Wiscon 31 - Saturday
There were several really interesting panels.
"Women Authors You Probably Never Heard Of" was a great panel with lots of handouts. I came away with enough reading material for the next year, I'm sure.
One of the panelists is very involved with the St. Paul Public Library, and had a list of non-fiction books by/about women that he had really enjoyed. I talked to him after the panel, and he is going to e-mail me his lists from previous years.
(I gave some thought to transcribing the handouts, but they are long. Sorry!)
"Why is the Universe So Damn White?" was focussed on media presentations, and often on shows I have never seen. However, the issues were really interesting. Why is it that there may be one or two minority characters in the foreground of movies/TV shows, but the backgrounds are 100% white?
The moderator actually crashed the Nebula awards dinner and talked to the guy behind Battestar Galactica. He agreed that it was a reasonable criticism, which everyone agreed was a good sign. (One of the panelists injected a note of caution - this is the man who created the island of fundamentalist black people.)
There was a lot of discussion about the way race is portrayed. There was some good discussion about the way race is cut off from culture - in the future, people may have dark skin, but they share the identical culture with the white people. One of the ST franchises got some good marks because the black character has special food. (The panelists and audience all agreed that all minorities have special food. I'll take their word for it.)
I got a lot of good resources, websites, blogs, books, and a lot to think about.
The question was raised - what are we going to do about this? We have identified the problem, now what? (At this point, I part company with the panel, just so you know.) The answer is that we blog about it. This will create a critical mass in the blogosphere, which will force writers, directors, producers and casting directors to pay attention. They will then begin to attend WisCon, and become educated and enlightened.
Angry Black Woman's blog
the Hator Legacy feminist media critique
People of Colour SF Carnival
"Cultural Appropriation 1 & 2" was interesting and confusing. Some people seemed to be saying that only a minority could write from a minority viewpoint. Some seemed to be saying that anyone can write from any viewpoint. A lot of it seemed to come down to "listen first, write second."
Several minority people expressed anger/conempt for white people who want a gold star from trying - they write a story from the minority viewpoint, get it wrong, but they tried! Or they want a "real" minority person to check it for errors, and be happy with them because they tried, and are checking it. I can understand the anger, but I"m not quite sure how to avoid it. Maybe it isn't possible?
One of the panelists is an anthropologists and talked more specifically about culture, and language, and how any encounter changes both cultures. She also distinguished between borrowing, appropriation, co-opting and assimilation. She also talked about the power differential, and who defines the boundaries.
The "facilitated discussion" wasn't very helpful, largely because one or two people thought we found them fascinating. But Debbie Notkin did point out that she was hearing a lot of white voices, when a black woman had said she wanted to speak next. The black woman smiled at her, and said, "I love this place! That has never happened before!" which was one of the highlights of the con to me.
Several white people talked about the importance of defining yourself, but the people of color rejected this as not acknowleging the way others see and treat you.
Nisi Shawl, Writing the Other - highly recommended
Peggy McIntosh, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - wonderful discussion of white privelege
Over dinner, we all gave reports on the panels we had attended, and had really great discussions about the intersections and the ideas. Wonderful, juicy, meaty stuff, and the basic reason I come to WisCon.
As usual, the Tiptree Auction was almost indescribable. Ellen Klages just lights the place up. It's funny, fun, and raises money for a good cause.
This year, she started by auctioning off a baby. It got better from there.
$6500 was raised to support the Tiptree Award. (The bakesale raised an additional $440.25.)
"When Good Books Happen to Bad People" was the most substantive panel of the con for me. It was also one of the best moderated, which isn't a co-incidence.
A lot of the discussion was about Orson Scott Card. This isn't an issue for me, as I hated Ender's Game with an intense passion and never read anything else he wrote, but there seems to be a general consensus that he's a good writer, and also a homophobic bigot.
Several interesting points were raised, including the practical uselessness of refusing to buy someone's books on principal. Someone pointed out that there is punishing the author, and there is showing ethical integrity in how you spend your money, which are very different things.
One of the panelists talked about punishing people for expressing their opinions is basically punishing them for being honest, and do we really want authors to put on bland, inoffensive masks at all times?
Someone raised a very useful distinction between opinions and actions. Gene Wolfe is a conservative Catholic, and thus is assumed to have opinions that are offensive to most of the audience. But he doesn't use his soapbox as a famous author to work in the public sphere on behalf of those opinions. OSC does, which is what is so offensive about what he does.
The moderator made two interesting points - Alice Sheldon killed her husband, yet we're here at WisCon celebrating the Tiptree. EA Poe murdered a prostitute in NY, but we read his books. OSC has opinions that bother people, and people get out the torches and pitchforks. Why? (No good answer.)
He was also dismissive of comments about getting the publishers to police the opinions of authors. He pointed out the corporate nature of publishing, their labor and environmental records, as well as history of political malfeasanse, and asked why people are so naive about corporations. (He publishes his books with small presses from just this reason, and has made less money because of it, so he walks the talk in this respect. On that basis alone, I went and bought his books in the dealers' room, but wasn't able to get them autographed before he left the con.)
Someone asked how far we take it, do we boycott Kipling because he helped create the imperialist/colonialist mindset and culture? Someone else asked about the reverse situation, what if a really cool, wonderful person writes a bad book, do we buy it? (Yes, pretty universal agreement on that one.)
All in all a lot to think about at midnight.
Takumashii's report on the same panel. (Scroll down.)
"Women Authors You Probably Never Heard Of" was a great panel with lots of handouts. I came away with enough reading material for the next year, I'm sure.
One of the panelists is very involved with the St. Paul Public Library, and had a list of non-fiction books by/about women that he had really enjoyed. I talked to him after the panel, and he is going to e-mail me his lists from previous years.
(I gave some thought to transcribing the handouts, but they are long. Sorry!)
"Why is the Universe So Damn White?" was focussed on media presentations, and often on shows I have never seen. However, the issues were really interesting. Why is it that there may be one or two minority characters in the foreground of movies/TV shows, but the backgrounds are 100% white?
The moderator actually crashed the Nebula awards dinner and talked to the guy behind Battestar Galactica. He agreed that it was a reasonable criticism, which everyone agreed was a good sign. (One of the panelists injected a note of caution - this is the man who created the island of fundamentalist black people.)
There was a lot of discussion about the way race is portrayed. There was some good discussion about the way race is cut off from culture - in the future, people may have dark skin, but they share the identical culture with the white people. One of the ST franchises got some good marks because the black character has special food. (The panelists and audience all agreed that all minorities have special food. I'll take their word for it.)
I got a lot of good resources, websites, blogs, books, and a lot to think about.
The question was raised - what are we going to do about this? We have identified the problem, now what? (At this point, I part company with the panel, just so you know.) The answer is that we blog about it. This will create a critical mass in the blogosphere, which will force writers, directors, producers and casting directors to pay attention. They will then begin to attend WisCon, and become educated and enlightened.
Angry Black Woman's blog
the Hator Legacy feminist media critique
People of Colour SF Carnival
"Cultural Appropriation 1 & 2" was interesting and confusing. Some people seemed to be saying that only a minority could write from a minority viewpoint. Some seemed to be saying that anyone can write from any viewpoint. A lot of it seemed to come down to "listen first, write second."
Several minority people expressed anger/conempt for white people who want a gold star from trying - they write a story from the minority viewpoint, get it wrong, but they tried! Or they want a "real" minority person to check it for errors, and be happy with them because they tried, and are checking it. I can understand the anger, but I"m not quite sure how to avoid it. Maybe it isn't possible?
One of the panelists is an anthropologists and talked more specifically about culture, and language, and how any encounter changes both cultures. She also distinguished between borrowing, appropriation, co-opting and assimilation. She also talked about the power differential, and who defines the boundaries.
The "facilitated discussion" wasn't very helpful, largely because one or two people thought we found them fascinating. But Debbie Notkin did point out that she was hearing a lot of white voices, when a black woman had said she wanted to speak next. The black woman smiled at her, and said, "I love this place! That has never happened before!" which was one of the highlights of the con to me.
Several white people talked about the importance of defining yourself, but the people of color rejected this as not acknowleging the way others see and treat you.
Nisi Shawl, Writing the Other - highly recommended
Peggy McIntosh, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - wonderful discussion of white privelege
Over dinner, we all gave reports on the panels we had attended, and had really great discussions about the intersections and the ideas. Wonderful, juicy, meaty stuff, and the basic reason I come to WisCon.
As usual, the Tiptree Auction was almost indescribable. Ellen Klages just lights the place up. It's funny, fun, and raises money for a good cause.
This year, she started by auctioning off a baby. It got better from there.
$6500 was raised to support the Tiptree Award. (The bakesale raised an additional $440.25.)
"When Good Books Happen to Bad People" was the most substantive panel of the con for me. It was also one of the best moderated, which isn't a co-incidence.
A lot of the discussion was about Orson Scott Card. This isn't an issue for me, as I hated Ender's Game with an intense passion and never read anything else he wrote, but there seems to be a general consensus that he's a good writer, and also a homophobic bigot.
Several interesting points were raised, including the practical uselessness of refusing to buy someone's books on principal. Someone pointed out that there is punishing the author, and there is showing ethical integrity in how you spend your money, which are very different things.
One of the panelists talked about punishing people for expressing their opinions is basically punishing them for being honest, and do we really want authors to put on bland, inoffensive masks at all times?
Someone raised a very useful distinction between opinions and actions. Gene Wolfe is a conservative Catholic, and thus is assumed to have opinions that are offensive to most of the audience. But he doesn't use his soapbox as a famous author to work in the public sphere on behalf of those opinions. OSC does, which is what is so offensive about what he does.
The moderator made two interesting points - Alice Sheldon killed her husband, yet we're here at WisCon celebrating the Tiptree. EA Poe murdered a prostitute in NY, but we read his books. OSC has opinions that bother people, and people get out the torches and pitchforks. Why? (No good answer.)
He was also dismissive of comments about getting the publishers to police the opinions of authors. He pointed out the corporate nature of publishing, their labor and environmental records, as well as history of political malfeasanse, and asked why people are so naive about corporations. (He publishes his books with small presses from just this reason, and has made less money because of it, so he walks the talk in this respect. On that basis alone, I went and bought his books in the dealers' room, but wasn't able to get them autographed before he left the con.)
Someone asked how far we take it, do we boycott Kipling because he helped create the imperialist/colonialist mindset and culture? Someone else asked about the reverse situation, what if a really cool, wonderful person writes a bad book, do we buy it? (Yes, pretty universal agreement on that one.)
All in all a lot to think about at midnight.
Takumashii's report on the same panel. (Scroll down.)