free speech means he gets to say it on his own platforms. But free speech also means that the rest of us get to say that the message he’s trying to vomit forth has no place in a civilized society. That it has no place in the company of writers who are trying to look forward, not back, and who are trying to embrace all voices, not just those of white males.

The rest of us get to say that no, that crap is not okay.

Y’all pardon me, I’m going to go buy every single N.K. Jemisin title I don’t have in my ebook collection yet now.

ETA: And speaking of voting with your wallet, John Scalzi has an excellent suggestion for how to support diversity in SF/F right over here.

ETA #2: Dara’s declared that Mr. Beale is in fact a white supremacist. I agree. If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a goddamn duck.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

It`s a little sad that as soon as you said the word "repulsive" I knew exactly who you meant.

Well, maybe not. The fact that there is one standout means that he's a standout. I'd much rather not have a bunch of people that bad to choose between.

(There are a bunch of people on a lower level of assholeishness, true. But geeze, we could have a bunch of Vox Days.)

[annathepiper]

Yeah, this one's distinguishable from the other obvious raving asshat in SF/F, i.e., Orson Scott Card, for being the one who rants about race and sex rather than being the one who rants about queers.

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I don`t like that there are people who are this extremely offensive; but I do like that they're slowly (too slowly, granted) becoming a rare enough breed that I can identify individuals.

It's partly a shame, as I've liked Card's books quite a lot - but I'm never going to buy another one (nor am I going to go and see the movie), because you know what, there is a sufficiency of writers of equally-good stuff who don't think my friends are less human than I am*. It's not possible to read all of the books in the world that I'd probably really enjoy, so I'll focus on ones where my money goes to good people.

*Where I am not quite "straight white lady" because my sexuality = not exactly normal by most people's standards, but in a way that religions generally approve of even if they think it's weird, which makes my life somewhat easier than other people who identify as non-heterosexual, and means I'm more likely to get faced with "I don't think that's a real thing" than with accusations of being evil and people campaigning to take away or not grant me civil rights. Not perfect, but I'll take it.)

[annathepiper]

I do take a bit of heart seeing the various posts going up decrying this bilge, indeed. Which is why I've been linking to some of them.

I've only read one of Card's novels ever, and I certainly won't ever be reading another one. And while I'm a little sad that I'll have to skip something with Harrison Ford in it, I'm not sad enough about it for that to outweigh my resolve of never putting a dime to anything with Card's name on it, so!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Card's books, especially "Speaker For the Dead" IMO, are excellent - and don't reflect his politics, which is why I was so shocked to discover he was an asshole. I'd already bought all the Ender books then published at that point. They're also the origin of my screenname, which bugs me a lot, but it's my name now and has been for long enough and in enough communities that changing it really isn't an option, even if it's got that sour note to it. I'm chalking it up to "I also share a birthday with Saddam Hussein" in terms of disconnection at this point.

I appreciate you sharing the links - I've been reading them with interest, and enjoying the comments as much as the posts themselves. I realized that my phrasing above was misleading when I said "think my friends are less than human" - I don't give a flying fuck if I know someone, am friends with them, or dislike them, human is human.

And you know what, I'm not a habitual swearer, but some ideas are vile enough to merit obscenity, because the ideas themselves are obscene.

[solarbird]

Vox is an outright white supremacist at this point. We should be calling him that. (And I'm doing so over at my own blog.)

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

What with all this extra attention and next Continuum being the Australian NatCon and having Jim Hines as the GoH I am starting to think I am glad I bought my membership already. Jim has already complained to Nora about how is he going to top that GoH speech?

[annathepiper]

Ha! If you're getting Jim at that con though I'm sure he'll say something awesome. :)

[wrog]

the part I'm confused about: I've never heard of this guy before (Beale/Day), which, among other things means I've never seen his name on the bookstore shelves — not the I necessarily keep up with everything, but still — what the hell did he write that made him eligible to be even in the SFWA let alone sufficiently well known that he'd actually get votes as SFWA presidential candidate?