Things I keep forgetting to mention.

[bodlon]

So it’s the 21st of October, and I’ve been meaning for ages to mention these two timely things before they pass.

One, the issue of Crossed Genres that includes my short story, “Finished,” will go out of print at the end of the month. I have exactly TWO print copies of this to my name, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Go forth and grab a copy (or four). Crossed Genres has always been kind to me, and they’re good people. Plus, I’m totally sharing a Table of Contents with KATE FREAKING BORNSTEIN. A year later and I’m still not over how awesome that is.

(Incidentally, you may also be interested in a side-project, The Little Death of Crossed Genres (vol 1). I’m not in this, but it’s awesome anyway.)

Two, I’ll be presenting at the CCMWG Write Direction Conference this Saturday. Which, er, incredibly late notice such that it’s too late to register, but interested folks can drop me a line next week if you’d like copies of the hand-outs and other information I’ll be going over. If you’re attending the conference, feel free to say hi after my session!

~*~

Like a lot of people writing in SF/F, or with a stake in social justice and also in storytelling, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the Elizabeth Moon thing. I’ve been holding off on writing about it, in large part because others have said many of the things I’ve been thinking so clearly, so succinctly, and so effectively that it was best for me just to link to them.

But…well, I think I need to process some unease I have about how things like this go down. Not just with Moon, but generally. Full disclosure that this is not a complete, mature position on the topic, but me thinking aloud and inviting commentary.

While my human impulse is to try and be good, kind, and fair as much as possible — and this includes doing my part to educate myself and be educated, examine structures of privilege and my place in them, and to aid and ally with others — I feel like the overall culture can be unfairly punishing to those who fail.

While I feel there must be accounting, that we must speak truth to power, and that we must fight, I worry that we’re setting up damnation narratives where the individual who commits an act of fail has little real incentive to engage because the seething mass is labeling them, irrevocably, a bigot.

Philosophically, I don’t believe that permanent disenfranchisement — be it civic (in the case of felons) or social (in the case of those we criticize) — is just. I worry that saying THIS PERSON IS A BIGOT in a way that effectively dismisses them entirely and permanently disincentivizes changes of behavior or even engagement on the topic.

I suspect there are some cases where this response eventually ceases to be disproportionate — I am not optimistic that Orson Scott Card is going to wake up tomorrow just aching to help advance the cause of LGBTQ rights, for example — but I think it takes a consistent pattern of behavior before that kind of blanket dismissal is really the right option.

Have we forgotten that the “what they did” conversation is the conversation we want to have, not the “what they are” conversation? Seriously? Because this is important.

Which brings me down to the other thing, namely that an individual can be clueful in one area and ignorant or bigoted in another. One can be great on race and terrible on reproductive rights, or a marvelous ally for gays and lesbians but ridiculously transphobic, or have the tools and knowledge to be an ally to individuals with disabilities, but no expertise dealing with minority religions.

That’s a tricky thing to balance and deal with. Frankly, I struggle. A lot. I don’t always know how to deal with people like this. On the other hand, I also know that if I abandoned every single piece of media by someone whose attitudes and mine don’t mesh 100%, there would be nothing left. Possibly not even my own stuff.

Please don’t think I’m trying to justify others’ bad behavior, or to say that anger doesn’t have a place. It absolutely does, and as an individual who experiences oppression, I know that expecting us to always express that in comfortable ways is unfair. If someone hurts me, it is not my job to make sure that person feels comfortable when I tell them to stop. I also don’t think that any of us should feel obliged to “show up for the beating” as it were just so that an individual in privilege can practice on us.

I just think a victory that ends in shutting someone down and leaves little or no room for dialogue or remedial action as a matter of first resort is a Pyrrhic one. It lets the failing party off too easily, and absolves them of any responsibility because they are a Bad Person, and Bad People get to do Bad Things.

If we’re not prepared to accept apologies when we demand them, what’s the point? If we can’t meet people where they are (when possible), how can we expect them to learn?

Again, a lot of this is me trying to process. I fully own that there’s work to do here. Discussion is very, very welcome. Just, uh, not in the face or below the belt, okay?

~*~

- Incentive to consider dating again #36: I could turn this into a card.

- If you ever get a chance to see Kenji Yoshino speak, go. The man is brilliant. I want his books.

- I also really want to read Digger. It sounds magnificent.

- Holy crap, Watson = Bilbo. Meanwhile, in that other Holmes franchise, Stephen Fry is Mycroft. I’m looking at you, fandom.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com

Comments

[rusty_halo]

I think you're awesome and I enjoy reading your posts.

I disagree with your premises here, though. You write

I just think a victory that ends in shutting someone down and leaves little or no room for dialogue or remedial action as a matter of first resort is a Pyrrhic one.

But this isn't what happened in the Elizabeth Moon situation. Did you read the screencaps of all the comments she deleted? People tried to engage with her, and she unilaterally dismissed them and deleted their comments. It wasn't an immediate "Let's ban her from the con"--it was "Let's engage with her hateful comments to see if we can get her to reconsider." She wouldn't; her comment responses were even more hateful then her post, and she is the one who cut off discussion by deleting the comments that disagreed (many of which were polite and serious about engaging with what she said, not about attacking her personally, although she seemed to interpret all disagreement as a personal insult).

If we’re not prepared to accept apologies when we demand them, what’s the point?

I don't think this is true. There may be a few people who resolutely won't accept apologies no matter what, but every time I've seen someone who failed respond with a sincere apology that showed that they actually understood what they'd done wrong, the furor has died down and the person who erred was accepted back into the community without much fuss. It's only when people refuse to apologize or give a faux-pology ("I'm sorry you were offended" or "Here's a long story about all that sad things that are happening in my life right now that make what I said not my fault") that the criticism continues.

I've seen occasions again and again where something that could've blown up into a huge fandom-wide "fail" died down quickly because the person who failed apologized sincerely and the people concerned accepted the apology. We just don't hear about these situations as often because they don't get the massive publicity that comes when someone fails and then digs their heels in with a refusal to reconsider or apologize.

I worry that saying THIS PERSON IS A BIGOT in a way that effectively dismisses them entirely and permanently disincentivizes changes of behavior or even engagement on the topic. [...] I think it takes a consistent pattern of behavior before that kind of blanket dismissal is really the right option.

I think you're right in theory, but I also think that's not what's happening if one really looks closely at the patterns in the way most of these things keep playing out. In Elizabeth Moon's case, she had plenty of opportunity to engage with commenters instead of deleting comments, and to apologize sincerely for the bigoted statements she made. She is the one who continued to fail, not the people who responded by continuing to call her on it.

[keieeeye]

I think also, on the labeling someone as a bigot thing... their behaviour doesn't necessarily depend on how other people think of them. I mean, sometimes they say it does - like the people who whine "it's so hard to be PC, you'll always offend someone, so I'm not going to bother", but that's usually just an excuse. Most people think they are basically decent people.

I'm also not sure that deciding not to honour her counts as shutting her down - she's still allowed to go to the con, they're just not going to be all "Elizabeth Moon is so awesome!" She still has a lot of venues for communicating her ideas, including at the con itself, but un-honouring her is a fairly clear rebuke - "people have tried to reason with you, we've given this a great deal of thought, this wasn't our first choice, but we can't let you or anyone else think we endorse what you're saying." I do think that people should always have a platform to say what they want, but I also think that refusing to provide them with a fancy schmancy platform with a podium, adjustable microphone and the latest sound system, organised by someone else with the implicit assumption that that other party thus thinks this is a valid message that should be spread, is an incredibly valid method of disapproval. Also makes me think of "not taking sides" in an argument. Sometimes "not taking sides" is taking a side because condemning an action is the only decent thing to do, and not doing so sends a message to the culprit that whatever they did was a fairly neutral and defensible action.

[bodlon]

But this isn't what happened in the Elizabeth Moon situation.

I am really starting to regret mentioning Moon in this, because you're right, that isn't how things went down with her. Mostly, the furor over her comments has been the irritant that's had me spinning on how we engage these things when they happen.

With the exception of some early, really sharp things I saw being said early on, all of this is less about her than it is about the a sort of amorphous elephant of absolutism that I keep catching out of the corner of my eye.

I should probably clarify my post to make that more obvious. I thought it was before, but re-reading I see that it's not.

Some people who fail are going to be unrepentant, defensive, and cleave to attitudes and biases while shutting others down. Some of those are probably True Believers, some of them are probably freaked out because that's a difficult thing to confront, and may come around and/or apologize later. Some of them may just be ignorant and later on will find the whole thing truly regrettable. Some people make genuine errors of judgement or typography and are just as aghast as everyone else.

There may be a few people who resolutely won't accept apologies no matter what, but every time I've seen someone who failed respond with a sincere apology that showed that they actually understood what they'd done wrong, the furor has died down and the person who erred was accepted back into the community...

I confess, I'm on the fence about this. I've seen that happen, but I've also been in conversations where a thing somebody did years ago and apologized for will still come up, or that someone I know has been on the receiving end of that. It may be that those conversations weren't representative, or that the persons involved were being overly circumspect.

It's a mixed bag, I think, and much of that bag is good. Some of it, though, keeps me up at night.

I think you're right in theory, but I also think that's not what's happening if one really looks closely at the patterns in the way most of these things keep playing out.

I'm not sure I agree 100%. I'd offer up Elizabeth Bear as an example of somebody who's done at least some of the right things, but gets nailed for things fairly and -- I think -- unfairly both. Because she's failed in the past, all eyes are on her. The bar is, I think, awfully high for her these days.

In her place, I can't help but think I'd have trouble wanting to stand in that place for very long, but removing yourself from a situation to process or be sane tends to get a negative response too.

I don't know. It could be that I'm suffering from an imbalance of compassion and wisdom, or that I'm inadvertently concern trolling something others have already figured out. I'm still thinking on it.