Whoa. I... I... I'm beginning to like him.
::dim horror::
Soon Lee #302,
I disagree; I think there's a lot that can be done. Moderate the damn forum, for one; why don't they? Do they want people to think their magazine's readership consists of a bunch of loudmouthed thugs and the handful of sane people who try to talk them down from the trees? I can understand not wanting to support censorship, but what the heck is wrong with enforcing a code of simple civility?
Beyond that, I think all the major editors of all the major magazines can take a simple step, like putting a statement on their websites or in their submissions guidelines making it clear that they welcome a diverse audience. And yes, they need to say so. It isn't clear, given the stuff that gets said in these forums, and the fact that people like Dave Truesdale have a column on the F&SF website. A statement like that won't do much on its own, because actions speak louder than words -- but since there have been so many questionable actions throughout the genre, I think the words are a start towards helping. We see our most prominent corporations -- especially the ones with a history of various "isms" -- making public statements about their commitment to diversity; why not a few magazines and/or publishers?
I'd love to see something like that from SFWA too, but I've already been around that particular mulberry bush.
heresiarch @ 219:
And really, is anyone in the sf community saying, "Yeah, he was being racist, and I'm okay with that?" The arguments I've been hearing are either "He didn't really mean it like that" or "How dare you publish someone's copyrighted work without permission?"
I think I might prefer it if people *did* say they're OK with these kinds of racist comments. I find blatant racism less rage-inducing than the rationalizations/BS excuses you've cited above. At least you can dismiss a blatant racist and move on; with the rationalizations you have to waste time pointing out the flaws in their logic and trying to reason with them.
Though it does help that the more common rationalizations are becoming so well-known that we can now point to resources like this and this as a shortcut.
I think the general principle that racism isn't okay is pretty well established here.
Where on earth did you get that idea?
As Madeline pointed out at #183, we do occasionally hear anecdotes from writers of color who take one look at places like the Asimov's forum -- where it seems pretty well established that racism, sexism, etc. *is* okay -- and flee screaming, having concluded that SF is a genre where racists are not only comfortable, but supported and tolerated.
::holds breath, closes eyes, wishes really really hard::
I wouldn't mind him and all the other computer-illiterate Washingtonians so much if they didn't keep trying to pass laws about this thing they don't understand and can't be bothered to use.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 6 |
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