Fail here there and everywhere

[sqbr]

I am feeling sick and grumpy but also chatty. So, some links from metafandom with rambly commentary.

Failboat! The Cruise Ship of the Damned Sails On summarises a bunch of stuff.

veejane asks what sff fandom is going to do about this crap.

On safe spaces talks about, well, safe spaces.

Re the Will Shetterly/Kathyryn Cramer vs coffeeandink thing(*): outing someone under their real name because they disagreed with you and banned you from their lj? Is unbelievably low. Dismissing the opinions of everyone who disagrees with you "because all their IPs come from Ivy league colleges"? Low and stupid. Arguing against the use of pseudonyms on the internet? Just..argh. The stupid burns.

Also, given that Worldcon is in Australia next year I find myself putting together my opinions on aussie fandom with all this stuff going on in international fandom. I feel a bit stymied about what I can do personally to try to cut down on the fail, though, apart from trying not to contribute to it myself and encouraging anti-fail.

So since coffeeandink asked people to focus on positive things: I am currently reading "Devil in Blue Dress" by Walter Mosley after being recced it on 50books_poc. It is quite good, even if it's not spec fic :)

(*)People are avoiding saying their names because apparently they google stalk and harrass them, but if NOONE says their names noone will know whose been talked about. I feel too obscure to be worried, but incase they do: seriously, you're going to pick on a no-name australian rambling while sick? This will not help your PR.

Comments

Re: A burst of predictable curmudgeonry

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I do think people should not be banned from cons for acting like dicks, unless it is physical way or requires restraining orders or other things that would get them banned from anywhere. I do think people who act like dicks shouldn't be rewarded with attention, and that being a guest is about more than a persons writing -- I would seriously consider boycotting a con with OSC as a guest.

think we must be using different definitions of "fighting racism"
Sure, but it is a time and resources thing. It is not that I resent desire to the right thing, but I do get extremely annoyed that the way we deal with the issue is so inward focussed and navel-gazing. The only real way to deal with narrow ideas about race and culture within fandom is for us go out and bring something back, rather than focus our gaze more intently on each other.

Discuss racial and other subtexts in the source texts
sure, who doesn't love a little subtext. Well, actually, plenty of people aren't interested in discussing any form of subtext, be in racial, sexual, political or aesthetic, I don't think we should make them. But for those of us that do enjoy grappling with a little subtext from time to time, racial should be there.

Not ignore worthwhile works by POC
sure, but do we ignore any books by POC for that reason, or just because they aren't to our taste? I think of the works of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle as being very 'white' in both authorship and audience, but they co-write with Steven Barnes, and the same people buy those ones too.

And yes, of course we should make our panels inclusive etc.

Also, I think literally the only jokes I have ever heard in fandom that could be considered anti-Semitic were told by Jewish people (who are notably not under-represented in fandom in my experience). I think Jewish involvement in fandom is definitely not something we need to worry unduly about (here, or in the US), they are here.