Will Shetterly: DO NOT ENGAGE
I am not putting this public just because I banned willshetterly a few years ago and I think it's tacky to make a public post warning people against him that he cannot comment on. But I am willing to be tacky in front of my friends! Never mind, I will be tacky in front of the world. It is worth it if I can spare someone the pain of attempting to argue with Shetterly.
My best advice is to ban him from your LJ and NOT ENGAGE. Seriously, in the first IBARW, he did a post on how his life would not have been any different if he'd been born black, which had comments threads in the hundreds, and included comments from many of his personal friends saying, Will, you don't get it, you're being clueless, you're offending people, SHUT UP, and he would not shut up. (He deleted his LJ before recreating it again, or I'd link you to the post. sparkymonster has some saved quotes in the link below.) He may be fine off-line--he was, in fact, very kind to me the one time I met him at a con--but online he makes ad hominem attacks, false accusations, straw-man arguments, weird personal assumptions about people who disagree with him, shifts ground when cornered, does not respond to logic, and sounds like a total racist. Logic will not penetrate. He is in his own world. Do not join him there.
Also, for the record, I do think class is a significant axis of oppression separate from but interacting with race and gender. I just don't think it's the root oppression that is the basis of all other oppression, or that eliminating class injustice will magically cause other forms of prejudice and injustice to fade away.
eta 1/23/09:
sparkymonster kindly compiled the Greatest Misses of Will Shetterly, for those of you who understandably would prefer documentation rather than my bare word:
Will explains why the problem of black men being unable to get a cab in New York is a classist accusation against cab drivers (LA Times: New York targets biased cab drivers in sting)
Will explains how racism doesn't affect middle-class black people
Will schools the Angry Black Woman on Malcolm X's colorblindness
Will explains diversity issues in SF/F to Tobias Buckell
Will defines racism for the Angry Black Woman
{via marydell} Will explains how Katrina had nothing to do with racism
spiralsheep sums it all up for us with the Will Shetterly Bingo Card (conceived by brown_betty and executed by kadath)
eta 1/24: This is Will's response to this post.
My best advice is to ban him from your LJ and NOT ENGAGE. Seriously, in the first IBARW, he did a post on how his life would not have been any different if he'd been born black, which had comments threads in the hundreds, and included comments from many of his personal friends saying, Will, you don't get it, you're being clueless, you're offending people, SHUT UP, and he would not shut up. (He deleted his LJ before recreating it again, or I'd link you to the post. sparkymonster has some saved quotes in the link below.) He may be fine off-line--he was, in fact, very kind to me the one time I met him at a con--but online he makes ad hominem attacks, false accusations, straw-man arguments, weird personal assumptions about people who disagree with him, shifts ground when cornered, does not respond to logic, and sounds like a total racist. Logic will not penetrate. He is in his own world. Do not join him there.
Also, for the record, I do think class is a significant axis of oppression separate from but interacting with race and gender. I just don't think it's the root oppression that is the basis of all other oppression, or that eliminating class injustice will magically cause other forms of prejudice and injustice to fade away.
eta 1/23/09:
sparkymonster kindly compiled the Greatest Misses of Will Shetterly, for those of you who understandably would prefer documentation rather than my bare word:
Will explains why the problem of black men being unable to get a cab in New York is a classist accusation against cab drivers (LA Times: New York targets biased cab drivers in sting)
Will explains how racism doesn't affect middle-class black people
Will schools the Angry Black Woman on Malcolm X's colorblindness
Will explains diversity issues in SF/F to Tobias Buckell
Will defines racism for the Angry Black Woman
{via marydell} Will explains how Katrina had nothing to do with racism
spiralsheep sums it all up for us with the Will Shetterly Bingo Card (conceived by brown_betty and executed by kadath)
eta 1/24: This is Will's response to this post.