Dear racefail apologists

[brown_betty]

Please stop making the argument from capitalism. It is so dumb it causes my brain to attempt to flee my skull and look for shelter. Most recently seen in the comments in Tempest's post @ Scalzi's Whatever, here is a typical example:#118: Publishers aren’t in the book publishing business to lose money. If SCI-FI readers are overwhelmingly white

Comments

[browngirl]

Three snaps up. :)

[beth_bernobich]

(here from rydra-wong)

That might be the comment that made my head explode. Well, one of several.

[brown_betty]

I was honestly just skimming the comments, since I had low expectations, but I hit that one and… seriously?

[tree]

here from rydra_wong. this is an excellent breakdown of the argument (and yay sarcasm).

If SCI-FI readers are overwhelmingly white

i enjoy the use of the adjective here: "i'm so white, it's overwhelming!" or "we are white: we will overwhelm you."

dear fellow white people, please stop being so overwhelmingly pantsless.

[mariallegra]

Thank you.

There was also the asshat going on about how "POC MUST work to remove the stigma of reading SFF being 'acting white'" or they have no right to complain about anything. Paraphrase imperfect, but he definitely capitalized "must".

It is, IMO, a pleasant surprise that Scalzi made a genuine effort to keep things on track, but I hope he has a good hard think about the sort of readers he's attracted.

[lady_ganesh]

If nothing else, I bet he just learned that keeping things at an 'acceptable' level of civility isn't as easy as it looks.

[jonquil]

Yes, THIS. I think I actually saw him quoted to that effect.

[brown_betty]

There was also the asshat going on about how “POC MUST work to remove the stigma of reading SFF being 'acting white'” or they have no right to complain about anything. Paraphrase imperfect, but he definitely capitalized “must”.

…I don't even know what that means.

Yeah, I don't actually hope Scalzi is weeping into his gin and tonic, but I rather think the smug “We'll show livejournal how it's done!” has probably worn off.

[leastconcern]

I love your post, it's absolutely one of the biggest fucking dumb arguments out there that basically excuse the racial, misogynist, homophobic and transexclusivity in SciFi Fantasy genre.