Ugh.

[shweta_narayan]

Anti-immigrant, assimilationist if-they-don't-pass-as-white-it's-their-fault rage-inducing xenophobic BULLSHIT warning.

Thanks, Ms. Moon. I loved The Speed of Dark, but now you're joining Harlan Ellison in the Box of Shame.

Anyone I recommended that book to? Unrecommended.

Via maevele.

ETA: Just emailed the Wiscon concom about her being a GoH next

Comments

[txanne]

Well, that makes it easier to cut my book budget. (Also, God *damn* it. _Remnant Population_ is one of the only books in existence with an old woman as the protagonist.)

[shweta_narayan]

Yeah. Also :(

[txanne]

I did say "one of the few." My life's ambition is to be Granny Weatherwax--I'm already a tall skinny spinster! (Or I will be, as soon as I learn to, er, spin.)

I bounced off Butler in college, but I'm a grownup now. Thanks for giving me a starting point.

[samhenderson]

At first I'm all "I don't see the problem," and then comes the big fat o_0. Yikes.

[tithenai]

THIS. I didn't see this the day of because the first several paragraphs are all "civic duty" and "tra la la citizenship" and then she gets all "WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY BIGOTRY" and I hadn't read that far.

[gwynnega]

"WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY BIGOTRY"

Yes, exactly...

[rose_lemberg]

Word.

[polenth]

I drifted after the first few paragraphs when I first saw it, so didn't realise how it ended. Now I have read it... oh dear. It's not just the immigration and anti-Islam thing (which are the most obvious). I was struck by the white settlers arriving in America being portrayed as equivalent to modern immigration. To believe it's in any way equivalent, you'd have to pretend the genocide didn't happen, that white settlers had to assimilate into a dominate Native American culture and that Native Americans had the power to send the settlers home (but didn't, after deciding they were okay after all).

To say it's revisionist history is an understatement.

[opheliastorn]

And the only reference to Native Americans in her entire screed was a joke! W. T. F.

You understood it? I have questions!

[shweta_narayan]

I couldn't even parse that part. Is that what she's saying? Maybe my problem was I expected it to mean something approximating reality.

Also... does she think all Muslims here are immigrants? Umm.

Similarly is she saying "Older generations of immigrants are bigoted, and that's bad, and I'm bigoted in similar ways, and that's good"? It just.. WUT.

Overall it's inducing almost as much bewilderment in me as it is rage, in fact.

Re: You understood it? I have questions!

[naomikritzer]

I would have read the comments but my head was busy exploding.

I am represented in CONGRESS by a Muslim WHO IS NOT AN IMMIGRANT. FTR. Not that there is anything wrong with the immigrant Somalis who are my neighbors, my kids' classmates, etc.

[nalathilion]

I read that entire entry. Now I feel confused, outraged and disgusted. The part I enjoyed the most was her replies to comments 'that was not what I wrote/meant.'

O.o

I kept thinking what the bloody fuck and then to see people agreeing with those sentiments. Just. No.

[shweta_narayan]

confused, outraged and disgusted.

That's a much better description of how I feel than I managed :)

[dwesley]

I don't understand the anger being directed towards Ms. Moon. She presented her thoughts in a coherent manner, and I agreed with most of it, with one major exception: I don't believe the mosque builders "should have known" that the majority of Americans would be upset. I've been to "ground zero" and don't understand why anyone would give a rip what was being built two blocks away. I think the majority of people who are taking issue with the mosque either 1) don't realize it's two blocks away, or 2) know it's two blocks away but don't really have a tangible grasp of what that physically means, or 3) are bigots looking for an excuse to hate. I suspect Ms Moon falls into the second category. Ms. Moon's comments even on the ground zero issue would be reasonable and appropriate if they were in fact building a mosque on ground zero (which of course they are not

[shweta_narayan]

Dave, I'm asking Nathaniel to respond to you, both because he just responded to ms Moon and I can't say it better, and because I suspect you will hear this better from another white man.

You were pretty dismissive of my attempts to explain some of these things at Clarion, so I hope you'll understand why I don't really feel that I can explain it to you.

[dwesley]

Hi Shweta, I read Nathaniel's response to Ms Moon and thought it was very thoughtful and reasonable. However, the color of Nathaniel's skin is immaterial to me with regards to that argument, only the substance of what he has to say. Don't you think that implying I can only listen to another person that looks like me is a racist statement in its own right? (And no, I don't buy into the argument that racism only flows from the privileged to the unprivileged. The damage may be disproportional, but there is still damage.) I don't recall ever being dismissive about these kind of issues at Clarion, but if you have examples that you would like to discuss, I'd be happy to respond and hopefully clear the air

[shweta_narayan]

Dave