Things I keep forgetting to mention.
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