I would not like John Ottinger III to shut up

[shweta_narayan]

ETA2: Two important notes:
1. johnottinger has apologized in comments here as well as on his blog. While I agree that one does not always get a cookie, I'd like to point this out as an apology that is clear and sincere in tone, without any of the hedges we've seen too often in this sort of discussion

Comments

[kaolinfire]

Thank you for that. Read his post a few days ago but couldn't think of anything to say besides *guh*

[shweta_narayan]

Oh I'm saying *guh* too, just more wordily :)

Really all I've done here is repeat/rephrase what he John Ottinger III says. It is its own parody.

[kaolinfire]

Agreed.

The one thing I wanted to find better words for was his assumption that these editors are doing an unbiased, random sample of works submitted. Sure, in some cases, to some extent--but it's also largely selecting "what you know" and "who you know", and asking _them_ for stuff. And it's unlikely that any given person is going to have a widely diverse circle of professional writers. Therefore, yanno (and yeah, you do, I do, lots of people do know), some extra effort to find diversity can introduce an absurd slew of "hidden" (not-so-hidden, really; just ... other) gems.

And I hate how poorly/sloppily I put the above. And I'm sort of mumbling at the choir, here... but. guh.

[shweta_narayan]

Sure, in some cases, to some extent

Not even that, given that anthology slots are so often assigned by who an editor knows

Re: oh superb,

[shweta_narayan]

Thank you :)

Though I just realized I missed the part where editors only want to not look racist/sexist. They have no interest in not being racist/sexist, on John Ottinger III's planet.

Re: oh superb,

[shweta_narayan]

I'd say picking at points for the sake of picking at them would be mean, especially after his apology, but picking at them for the purpose of deconstructing his argument was valid?
I dunno, really.

[shweta_narayan]

Oh is that what he is?

I would guess that if he is unprofessional enough to respond to your comment by panning your book, it'd be giving you free publicity. Because that... would be noticed.

Especially

[shweta_narayan]

given how clear and civil a disagreement your point is.

[seajules]

I don't believe that pointing out every time an anthology does not have an equal number of women or minorities is not helpful.

I don't believe it's not helpful, either, so we should definitely keep doing it.

*smiles with teeth*

[shweta_narayan]

*grins back*

It does entirely miss the point that nobody's even calling for equal representation so much as less appalling representation, but then, I sort of ran out of fingers when tallying the points missed.

[zeborahnz]

John Ottinger III wrote:
It forces editors to make sacrifices, to choose to please those with the loudest voices rather than the real readers

Ah, as opposed to us fake readers.

[shweta_narayan]

Yep. I guess elsmi is the real reader in our household. Or at least, the one Mr. Ottinger would take for a real reader.