For what it’s worth, I don’t actually think that it’s fair to characterize this whole “RaceFail” situation as a fight. It has aspects that contain fighting, this is undoubtedly true. But I think that pleas for people to just stop fighting, or dismissals of the whole thing as a crazy internet mess, are missing something important. To try and clarify, I’m going to try and draw a parallel to another situation in the SF community: the Harlan Ellison thing.
Calling it “the Harlan Ellison thing” is unfortunate, for reasons that I hope will soon become clear, but that’s what we’re stuck with. The Harlan Ellison thing started at the 2006 WorldCon, when Ellison “jokingly” assaulted Connie Willis during the Hugo Award ceremony. As news of the event filtered out into the webjournals and weblogs and message boards, it led to a huge outpouring of anger and frustration and ranting, largely from the women in the science fiction community. This was, as far as I can tell, baffling and a little frightening to a largish part of the old guard. “That’s Harlan, what can you expect?” some of them said. Or, “That’s just Harlan being Harlan.” As the days went on and the outflow of anger and frustration and ranting seemed to have no end, you started to see people asking a different question: “Isn’t this reaction a little out of proportion? It’s not like Harlan is the devil, you know. One guy did one dumb thing, can everyone calm the hell down already?”
That was the point where I wanted to start shouting at people, because whatever was going on, it wasn’t actually about Harlan. Or, more precisely, it wasn’t only about Harlan, not by a long shot. If what you thought you were seeing was a whole bunch of people flipping out because one guy did one dumb thing, then yeah, the reaction was out of proportion and everyone should have just taken a deep breath and calmed the hell down. But that wasn’t what was going on. Here’s what was going on: the women in the SF world had been putting up with a lot of unacceptable nonsense for a really long time. Each of our individual stories, each small stupid thing, didn’t seem worth making a fuss over. Who wants to be the one who makes a fuss, right? So some well-respected pro author grabbed your butt at a party, is that really serious enough to complain about? Do you really want to cause a big scene just because some guy in your writing workshop said that women don’t write hard SF even though you know he just finished reading your story about quantum computing? You do realize, don’t you, that people will think you’re difficult if you complain just because some guy at a convention told you that you’re too pretty to be a science fiction fan. And so we’d all been keeping our damn mouths shut for years, while the anger and irritation and frustration just simmered away beneath the surface. What Harlan did when he treated Connie that way, on stage in front of hundreds of people? He didn’t just insult her and upset a lot of people. He unlocked the door to that hidden storage closet where we’d all been keeping our outrage. That’s why it wasn’t about Harlan–it was about the whole community. It was about the fact that so many women felt that the SF world was hostile territory, and finally we were all talking about it openly.
I don’t know that there’s actually a clear parallel between that situation and the current one, but I think there probably is. From what I can tell, this whole “RaceFail” situation isn’t really (or only) about any specific incident. It’s about the fact that so many people of color feel that the SF world is hostile territory. They’re trying to talk about this, openly and honestly, and too many people are interrupting or not listening or otherwise behaving poorly. And that’s what I mean when I say it’s not a fight, at least not anymore–it’s a complicated conversation that was maybe started as a fight and has certainly contained some fights, but by this point it’s a lot more than a fight.
The people who are actually having this conversation are, undoubtedly, getting a lot of different things out of it, and I don’t presume to make broad statements on behalf of a group that I haven’t even managed to be a part of. All I’m saying is, everyone who’s tempted to dismiss this as a witch-hunt or a mob (or another stupid blogfight), I would just ask you to try thinking of it as a messy and difficult conversation instead. (Messy and difficult, but also useful and productive for a lot of the people involved.) People are talking about things they’ve been needing to talk about, and when you ask them to take a deep breath or take a step back or take it down a notch, you’re telling them to go back to being quiet. And that’s not acceptable.
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been trying to put “the Harlan thing” into a kind of historical context. I don’t know if it changed anything signficant or tangible. I do know that it was really valuable for me, in a personal and perhaps intangible way, to get a lot of that out in the open. I think a lot of other people found it valuable in the same way. The science fiction community as a whole might not be any better on gender stuff than it used to be, but I feel like it’s no longer acceptable to claim that there aren’t any problems. I think RaceFail ‘09 has already accomplished at least that much, and people aren’t even done talking yet.
Posted Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 8:51 am. Filed under: Uncategorized.
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I’m glad you’re so damn articulate, so I can just say “well said.”
Thank you Susan, that’s a well articulated response and I think the parallels you’re drawing are very appropriate.
I’ve been thinking of this as well, and this is why it’s not a flamewar. There are important, ongoing issues here. It’s not going to work this time, the “Sit down and shut up. If there’s any talking to be done here, I / we will do it.”
There’s a pardigm shift in the field. I’ve been wondering if this paradigm shift is part of the shift in the larger world with global economic disaster caused by the same sort of “Sit down and shut up. I / we decide,” that has worked out so badly for the planet, women, children, small animals and plants, and that this is the resistence by those for whom the old way has worked so well at the expense of so many.
Maybe not. But one must wonder. We are in the field of speculation.
This is very well said.
However, there seems to me to be one big and worrisome difference between Harlangate and RaceFail ‘09, which is that during Harlangate, beyond all the rage, I read a lot of women writing “my God, I’m glad we’re finally having this conversation”; it looked to me that there was a growing level of confidence that perhaps the conversation would itself work to make the field feel safer. I don’t know if I got that right, but that’s what I came away with.
Whereas in RaceFail I have the uneasy sense that I’ve mostly read white folks saying “wow, I’m so glad we’re finally having this conversation” (certainly that’s part of my reaction); but I’ve read all too bone-chillingly many POC writers and fans saying “that’s it; I am out of here.”
Which depresses the hell out of me.
Perhaps relatedly, while Harlangate did get Moles sanctioned from SFWA for a related offense, there wasn’t nearly the same level of shenannigans — outings, threats of lawsuit, interference with ISPs, etc.
“People are talking about things they’ve been needing to talk about, and when you ask them to take a deep breath or take a step back or take it down a notch, you’re telling them to go back to being quiet. And that’s not acceptable.”
Thank you. The bloggers recently posting and characterising this long discussion as a flame war or ‘hysterical’ LiveJournal business-as-usual have been both disheartening and offensive.
The main difference between the “Harlengate Thing” and Racefail is that with the former, it was a watershed moment that brought so much to light, but with the latter it is just another in a long string of just the sames.
What I mean is, women had their say after Harlen did his stupid stuff on stage (I don’t know your cursing policy, so I’m being polite), and it was important they do so. This stuff had been boiling up for a while, and only whispered here or there. Of course, now there is no stopping the discourse, and frankly, much of it is very good and very important, and yes, to answer your query, I DO think there has been advances because of it, and an increased awareness that is good for the community.
Cut to Racefail - Sure, there are many good points being raised during this debacle, but they are not only being drowned out by the mass of noise that has basically taken over the conversation, but they are the same points that have been made for the past few years which has been acknowledged and understood. Yes, we know there are few POC in SF/F. Yes, we know there are few POC in the novels. Yes, we are aware of the stereotypes. These statements are nothing new, and yet they are being repeated ad nauseum along with plenty of demands for anyone who is a non-poc to sit down and shut up. Not much in the way of useful discourse there. The only other thing Racefail has done is set up many fine people to look foolish by twisting their words and taking them out of context, or reading in what was not intended without allowing for mistakes being made. The attacks were from all sides, mind you, not just one group. Yes, a few people did some stupid things. But that’s all that Racefail is now about, pointing out others failures, instead of finding the successes and working towards more of them. It’s a shame really. And it’s nothing new.
The main difference between the “Harlengate Thing” and Racefail is that with the former, it was a watershed moment that brought so much to light, but with the latter it is just another in a long string of just the sames.
Wow. As a female SF fan, when should I be feeling this watershed moment of so much light? What unspeakable condescension.