HDU call Neil Gaiman racist
In 2008, Neil Gaiman described why he didn't set The Graveyard Book in America: "The great thing about having an English cemetery is I could go back a very, very, very long way. And in America, you go back 250 years (in a cemetery), and then suddenly you’ve got a few dead Indians, and then you don’t have anybody at all, unless you decide to set it up in Maine or somewhere and sneak in some Vikings."
Last week, it's pointed out that what he said is really problematic; kynn posts " Neil Gaiman's racist fail," and then a fan links Neil himself to that on Twitter. So of course he starts calling people twits, all his fans dogpile on the original blog, ithiliana posts a roundup of reaction posts, and it all gets kinda hard to follow, but fortunately Debbie Reese made this handy timeline (also dogpiled, including by RaceFail '09 all-star Will Sh!tterly). Did you know casually throwing around the word 'racist' is actually offensive because it cheapens *real* racism?
He's since apologized to kynn, sorta (apparently he misinterpreted an errant line break), but makes a much-less-evasive apology for the "a few dead Indians" thing later on Twitter.
Meanwhile, on UFB, a few people seem to be all 'How can you vilify him??'; 'it's so disgusting to see people be unsurprised by this' (???); and of course 'I hate it when people play the race card (therefore derailing is totally excusable)'.