Sigh...

Posted July 10, 2008 1:12 AM by Terry Karney

Also, even though the letter is covered by copyright, the Doctrine of Fair Use still applies. If just a short excerpt of the letter is reproduced, for purposes of criticism, in a non-profit context, for example.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:31 AM by Avram

I suppose this is about William Sanders' rejection letter.

As the managing editor of Helix, I'm the designated Speaker to Blogs at the moment, since William is traveling -- by motorcycle, so he has no computer along and has no net access. He left me in charge during his absence; this brouhaha had just begun to develop when he left.

So far I'm afraid I've made a mess or two, but let's see if I can clean up a bit.

The law says that letters, whether personal or business, cannot legally be published without the author's permission, though they can be shown around. The law, however, is really pretty irrelevant in this case. Nobody's invoking it. We do think it was bad form to post the letter in full without any explanation of the context, i.e., the story it refers to and previous correspondence, but nothing more than bad form, and the author who received it has indeed apologized, and the apology was accepted. No one asked for the letter to be taken down, nor will such a request be forthcoming, since it would be completely pointless.

Several people do seem to have misinterpreted it; the references in the letter to "those people" are indeed specifically directed at terrorists, not Muslims in general, since the story in question is about terrorists. I'm fairly sure the story's author understood that; I certainly hope he did.

The only possible ethnic slur is the term "sheet heads." Once again, that was intended to refer to radical Islam, rather than Muslims in general, but I acknowledge it may be an unfortunate choice of words.

But then, it wasn't intended for publication.

Beyond that, not having read the story and not being William Sanders, I am not equipped to say much. There will be no official response from William to the furor until he returns home, if then. That may be in a week or so. I would hope most of this will have blown over by then.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:39 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Wow.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:48 AM by Mary Dell

@3 Wow, that's some pretty pathetic apologism, right there.

I suppose if the editor had lived in Harlem for a couple of years and used a different racial epithet, you would be explaining that he was only refering to *criminal* negroes.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:53 AM by JamesP

Lawrence, I recognize that you're in a difficult position here, but Sanders' claim that he was just talking about terrorists? I don't believe him. Nick Mamatas does a good job of demolishing those claims in the comment thread on Tobias Buckell's blog.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:59 AM by Avram

It's pathetic apologism because I'm not trying to apologize. I'm explaining why William Sanders isn't speaking for himself -- he has no net access, and won't for several days. I can't speak for him beyond a few things he mentioned before his departure.

Posted July 10, 2008 2:03 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Anyone who's coming in blind and wants to know about this brouhaha, Google "Sanders rejection letter."

Posted July 10, 2008 2:05 AM by Linkmeister

Whereas I do believe him, Avram, because I've known him online for about ten years, and while William's a cantankerous old bastard, I have never seen any sign he's any sort of racist. I know his style, and his words in that rejection letter are very much in line with his comments about terrorists elsewhere. He's taken pride in publishing several authors of color in Helix, and has tried to make the SF field a little less whitebread.

He and Nick Mamatas have disliked each other for years; I would look at anything Nick said about him with a jaundiced eye.

Posted July 10, 2008 2:09 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Lawrence, you know I like you, but no one with any sense buys the idea that when Sanders raved about "the worm-brained mentality of those people" and claimed that "most of the SF magazines are very leery of publishing anything that might offend the sheet heads", he was making a careful distinction between "Muslims in general" and "terrorists." Because, you know, nobody thinks that even William Sanders is crazy enough to assert that "most of the SF magazines" are afraid to publish anything that would offend terrorists. Obviously he meant Muslims in general. He knows it, everyone with any sense knows it, and you know it, and I don't know why you're retailing defenses of this obvious nonsense.

Say what you will about Nick Mamatas; try to brush him aside because he and Sanders dislike each other--I'm not close to either of them, and I don't care about that. What I know is that Mamatas absolutely has the drop on Sanders' claims that he was only referring to "terrorists." As Mamatas points out, if this is true, what does it do to Sanders' claim of familiarity with the people under discussion? Sanders can't have it both ways; if his splenetic comments were meant to refer only to "terrorists," then he was claiming to have spent his time in the Middle East hanging out with terrorists. You can't brush off an observation of this caliber by noting that Mamatas and Sanders don't like each other.

Yes, yes, William Sanders is a brave truthteller and we're all PC police determined to silence him. Also, he's part Cherokee! This proves it!

Posted July 10, 2008 2:26 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Wow. When he says nobody in the "civilized world" can understand the wormy mentality of those people, even if he meant terrorists, he still says people in the uncivilized world are capable of understanding them.

You know what really ticks me off? When Americans say they don't understand terrorists. I just can't get over that. Like Americans (or any Homo sapiens) can't comprehend the basic deep desire to kill enemies even if you die yourself. Even the Dukes of Hazzard used IEDs. You can't tell me shooting dynamite arrows at local law enforcement isn't equivalent to terrorism. And that was on prime-time television! In the "civilized world"!

I don't blame him for trying to back and fill, though. And I really don't blame him for unplugging and hightailing it on his bike until the heat dissipates. That's pretty smart, actually -- keeps him from putting his foot further into his mouth, for one thing.

Posted July 10, 2008 2:37 AM by Michael Roberts

Actually, knowing William's style and the context, I find it easy to believe that "the worm-brained mentality of those people" refers only to terrorists. He claimed to be familiar with Islam from his time in Turkey, yes, and complimented the author on getting it right. He then shifted gears to discussing the story's central character, who is a terrorist.

The other quote is obviously another matter.

Whether William Sanders is a brave truthteller, I wouldn't know; mostly I know he's a grouchy old man who didn't intend this letter to be published, who therefore wrote it carelessly, and who isn't around to defend himself because he's gone to see his hospitalized wife, who is a couple of hundred miles from home because there's nowhere closer that can handle her case.

Posted July 10, 2008 2:52 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Oh, William understands the desire to kill enemies just fine. It's indiscriminately killing people he doesn't get.

Nor does saying no one in the civilized world can understand such a mindset imply that everyone in the uncivilized world can. "No A is B" does not imply "Not-A is B."

As for his departure, he'd been planning this trip for some time. There's no connection with the current furor; it's just unfortunate timing.

Posted July 10, 2008 2:56 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

I'm not sure how it's releant to his bigotry that his wife is ill. Was there a reason you shared personal details about his life here on the internet other than to illicit sympathy? Because I can't imagine that he took the time to email you and tell you that was okay.

Posted July 10, 2008 3:01 AM by Anna

and while William's a cantankerous old bastard, I have never seen any sign he's any sort of racist.

"Who are you going to believe: me, or your own lying eyes?"

Posted July 10, 2008 3:04 AM by Tlönista

His wife's illness has nothing to do with the letter in question, no. It is why he's away, though, as he has said publicly in his newsgroup on SFF Net; I'm hardly revealing any personal secrets.

I'm not so much fishing for sympathy there as losing my temper. I like William, and I resent that he's going to have the knowledge niggling at him while he's gone that he's the subject of a great deal of nasty, ill-informed commentary, and that he's going to come home from an emotionally-draining trip to a mountain of accumulated hassle.

(BTW, it's "elicit," not "illicit.")

Posted July 10, 2008 3:14 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Word of advice: If you're losing your temper, go for a walk or something. It's the internet. It will stil be here when you get back, and if you're getting angry you're probably not sounding like you mean to when defending someone.

You've said your piece. People will accept it or not according to their way. You don't need to repeat it, and you're going to make yourself ill trying to keep up with it.

Posted July 10, 2008 3:21 AM by Anna

I like William

Then one would think you'd feel he ought to KNOW just how far out of line he was, so he can correct it and be better appreciated for his fine qualities. Which I believe you that he has.

I can think of a few reasons for someone who is not racist or bigoted to write something like that, but none of them are compatible with being fluent in English and literate enough to edit a magazine.

Not that you're going to listen to me, but 1) The man is BUSTED LIKE A CHEAP WATCH, and 2) You're making the fallout worse.

Posted July 10, 2008 3:23 AM by Marna Nightingale

He's a cranky old curmudgeon
and his words are like a bludgeon
and he's cycled off in dudgeon
and that's... actually not at all good enough for me.

This has been all over my LJ-Friendslist this morning, and as I've been reading about it my jaw has been dropping further and further, so maybe I really could swallow a camel at this point.

It seems to me that there comes a point where one has a private communication that one would normally keep private but in this especial instance making public what it says is more important than that normal expectation. This is whistleblowing, and this is important, and it's an important precedent that this is OK.

Posted July 10, 2008 3:26 AM by Jo Walton

I probably am making the fallout worse, and intellectually I know that. I've stayed quiet in most venues, and generally resisted the temptation to stuff my foot farther down my throat, but it's hard. I'm trying to only address specific details and reply to specific questions.

Alas, that often doesn't help, as then I get accused of dodging the bigger issues.

The timing on this sucks, it really does.

As for whether William's literate enough to edit a magazine, you could always go read the magazine in question -- it's free, after all, and up for a Hugo. I admit to being biased, but I think we've published some very fine work. You can also get a look at some of William's own commentary on the SF field by reading the editorials. (All the old issues are available in the archives.)

Posted July 10, 2008 3:37 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

I think there's a checklist someplace on the internet that you must be following.

1. He can't be racist, I know him, and he's a great guy!

2. He can't be racist, because he does really good work, so even if he is, it doesn't count!

3. He can't be racist, and let me tell you how he's stressed out now because of how he's being called out for this! Because it's everyone else's job to ignore it, not his job to have not said something racist in the first place!

Take a break. You are following a well-worn path that others before you have, and it is making you sound very foolish.

Posted July 10, 2008 3:46 AM by Anna

There's one telling point no one has yet to mention. The term "sheet head" is clearly a reference to Arab headdress - aqul and guthra. First, not all Muslims wear such headdress (and it's certainly not common in Turkey). Second, not all Arabs who wear aqul and guthra are Muslim.

Posted July 10, 2008 3:57 AM by Ian Sales

I am not following that checklist.

If you look back at my very first post here, you'll see that I most definitely did not say it's everyone else's job to ignore it. We know perfectly well that it's going to be discussed at absurd length and that any attempt to prevent that would only make matters worse.

I commented here in the first place to reiterate that we did not try to suppress the letter once it was posted. The staff of Helix is not among those trying to "use copyright law as a stick" or "suppress discussion of their actions," nor were we amazed to see the letter posted.

Dismayed, perhaps, but not amazed.

And with that said again, I'm going to bed. I expect there will be a zillion more comments waiting for me in the morning.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:05 AM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Well, yes. The comments might *just* be defensible on their own - at a stretch - a Plastic Man stretch - if it wasn't for, y'know, the racist epithet.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:30 AM by JamesP

I think Nick nailed it.

But, just as a gedanken experiment, what if he didn't? What if Mr. Sanders is, as some claim, saying that "terrorists" are subhuman, and incapable of thought, and lacking in "human qualities."

Well, now where are we? A lot closer to understanding how American soldiers can be brainwashed into torturing prisoners and murdering civilians; and we're still confronting an attitude that would make any civilized human being blush with shame.

No, I think Nick is right. But even if he's wrong it doesn't gain a whole lot for Mr. Sanders.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:36 AM by skzb

As for whether William's literate enough to edit a magazine, you could always go read the magazine in question -- it's free, after all, and up for a Hugo.

That was my point. Kind of raises the bar for selling "he expressed himself badly" as an explanation, you know?

Posted July 10, 2008 4:40 AM by Marna Nightingale

Lawrence, I know you have an LJ, and there's probably lots of comments there waiting for you.

But honestly, everyplace else that this is being discussed? Let it go. You aren't doing yourself or your friend any good. I know it sucks. I really do. But you've already admitted that in defending him you're digging a big hole. Stop. You can't do anything more at this point, and arguing about it here or elsewhere will not win friends and influence people. It will make you look foolish, like every other person who makes excuses for someone's racist behaviour.

You don't have a responsibility here. I know it feels like it, but you really don't. The only person who can do anything about what Mr Sanders wrote is Mr Sanders. And that will have to wait till he is able to do something, which obviously is not now, and may not be for some time due to his trip.

I hope you get lots of rest, and please consider what I've written.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:43 AM by Anna

Just to forestall some wasted effort:

When William is available to post again, if he chooses to respond, he will say that "racist" is an entirely inappropriate charge, since Islam is not an ethnicity but a religion. You will not win an argument on this point, either - William is nothing if not persistent. :) Furthermore, as a point of technicality, he's right. William is not in fact criticizing non-Muslims of Arab, Persian, Turkish, or any other ethnic background; he is criticizing adherents of Islam, which he regards as a particularly dangerous set of superstitions. If you want to argue that he's being bigoted toward a religion, carry on, but make sure you know what you're aiming at, as William is fierce in pouncing on misdirected attacks. (Some of the back-and-forths I've had with him on various subjects have really done me good in sharpening my rhetoric and reading, and continue to influence my style.)

Also, as others have noted, William isn't white. He's Cherokee. Knowing this will save some wasted effort on insults or arguments based on the whiteness of an anti-Muslim claim's maker.

I offer these in hopes of more useful and less pointless exchanges, if and when the opportunity arises.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:44 AM by Bruce Baugh

Linkmeister@8: I googled 'Sanders rejection letter' and the first hit was...this page. So I came back! Whee, better than the carousel! :D

The second link on Google was William Preston's LJ, which is where it seems to have kicked off, but I'm momentarily distracted by unfond memories of spending an entire Christmas plowing through Middlemarch. Also, he removed the text of the letter, so I'm still not sure what it said, apart from snippets elsewhere.

*reads snippets*

Okay, so one of those snippets says: '...and I was pleased to see that you didn’t engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.'

Hmmm. As someone currently writing about Nazis - who are, I must tell you, Very Very Bad - I disagree with him and quote Chekhov:

'You abuse me for objectivity, calling it indifference to good and evil, lack of ideas and ideals, and so on. You would have me, when I describe horse thieves, say: "Stealing horses is an evil." But that has been known for ages without my saying so. Let the jury judge them; it's my job simply to show what sort of people they are.'

Posted July 10, 2008 4:48 AM by Tracey S. Rosenberg

When William is available to post again, if he chooses to respond, he will say that "racist" is an entirely inappropriate charge, since Islam is not an ethnicity but a religion.

Nope, won't wash. See my earlier comment. The term "sheet head" is a reference to Arabs, not Muslims.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:52 AM by Ian Sales

Bruce @28 - if we lived in a world in which there was not a strong cultural association between Arabs and Islam, then maybe. But 'sheet-heads'? 'The civilized world?'

If I were to talk about Jews and describe them as 'manipulative,' 'deceitful,' and contrast them with 'settled peoples', and talk about, say, 'Yiddish jabber' nobody would believe my claim that I just held Judaism to be a particularly harmful set of superstitions, and I had nothing against non-religious Jews. There's clearly a racial element here. It doesn't mean the writer is a broad-spectrum racist, of course, but race, culture, and religion are very tightly tied together when it comes to the fashionable bigotry of our day.

Posted July 10, 2008 4:57 AM by JamesP

JamesP, I'm not attempting to defend William's usage. (My own take is that there are times it just doesn't matter what's technically correct when popular usage is sufficiently other. William's response has in the past included the idea that he's not about to take a burden of collective guilt for other people's sloppiness.) I'm just pointing out foreseeable pitfalls.

Posted July 10, 2008 5:11 AM by Bruce Baugh

The Cherokee do have a problem with racism. They were slave traders. A Cherokee chief, Stand Watie, was the last Confederate general to surrender. More recently, the Cherokee voted to exclude the descendants of their black slaves from the tribe (and the tribe's gambling wealth), even though many of those people were culturally Cherokee, living the life and speaking the language.

On the other hand, Sanders is just a racist.*

* In the modern sense that race equals ethnicity.

Posted July 10, 2008 5:27 AM by will shetterly

Ah, the "it's not racism if it's not about *race*" thing.

Problem is, THERE ARE NO HUMAN RACES. The fact itself that you establish a distinction between "racims" and "other stuff" sorta proves that you are a racist.

Because, well, how do you say that somebody is, say, an Arab? Is a half-British person whose mother is Egyptian Arab? Well, that's hard isn't it? There have been people in Egypt long before the tribes from the Arabian Peninsula swept there, and who is to say what part of her genes is "Arab"? And frankly, y'know, it's not as if people aren't mixed up plenty. Time it was when a geneticist did a DNA examination of the people residing in Italy and found that there were only two groups genetically diverse enough to be told apart - in Tuscany and in Sardenia.

There are no human races. The "race" idea in America mostly applies to descendant of African slaves; but Africa is such a genetically diverse mix that the only thing that distinguish these people is the color of their skin, a very superficial characteristic, and one, as we know, that is not "really" important because there are black people who can "pass" and they are certainly still considered black or mixed "race" at best.

There are no human races. Not only we are all, of course, capable of producing offsprings, we are all made up of far more diverse genes than people believe - including African genes in James Watson.

I have pale skin but very, very curly hair, which nobody in my family has. And I was born in one of those crucibles of the human race, the bit were Italy joins up with the East. My curly hair could come from stray genes from Carthaginians, from Romans, from Spaniards, from Lybian, yeah verily, even from Lebanese merchants who had some desert tribe blood in them, from Celts, from a visiting freaking Bushman for all I know.

And you Anglo-Saxons? Is the name a hint? Just because you (I don't mean any particuar you) are ginger-haired do you think no Roman general descendant from Nubian warriors contributes to your makeup?

As for "he's not white he's Cherokee", give me a break. What does that have anything to do with anything else? When I was in America I kept insisting that I wasn't white, I was Italian. And you know what, there was a time when being Irish or Italian was, if not as bad as being black, certainly pretty close to it. But right now? I am white, whether I like it or not.

Because race, my friend, is in the eye of the beholder. Race is the square hole bigoted people push you in, no matter how round you are.

And if you hate and despise people based on one fact you know about them, their faith or lack of it, their skin color, their class, their gender, their lack of gender, the way the choose to entertain themselves in the privacy of their own bedrooms or out there in the public square - then, my friend, you are the same sort of shit whatever you choose to call your bigotry and if you keep wasting your breath by tracing lines in the sand, then it's your own humanity that you are condemning.

Sorry, rant over.

BTW, I had met William Sanders long before this incident, and had formed a pretty strong opinion of him as definitely sexist and all-round unpleasant. My own reaction to this latest incident was "It's William Saunders we're talking about. Why is everybody acting all surprised?"

Somebody please remind me of what he said back in the days of Ellisongate?

Posted July 10, 2008 5:43 AM by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

What was this about again? Ah yes, Patrick's belief that ancient astronauts built the pyramids. I remember now.
Unfortunately, Xenu has sent an angry missive requesting that we remove all images of the secret decoder device from our interwebs. In his letter (which he has told me that I cannot repost because he's enacting Section 5 a.1.42 of the Interspace Binary Information Protection Act) her does however refer to the entire human race as barely evolved but hyper-caffeinated apes.
We are ignoring his slanderous comment because he is you know, good ol' Xenu.

Posted July 10, 2008 6:06 AM by J.K.Richard

"The fact itself that you establish a distinction between 'racims' and 'other stuff' sorta proves that you are a racist." Um. Really? But if "THERE ARE NO HUMAN RACES" how can somebody be "racist"? I mean, on the one hand you seem to be saying that "racism" =cannot= be a meaningful label because there ain't no such thing as "race"; you then use the term "racist" in a way that causes me to suspect that you believe it to be meaningful after all.

Me, I rather thought the point the writer was making (or trying to make, in any event) was about =terms=, not about substance. As in, "better to choose a more accurate/better/real term to talk about the matter at hand, because 'racism' doesn't apply." As in: pretty much the same point that you appear to me to be making here with a different set of supporting details.

But I'm feeling stupid about my ability to put words together this morning. So I hope you understand my discomfort with your opening paragraphs (but not the rest of your post, which seems accurate and unobjectionable to me). If not, this forum is full of smart people who are good with words--perhaps one of them will be able to ferret out what I'm trying to say and do a better job of saying it. (This here paragraph is not, what?, "sarcastic"? "Clever"? It's straight truth of how I feel/think at the moment, but, again, probably not stated well enough nor to be easily misunderstood.)

Posted July 10, 2008 6:41 AM by Fred A Levy Haskell

'He claimed to be familiar with Islam from his time in Turkey.'

Then he's a fool, on top of everything else.

Turkey's really a very atypical place, in all sorts of ways, and Turkish Islam isn't all that representative of anything except...well, Turkish Islam. (The bars in Istanbul do very well in Ramadan, for example...I doubt that's true in Riyadh)

Posted July 10, 2008 7:06 AM by praisegod barebones

Lawrence Watt-Evans -

So far I'm afraid I've made a mess or two, but let's see if I can clean up a bit.

I think you failed, you shoulda known better than to have made the attempt you're making. You're not doing any good for Helix here from my perspective. You're making more of a mess.

And it looks like there more mess from Sanders too - he's alleged to have baned people who complained about his words in a public forum from submitting to Helix.

(When I saw him in that thread defending those views, rather than apologizing for them, I knew I had to speak out, even though it meant (as he informed me privately afterward) that I’d never be pub’d in Helix again. ::shrug:: So be it.) - From Nora over at Tobias Buckell's blog

I wonder - is he keeping a private list of everyone who's taken a side against him on this issue? Is Nora lying? Or was he once again 'misinterpreted'?

Posted July 10, 2008 7:08 AM by Josh Jasper

LWE #13: Without wanting to fan the flames too much (I can agree with #12 that the subjects of vague references can shift even between consecutive sentences, though people's reading of that will vary), I'd like to say that no, "No A is B" does in fact rather strongly imply "(At least) some not-A is B", certainly in the fuzzy logic of natural language with its four maxims of relevance etc (I'm never able to find them on Wikipedia when I need them) and for most ordinary values of B; both generally and in this particular example and context. Otherwise there's no reason to connect the two at all and not to say just "there is no B".

And back to on-topic, PNH's (original) links: It is well known that Google is a service provider directory that links users to an online location. - actually, I had no idea!

Posted July 10, 2008 7:11 AM by Jan Vaněk jr.

Reading John W. Campbell's correspondence would be more entertaining if I hadn't spent a couple of decades reading half-baked rants on Usenet and in the blogosphere.

Posted July 10, 2008 8:18 AM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Just another little snapshot:

Sanders writes an unprofessional and racist* rejection letter to some guy.

Guy posts it.

Lots of people link to it and complain.

A few other people whine that copyright is being violated.

A few others also complain that posters such as Tempest Bradford and Toby Buckell are a "lynch mob". (Oh those black people and their lynch mobs! Will they ever learn?)

This becomes, through the agency of Sanders's running buddy, a moral referendum...on me? (One that I'm winning, but still.)

*And yes, despite not being a "race", clearly Islam has been nearly as racialized as Judaism. Plenty of people on the trains to nowhere a few decades ago were utterly indifferent to the religion of their ancestors and many practiced other religions.

Posted July 10, 2008 8:33 AM by Nick Mamatas

@36 Words sometimes are substance. When you huff and puff so much to distinguish between "racism" and "other bigotry", trying to obfuscate the fact that "other bigotry" is not better, you are ALSO implying that you believe that race is indeed a concept that has any validity. That is what being a racist means: believing that races exist, that a hierarchy can be established between them, and that people can be assigned to one or the other on the basis of, well, how dark their skin is, mostly, historically.

People who say "no no I am not a racist I just can't stand Belgians, but hey, you are born black but nobody stops you from emigrating out of Belgium and giving up your citizenship so if you remain Belgian it's a choice" are trying to imply that racism is more hideous because it classifies people on the basis of things they can't help, while their particular kind of bigotry classified people on the basis of some other characteristic that they perceive as a personal choice.

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if homosexual are born that way or choose to be. It doesn't matter if people convert to Islam (btw, apparently the fastest-growing religion in the USA right now) or just have Muslim gene. It still comes down to spitting insults to a whole bunch of people who are not one uniform mass, are not robots, are not subhumans.

Incidentally - not even terrorists are subhuman. But of course, if I were to go on in this vein I would have to start talking about "no, Our People who did that stuff were not REAL terrorists, because they didn't kill civilians/only killed civilians by mistake / killed cvilians but couldn't really help it / did it for a right cause / only killed a few people / had to defend themselves / were real soldiers with a real uniform / the other guys were worse /in the end saved more people than they killed / were really kind to kittens and puppies / oh look a butterfly! / etc, etc, etc."

Posted July 10, 2008 8:36 AM by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

One point that I've only seen mentioned indirectly is that the message involved was not a personal communication; it was a business letter sent in the name of Helix, and therefore can be considered to represent the editorial position of the magazine. Even if Mr. Sanders sincerely believes that his words were in no way offensive to anyone other than a terrorist, was writing that letter, no matter how private it may have remained in the event, a professionally justifiable act? The only way I can think that it would be is if Sanders is absolute ruler of the magazine, and no one else at Helix has any input on its policies or public image. This may in fact be true, but it certainly doesn't make me feel any better about the qualities and professionalism of Helix.

And what Bill Higgins said.

Posted July 10, 2008 8:45 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

"Oh, you have a Scottie dog! A friend of mine has a few Scottie dogs, so I know what they're like. *pause, cough, pause* Those dogs should all be shot and incinerated." Some words require clear antecedents. Anything else is poor communication.

I said it on the comment thread originally, and I may just keep repeating it. If what you say isn't what you mean, then you are not saying it right.

Posted July 10, 2008 9:00 AM by Diatryma

As a person of colour who is regularly taken for a Muslim and an Arab, though I am neither (having brown skin and a beard does the job), I assure you that I find the term 'sheet head' to be racist. To say that it applies to 'terrorists' and not to 'Muslims' is as obfuscatory and as stupid as saying that 'nigger' doesn't mean 'all black people', just the 'lazy and shiftless ones'.

To use such phrasing in a business communication is to put the full weight and authority of the organisation behind it, to implicate the organisation in the bigotry, the racism, the xenophobia, the religious hostility, and the stupidity of its agent. There's no way around that.

Posted July 10, 2008 9:04 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Anna @34, well-said.

As a token recovering anthropologist, let me agree that it is perfectly possible to have racism when there are, objectively speaking, no human "races." Because as Anna says, race is in the eye of the beholder. It's whatever criteria you use to establish an Us vs. Them mentality.

Yer average modern pale-skinned American might assume that a Pequot and a Mohawk were the same "race," but the Pequot and the Mohawk would beg to differ. Likewise, your white northern European might think everybody in all the nations of subSaharan Africa is the same "race," but again, if you were to ask a primary source, you'd get a very different answer. (Incidentally, some ridiculously high percentage of all human variation is present in the indigenous populations of Africa; the fact that most Africans have dark skin adapted to a massive UV exposure does not make them genetically any more alike than, say, those Mohawks and the English settlers in Massachusetts.)

"Race" does not exist as an objective quality. It is assigned from the outside, by the observer.

I could arbitrarily say that all blue-eyed people are one race and all brown-eyed people are another, that hazel-eyed people are the result of miscegenation and to be shunned, that gray-eyed people are assigned to the blue-eyed group, and that green-eyed people will be shot as witches, and it would make about as much sense as our cultural preconceptions about race.

In my opinion, it's much more productive to talk about culture, religion, and ethnicity, which is often what we really mean when we say "race," but to handle the conversation that way requires that we pause for a moment and think with nuance rather than reacting on a gut level.

But when we call somebody on racism, what we are reacting to is their othering (assigning of "race") to another group of human beings. "Racism" occurs when some person(s) wishes to be able to say "those people, not like us people" as a categorical statement and have it go unchallenged.

(Like William Sanders, I'm part Cherokee too. You sure wouldn't know it to look at me, and culturally, that influence is all gone from my family. If it ever had much of a foothold to begin with. Does that mean I can't be a racist? Does my understanding of the fact that race as we use the term does not objectively exist, and that it's a holdover from some rather obscene Victorian and pre-Victorian ideas about God's intentions for the human species mean that I can't be a racist? Well, alas. No. Because the English language mocks prescriptivists, and words mean what people use them to mean, and the fact that "corn" originated as a catchall term for grains does not make it any less plain what an Indianan means when he says "sweet corn.")

Posted July 10, 2008 9:36 AM by ebear

Jan Vaněk jr. @ #39

four maxims of relevance etc (I'm never able to find them on Wikipedia when I need them)

Posted July 10, 2008 9:42 AM by Tim May

Oh my. How anyone can possibly think that the issue here is copyright or whether or not the author should have posted the letter is beyond me.
I can't imagine any person of good conscience, receiving a business communication of any kind containing such bigotry, not trying to expose the author for the bigot he or she is.
Honestly, there is no defense for this. The fact that the author removed the posting--and apologized for it--makes me sad. The fact that he then defended the letter makes me plain old angry.

Ugh, what a world.

Also--I think a couple of people (#30, #31 #34), maybe misread Bruce Baugh's post at #28. Or did I? It sounded like he was preparing people to confront Sanders by describing his favored rhetorical strategies (semantic pirouettes rather than honest discussion); I didn't take it to mean that he subscribed to the same ideas.
Did I miss something?

Posted July 10, 2008 9:43 AM by JimR

As a white guy with privilege in most situations, I try hard not to lecture anyone about race issues in the US. But I will say that, living outside and watching non-white on non-white bigotry has been an eye opener. Watching how progressives other cultures actually deal with condemning racism, and how hard it is for them to get anywhere in that argument has been eye opening.

White culture, in the US, Europe, and Australia has race problems. But we're pretty damn vocal about it. it's something I'm proud of - that we can be, and we're not shamed into silence because "one does not speak of such things" rules.

I'm glad that we're having this conversation today.

Posted July 10, 2008 9:49 AM by Josh Jasper

Anna:

To put it another way, a race like "black" or "Arab" exists just as much as, say, a literary genre like "science fiction" exists. In both cases, it's something assigned by a significant number of people, simply because it means something to them.

There isn't necessarily any objective rhyme or reason as to why one book is considered SF and another isn't, but I'd imagine anyone working in SF publishing had better have a good working model of the concept, so they can market effectively. (They may well choose to ignore or break down the boundaries of the genre, and that can often be a good thing. But they also need to know what the genre is considered to be. Of course, our gracious hosts have long personal experience in this field that I don't; so believe them over me if they say I'm all wet here.)

Similarly, "race" is essentially a social construct, one that varies by society. (As I've said before, I often think it most useful to think of "race" as "ethnicity with persistent, pervasive caste issues"; and different societies have different ideas of what their castes are.)

I think you'd find nearly everyone here in favor of breaking down ethnic caste hierarchies. But that doesn't mean they have to pretend they don't exist in society, much less be considered a racist if they decline to play that game.

"But what about other bigotry?" you might ask. Well, that's bad too, but the case in front of us happens to involve racism, among other things. Insisting that one cannot talk about a specific case at hand, but only in more general, abstract terms, can be a way of distracting from (and thereby diminishing) the immediate problem. Done deliberately or to an extreme (though I don't think you intended it this way yourself) it can end up functioning as apology for bigotry.

(You see this not infrequently in sexism threads: e.g. the argument that, because sexism exists to some extent against men as well as women, any women complaining about a specific sexist incident against her should stop her whining because other people get mistreated too. I'm pretty sure this is on Flamer Bingo cards somewhere; I see it often enough...)

Posted July 10, 2008 10:13 AM by John Mark Ockerbloom

Anna #42: As a nitpick, there is a fuzzy biological definition for race, in the sense that it's apparently pretty easy to classify most people as belonging mostly to one identifiable race based only on their genes. To the extent that race is taken to mean "continent from which most of your ancestors came," it's got a biological meaning. (It also has a cultural meaning, which is somewhat related to the biological meaning.) Here is a link to a paper describing this. (It's not real surprising though, as you can see by imagining drawing out a family tree for different people, and seeing how many people they had in common, say, 20 generations back.)

But as you pointed out in #42, this isn't too important. In terms of morality, there's not too much difference between "I hate you for having black skin" and "I hate you for being steeped in American black culture," say. (That's distinct from hating some aspects of American black culture, naturally.)

More generally, there are a whole bunch of ways to invoke the "us/them" circuitry in peoples' minds. That circuitry is dangerous to invoke, since it lets people justify almost limitless nastiness to "them" on behalf of "us," so it's important to minimize the use of that circuitry. Invoking it with respect to race and religion has such a bad history among people that we've broadly agreed to try to minimize it. (Unfortunately, there's still plenty of us/them circuitry invoked on racial grounds explicitly among black political leaders and thinkers. This strikes me as wrong and destructive, FWIW.)

Posted July 10, 2008 10:14 AM by albatross

KimR, #48: I think you read Bruce Baugh's #28 exactly right; he was cataloguing Sanders' various rhetorical strategies in arguments of this sort. I've been reading Bruce online for years and I wouldn't for a moment believe he was endorsing any of those strategies.

It's also worth noting that the flap over this isn't a case of hypervigilant people jumping down a guy's throat over one ill-considered remark. Sanders has years of history impressing people in the SF field with his temperament. I'm sure he has many virtues, and I've read at least a couple of very good short stories under his byline, but fairly or not, when his name comes up in conversation, his virtues often aren't what's being discussed.

Posted July 10, 2008 10:31 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Race is a social construct. It's one matter whether race qua social construct "exists" in any meaningful sense. But in the here-and-now race is meaningful and it has real power, even if we insist otherwise. Treating race as real does not necessarily make you a racist any more than treating gender as real makes you a sexist. It makes you a pragmatist.

To reduce racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc., down to a basic human "us vs. them" impulse sweeps aside a lot of important details, and misses the point.

But this is all getting away from the real topic, which is how hopelessly racist William Sanders is. Complaining about the letter being put online clearly didn't work. It is also not a good strategy to go running around the Internet saying "No he's not, racists kick puppies and William Sanders loves puppies!". He drops ethnic slurs in business correspondence. He thinks MUSLIMS = ARABS = TERRORISTS = EEEEBIL. He's a bloody racist.

My [cynical] bet is that his response will be "I'm sorry if you were offended", focusing on those oversensitive, touchy, wimpy people in the audience, and not on whatever mysterious force did the offending. AFAIK that's the usual procedure in these cases.

Posted July 10, 2008 10:47 AM by Tlönista

Ian Sales @ 22 and 30:
There's one telling point no one has yet to mention. The term "sheet head" is clearly a reference to Arab headdress - aqul and guthra.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but claiming this term is "clearly" directed against a specific form of Arab headgear, and must therefore only be referring to Arabs, is highly dubious; from the quoted statements, I doubt Sanders was being that hairsplittingly precise and narrow about the target of his bigotry.

And as a matter of (unpleasant) fact, people use "sheet head" and the obvious parallel terms ("towel-", "rag-", etc.) to refer to headdress/turban-wearing Muslims in general, including Iranians and Afghans.

(This doesn't stop it also being a racist/ethnic slur, most often directed against Arabs and no doubt originating in that sense. But claiming that it is only used that one way isn't correct.)

Posted July 10, 2008 10:48 AM by Peter Erwin

#48 Re your comment about Bruce Baugh's post at #28. Your reading is the same as mine.

I think some people have not been reading carefully. But, except for feeling bad that he (Bruce Baugh) may feel under attack himself, I have enjoyed the posts responding to him.

Posted July 10, 2008 10:54 AM by Trevin Matlock

Lawrence, I hope you don't know what I'm talking about, because the last couple of weeks at Boing Boing have been damned unedifying; but trust me, this situation could get a lot worse.

There's no use arguing about how to read the letter. The facts (whatever they are) aren't the point. Sanders wrote in pithy demotic English, and you're not going to convince anyone that they couldn't tell what he meant by it. Arguing copyright will just get you into endless fair use arguments, and then people will start digging up all those many instances where no one objected to writers quoting editorial letters. In your position, I'd put down the shovel and wait out the fuss. Time, short memories and the natural desire to be published will do more to repair this than words ever could.

By the way, the William Sanders I'm seeing quoted sounds just like the one I've encountered online; but if it really doesn't match your experience of him, you should encourage him to see a doctor.

Bruce Baugh (28):

"William is nothing if not persistent. :)"

I have seen him surprised on that score.

Anna (34), well said.

Nick Mamatas (41): Somebody referred to Toby Buckell and Tempest Bradford as a lynch mob? That makes my brain hurt.

Fragano (45), it's a pleasure to see you get out the howitzer.

Bear (46): My working theory is that Americans have a thing about blacks being a completely separate race because slavery is much easier to administer if you've got an automatic visual cue that tells you whether someone is slave or free. Blacks were visually distinctive; initially, there wasn't an established population of free blacks to confuse the issue; and they were easily purchased. I believe our European ancestors would just as readily have taken ethnic Chinese, if they'd been available for sale at one corner of the Triangle Trade; and that if they had, they'd have told themselves that there were profound and ineradicable differences between whites and orientals.

John Mark Ockerbloom (50): Book categories aren't that arbitrary. What they actually mean is that if you like one book that's labeled science fiction, you'll probably like other books that have that label. Granted, this breaks down at the edges; but it's what the center is about.

Tlonista (53): He's a racist; he doesn't have the sense to be decently hypocritical about it; and few people who hear the story are moved to protest that it's just not like him to do that. All kinds of bad judgement are present in this situation. Meanwhile, a flock of chickens appears on the horizon, homeward bound with roosting on their minds.

Posted July 10, 2008 11:15 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Wow.

Patrick posts links about how Google fellated the Scientologists, and all anyone wants to discuss is William Sanders's, uh, hyperactive use of the English language. (Grass is green, sky is blue.)

Posted July 10, 2008 11:36 AM by Ken Houghton

It's unfortunate this is happening because Helix is a fine online magazine and this will only hurt.

I think Sanders was a dunderhead for writing such a rejection letter. I don't know what he was thinking but clearly it wasn't very clearly.

It's very sad.

Posted July 10, 2008 11:36 AM by Christopher Turkel

My first thought was: "Was William Sanders drunk when he wrote that letter?"

Sanders is an alcoholic. At the 1998 Nebulas, after losing a Nebula to another writer, he drowned his sorrows at the bottom of a bottle of Scotch. His subsequent behavior was such that several people seriously proposed that he should be banned from SFWA functions thereafter.

As I recall, after that debacle, Sanders admitted his problem with alcohol and, iirc, began attending AA.

Even if he's stayed dry since, there is the phenomenon of "dry drunk" behavior, where even if one is sober, the behavioral patterns of those alcoholic years continue to resurface.

That was my thought.

Posted July 10, 2008 11:40 AM by Bruce Arthurs

I wrote this awhile back in responce to someone using the term "towel-head" and then saying he hadn't meant it in a racist way. I thought about updating it (or starting anew) to make it applicable to "sheet-head", but I'm lazy. I think its relevant enough as it is, despite line 5...

On the Possible Meanings of Towel-Head

We might all be way off base
We could've missed his meaning
It might be a sunbather with a burnt face
And not at all demeaning

A sheetless child playing ghost
Would also fit his image
No need here for the whipping post
No reason for a scrimmage

And what about those newly showered?
Would they not fit his words?
No, it's less of a stretch to think he's soured
On the Turks, Arabs, and Kurds

Posted July 10, 2008 11:44 AM by Matt

(Oh, and for the record, I really thought Sanders should have won that Nebula in 1998.)

Posted July 10, 2008 11:45 AM by Bruce Arthurs

I was amused to see Sanders retaliating by banning people from his magazine. Of course he banned the person who posted the rejection letter; no surprise, and many would do the same. But he also banned a writer who'd published a couple stories in Helix for criticizing him in this kerfuffle, and that's just pathetic.

I hope that the publicity from this results in a noticeable drop in good submissions. I've never seen any evidence online that Sanders is capable of learning anything from anyone, and I'm sure any lessons he chose to learn from the decline of his magazine would have more to do with the perfidy of others than his own foolishness, but it would still be satisfying to observe.

Posted July 10, 2008 11:49 AM by Scraps

Fragano, #45: Hear, hear! Bad enough that he said it at all, but that he said it on company letterhead, in his Official Voice as company representative? No excuses need apply.

JimR, #48: That was my reading as well -- Bruce was warning people about Sanders' common troll-tropes, and offering tips on how to avoid giving them purchase.

And a general question concerning the "copyright" red herring: would it have made any difference if, instead of quoting the text of the letter, Mamatas had simply scanned it and posted the image? Because honestly, if I had received something like that and wanted to hold it up to the court of public ridicule, that would be the way I'd go. It removes any possibility of accusations that I might have shaded the text or removed context, and gives people the opportunity to draw their own fully-informed conclusions.

Posted July 10, 2008 11:52 AM by Lee

As far as copyright goes... it's irrelevant. Even if the presumably injured person were to take the presumed injurer to court, the contents of the letter would become the de facto focus of the matter; and even if winning his case, the plaintiff would find out he had lost the most in the wider court of public opinion. Which, of course, may not mean a hell of a lot to someone whose habits of mind seem so...imprecise (anyone who thinks Turkey is a good template for an Arab country is...imprecise to say the least).

Posted July 10, 2008 12:02 PM by Emma

if "THERE ARE NO HUMAN RACES" how can somebody be "racist"?

If the earth is not flat, can there be flatearthers?

If you don't believe in Buddha, should you deny the existance of Buddhists?

I plan to vote for Obama--ought I to dispute the existance of Republicans?

Posted July 10, 2008 12:04 PM by rea

Anna Feruglio Dal Dan, 34,
You wrote a great many things in that entry which are wonderful, and I agree with wholly, but I wanted to point to the literate excellence of this fragment:
if you keep wasting your breath by tracing lines in the sand, then it's your own humanity that you are condemning.
The phrase "wasting your breath" isn't just a mixed metaphor for speech, but evokes the idea of wasting the very breath of life bestowed by the Almighty in pursuit of a vain and futile goal.

Meanwhile, a whole bunch of other people wrote a great many other brilliant things, too many to list here, but not too many for me to bookmark for later reference! Talk about making Light!

Posted July 10, 2008 12:07 PM by don delny

#56: I deliberately avoided the recent BoingBoing flap. Alas, I didn't feel I could ignore something involving Helix.

And again, we aren't arguing copyright, and really wish people would stop implying we are. There are people who are arguing it, but they do not include William and are not acting on his behalf. That's what prompted me to post here.

#43: Helix is the creation of William Sanders, and the rest of the staff has very little input on policy. Certainly none of us read the story in question, or read the rejection letter before it was posted publicly.

#27: Actually, nobody's said a word about it on my own LJ. I hope that continues.

Rest assured, I'm not chasing this all over the net; I've responded a total of three places, and have no intention of returning to the other two. Making Light, though, has been on my regular daily reading list for years.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:08 PM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Albatross, #51:

When one defines a set of genetic markers or DNA sequences as belonging to a certain 'race', then finds a group of people who all have those markers, that is simply circular reasoning. I wish I had my copy of The Great Human Diasporas at hand, to better refer to Professor Luca Cavalli-Sforza's reasoning when he states that "there is no genetic basis for racial classification" (as stated in a review of his Genes, Peoples, and Languages here.

"Unfortunately, there's still plenty of us/them circuitry invoked on racial grounds explicitly among black political leaders and thinkers. This strikes me as wrong and destructive, FWIW."

People often characterize discussions of experiencing racism, especially expressing anger in those discussions, as such things as 'invoking us/them' circuitry. This is mostly done as a tactic, conscious or otherwise, to shut down those discussions or at least disregard them.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:12 PM by Ny Martin

Mamatas had simply scanned it and posted the image?

The recipient of the letter was a fellow named Luke Jackson, who posted it for reasons unrelated to the "sheethead" commentary. (Which makes the whole thing even funnier.) All I did was make a couple jokes. It's very important to Sanders that as many incidents as possible be about me, so that he can discuss the size of my penis on his personal newsgroup though.

He clearly hungers for me.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:20 PM by Nick Mamatas

additionally off topic, re:
re, 65,

I plan to vote for Obama--ought I to dispute the existence of Republicans?
I would have to say empirical evidence indicates that Republicans don't exist.

We've all been drummed out of the party that bears our name due to our cowardice (against the war), our lack of faith (against gov't intervention in religion), our lack of confidence in free markets (against corporate welfare), our desire to raise taxes (by, you know, opposing tax rebates in preference to deficit reduction), and our lack of patriotism (we thought the 4th amendment, habeas corpus, limits on cruel and unusual punishment, and trial by jury, were good ideas.)

All those other funny ideas those durn lib'r'ls have been spouting off about seem more plausible now - even unions!

Posted July 10, 2008 12:23 PM by don delny

And of course, while I was composing #67, others were posted I feel a need to respond to.

#59: William used to drink heavily, yes, but he never joined AA, and as he puts it, he wasn't an alcoholic, he was a drunk. He stopped drinking a year or two back, though, on doctor's orders, and to his own surprise didn't have any serious problem quitting.

#62: Helix has always been invitation-only. I doubt the present controversy is going to have much effect on the quality of submissions; I know what we have in inventory, and we're pretty much set for awhile.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:23 PM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Fred @36, check the OED. I think it's kind of charming that "race" is returning to its original meaning, a group of living things.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:26 PM by will shetterly

Wait, we're discussing the size of someone's penis?

*reads whole thread*

Oh. Not nearly so interesting. :-)

Actually I already read some of the other commentary and commented myself elsewhere, but I just couldn't pass up that joke. I did pass up saying (crudity ROT13'd; decode at your own risk) "Jryy, Avpx, ubj ovt VF lbhe cravf? Vs lbh'q whfg znxr n sbeguevtug fgngrzrag nobhg vg, naq pbasebag nal vffhrf gung zvtug nevfr, vg jbhyq ernyyl gnxr gur jvaq bhg bs uvf fnvyf!"—because that's a) too crude to say to someone I don't know well (Hi, Nick!), b) a gag* on the recent VB shitstorm on BB, and c) really wayyy off-topic here.

*No pun intended.**
**But I did leave it unfixed once I noticed it. Does that make me a bad person?

Posted July 10, 2008 12:31 PM by Xopher

Helix has always been invitation-only. I doubt the present controversy is going to have much effect on the quality of submissions

I certainly hope that some of the people on Helix's invite list will now decline the invitation. I think it may have more effect than you think.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:38 PM by Scraps

Ny #68:

Well, the paper in question is looking at self-reported racial categories vs things found in the genetic samples, so it's not automatic that they get the structure they get. For example, if you used categories based on the first letter of the peoples' last names, you'd almost certainly not find any useful correlations between what's in the genetic samples and the categories. By contrast, I believe that using Cavalli-Sforza's statistical techniques, it's inevitable that you'd get a tree structure sort of like he gets, no matter what you found genetically. (But the specific tree structure is determined by the data, and the fact that the specific structure he gets is broadly consistent with archeology and language data suggests that he's done something interesting.)

As an aside, if you look at the trees that come out of his work, you will indeed see some relationship between those trees and common racial categories. The relationship isn't all that great, because racial categories are broadly based on stuff that could be casually observed, and you often get stuff where two groups look rather similar (some Africans and Australian Aboriginees) but have very little in common genetically. But you'll notice that, for example, the broad category of American Indian really is separate from the broad category of Australian, African, European, and (to a lesser extent) Asian.

This tracks approximately with what you see in American racial categories, despite the fact that American racial categories are a weird mix of biological observation and political/social coalition building (whites vs blacks rather than rich vs poor, for example), and feature goofy stuff like the daughter of a medium-brown man and a pale white woman being socially black (unless she can pass).

Posted July 10, 2008 12:44 PM by albatross

Are you not linking the subject matter of your post because you're afraid of rather action, or because you assume we've all already heard?

Posted July 10, 2008 12:44 PM by Mari

Warning: something of a tangent, but I don't think I have anything to add to the thorough discussion of the content of Sanders' letter, and I think ML's conversation protocols will not take this as an attempt to derail the discussion of racism.

As Patrick points out, "rejection letters are business communications." Much of the criticism I'm seeing about posting Sanders' letter seems to be based on the assumption that it was _personal_ correspondence, which it's rude to post without permission.

Combined with my personal experience of SFF fandom, which often has an IMO admirable tendency to play down distinctions between pros and fans--

How likely is it that a category error is contributing to the reaction of Dozois and Williams, for instance, that the letter should not have been posted at all? Is there some problematic conflation or confusion here over business and social boundaries? Or is the more likely explanation--as a general matter, and not specifically about Williams and Dozois, who I don't know other than those posts--a variant of the stages of denial when racist behavior is pointed out?

Posted July 10, 2008 12:47 PM by Kate Nepveu

But speaking of dicks, Sanders really sounds like a prime example. I'm sorry his wife is ill, really. But when someone says other SF magazines are leery of offending "the sheet heads" he eez be-eeng a beet of a sheethead heemself, eef you know what I mean.

Honestly, this sort of thing makes me sick. My emotional collapse after 9/11 (I became a robot, basically, which is my pattern rather than just lying in bed like some of my friends) had more to do with the fact that America turned, before my eyes, into a morass of racism, religious bigotry, and apology for truly grotesque abuses of civil liberties than it did with my colleagues who died or my own narrow* escape.

The America I love proved to be an ideal held by a dwindling number of dedicated patriots, while America-in-fact was going back to McCarthyism, the internment of Japanese-Americans, and NINA signs.**

Letters like this Sanders one, however he or his friends try to explain it away, contribute to America's slide (maybe 'power dive' would be more accurate) away from its idealistic pinnacle (which it really never reached except in the minds of the overtrusting). Yes, I'm saying that people like William Sanders (and unfortunately his name is legion, William "Legion" Sanders) are unAmerican, unpatriotic, and the shame of our great nation.

He disgusts me.

Heavens, now I'll never ever get published in Helix! I'm just crushed. Bet he hates faggots too though, so probably nothing lost.

*Philosophically narrow, not physically. Had I made one different decision I would have been on the 96th floor of One WTC when the plane hit; no one who was got out alive. As it was I was miles away.

**I mean attitudes no better than these, not the things themselves...though distinguishing our current era from the McCarthy era requires careful examination of the excuses used by the godsdamned fascists.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:50 PM by Xopher

ebear #46: your white northern European might think everybody in all the nations of subSaharan Africa is the same "race," but again, if you were to ask a primary source, you'd get a very different answer.

And if you talk to those kind-of-white northern Europeans, they will gladly tell you that people in the next village over are Not Like Us: They drive badly, their beer is inferiour, their children are noisy and they speak strangely.

Posted July 10, 2008 12:59 PM by inge

Just for the record, William Sanders does not hate faggots, or we wouldn't have included Rick Bowes' "City of Chimeras" in our first issue.

(There are probably other relevant stories, but that was the first that came to mind and most of the others I see at a quick glance involve dykes rather than faggots.)

Posted July 10, 2008 1:02 PM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Bigot is as bigot does*. If you don't want people to think you are a bigoted cracker, then you probably shouldn't act like one. Here's another hint: If you have these thoughts and believe them, but don't want the public finding out about them, what does that tell you??

This is hardly the first editor/publisher to display a social viewpoint that some might find disturbing. I actually think it's healthy for us to know up front what an editor/publisher's biases are, because the idea that they are "neutral" is just as full of crap as it is for journalists and authors.

The real potential for harm here is to anyone who has been previously published in Helix, because they didn't know about this racial bias up front. I can see a scenario happening where Helix stories are going to be over-analyzed for any hint of racially prejudiced bias and innocent authors** get caught up in a mess not of their making.

-----------
*After all, bigot is just a narrow-minded subset of stupid.

**I can't believe I just wrote that. I might as well go look for virgins in Vegas after this.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:08 PM by Lance Weber

Mr. Watt-Evans:

You do not benefit, and may possibly harm, either your own reputation or Mr. Sanders', by continuing to engage on this.

What Mr. Sanders said was reprehensible and the best way to handle it would have been to apologize immediately and promise not to do it again. And then to shut up about it.

Continuing to engage here and elsewhere is giving you more opportunities to dig yourself into the ground, and is keeping the issue at the front of people's minds.

A number of talented writers have, as a result of this imbroglio, stated publicly their intention to strike Helix from their list of possible markets, and at least one will be asking the magazine to take her work down. The more you talk, the more people will talk, and the more readers and writers you will lose.

Stop talking. You're only making matters worse.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:11 PM by cofax

He's not a cracker; he's a hillbilly. He's from the Arkansas Ozarks, not Georgia.

Get your slurs right, please.

As far as anti-Muslim bias in Helix goes, that was already thrashed out some after we ran Janis Ian's "Mahmoud's Wives" in our first issue.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:15 PM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Lawrence 80: Imagine my relief.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:16 PM by Xopher

80: Just for the record, William Sanders does not hate faggots, or we wouldn't have included Rick Bowes' "City of Chimeras" in our first issue.

Not really. I have no idea whether or not Sanders is a homophobe, but of course he is constantly going on about cocks and homosex in denigrating ways.

But your little blather ain't proof of anything; it could simply mean that he liked the story -- or needed to fill virtual pages, or that he wanted work from someone who wasn't just handing him an obviously moldly trunk story, or that he wanted some prominent bylines in the first ish -- more than he hates faggots.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:16 PM by Nick Mamatas

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here, but the question of whether the rejection letter could be posted online, legally, seems much less clear to me than to some.

I think we all agree that if I send you a paper letter, you can let your friends read it. You can read it out loud to them, too. I think you can read it out loud into a microphone in Yankee Stadium, if you want to. But you definitely can't charge people to hear it.

If I send you an electronic letter, can you still let your friends read it? Do those friends have to be in the same physical space as you are? Or can you show them the letter in the same medium in which you received it, i.e., electronically.

It seems to me that posting an electronic communication on a Live Journal isn't a whole lot different from passing a paper letter around a party. I don't see it as 'publishing'. I don't see it as a copyright violation.

I don't expect my business letters to be held in confidence unless they were written regarding matters held in confidence by the company. And then I'd have been damn careful about what I said.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:21 PM by beth meacham

Lawrence Watt-Evans @ #62 - Helix has always been invitation-only. I doubt the present controversy is going to have much effect on the quality of submissions; I know what we have in inventory, and we're pretty much set for awhile.

Sure. It's his magazine, like you said. But banning people who tick him off seems like it's going to limit his future contributors. He sort of invites it, it seems. And it's not going to do well by Helix if this goes on. This is all getting very public, and I'm not seeing Helix coming out of this looking at all well.

In fact, this is the first impression I've ever had of Helix. It's not good.

You're a great writer, and I love your work. But I'd never hire you as a PR adviser. The one person who claims she was banned from future submissions is actually doing a better job of keeping my opinion of Helix positive.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:21 PM by Josh Jasper

Another thing I noticed about the Sanders letter -- and it's a thing I've noticed in several right-wing SF fans over the years -- is that even though he reads (and maybe writes) science fiction, and no doubt considers himself to be better-than-average at understanding the world because of it, and perhaps even flatters himself as capable of being able to understand alien viewpoints because of it, he nonetheless writes off a big section of humanity as incomprehensible.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:22 PM by Avram

I wouldn't hire me as a PR adviser, either. I'm frequently annoyed when publishers ask me to help publicize my books; I know that's not where my talents lie.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:29 PM by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Beth #86: It seems to me that posting an electronic communication on a Live Journal isn't a whole lot different from passing a paper letter around a party. I don't see it as 'publishing'. I don't see it as a copyright violation.

If it's not friends-locked, I don't see how it isn't publishing. It's a public display, which counts as copyright violation.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:31 PM by Avram

Lawrence Watt-Evans: Get your slurs right, please.

My deepest apologies, I have to admit I am relatively inexperienced in the proper use of racial epithets and must bow to your expertise in the matter.

I try not to cross swords with amateurs anymore, but I am feeling rather out of practice. Care to try two out of three? There's a slight chance you might yet score a point.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:31 PM by Lance Weber

Mr. Watt-Evans

If Cofax's logically reasoned argument does not move you, I would personally implore you: stop digging. It is physically painful for me to watch.

Dear Making Light Denizens:

The words of Sanders and his defenders have been repulsive, but your reactions have been a tonic skillfully administered. Thank you.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:32 PM by Betty

peter,

And as a matter of (unpleasant) fact, people use "sheet head" and the obvious parallel terms ("towel-", "rag-", etc.) to refer to headdress/turban-wearing Muslims in general, including Iranians and Afghans.

indeed. & wasn't there a wave of assaults (& possibly worse) against sikhs(!) after 9.11? specifically because of that epithet, i would guess.

so yes, my assumption about anyone using that term is that they are thunderously ignorant, like most racists, as well as full of hate. there's no reason to believe otherwise in this case.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:35 PM by miriam beetle

The unsettling impression I'm getting from all these threads is, "Oh, that William Sanders, what a racist jerk." But there's no impression of "William Sanders is dead to us, he will never work in the industry again."

Why is are people talking about this guy like he's going to be a concern in the future, too? Why is the impression, "Oh, well, I guess fandom has some real sh!ts in it"? There's no reason fandom should have racist sh!ts in it. We're not right-wing talk radio. Hell, come to talk about right-wing talk radio, even Imus got fired.

Seems to me that a more healthy response would be, "So long as Helix is associated with Sanders, it is dead to us. Any con that has him as a panelist, likewise. Any forum he shows his face at should meet him with nothing but the disgust he has earned."

Why does it always have to be decades of people wearing buttons like "I survived an elevator ride with Harlan Ellison" before we get around to cutting out the cancers that make us such an unfriendly place?

Posted July 10, 2008 1:37 PM by Madeline F

I wish people -- a few people -- would stop being rude to Lawrence. I think he's as wrong as the rest of you do, but he's being relentlessly polite -- and when I say "polite", I don't just mean abstaining from insult, I mean that he's doing his best to engage with the things people are saying honestly and straightforwardly -- in the face of a fair amount of condescension. It's also no one's business to tell him to shut up, under the circumstances.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:40 PM by Scraps

Thanks, Madeline--that was the phrase I was looking for.

William Sanders is dead to me.

Posted July 10, 2008 1:40 PM by Kevin J. Maroney