Larry Correia and Tor.com are whatever is the opposite of pals, and after spending a weekend as special guest at GenCon Correia had all the incentive he needed to loose his rhetorical artillery on Tor.com’s post “Gaming’s Race Problem: GenCon and Beyond” by A. A. George.
In “No, Tor.com, GenCon Isn’t Racist. A Fisking”, Correia does everything he can think of to discredit the allegations of racism.
Fisking is defined by Eric S. Raymond as
a point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form.
So first Correia quotes a line or two from Tor.com. Then he delivers his retort. The piece is very long. These points and counterpoints from near the end of the post are typical. George’s lines are in regular script, Correia writes his in boldface. (“SJW” means “Social Justice Warrior” and is used disdainfully. Not that you wouldn’t have figured that out.)
Do not use people of color as a form of marketing.
Another double edged sword of Social Justice. So you’ve got an RPG. Let’s say you put some non-white looking characters on the art. You could easily be praised for this, or you could somehow anger them and be attacked for “tokenism” or “cultural appropriation”. Flip a coin. Either way, I’m sure Tor.com will run an article about how you’re racist.
- Reach out to minority groups and invite them personally to conventions. Your neighbors, your co-workers, the people at your church, all of them.
Holy crap yes. In this entire thing I finally found something I agree whole heartedly agree with!
However George left something off. After you invite them MAKE IT FUN. Sadly, SJWs can even suck the fun out of Guardians of the Galaxy, so it is up to us people who aren’t total psychopaths to invite more people, because if a regular person goes with a SJW then the whole con is going to be Diversity Panels, until the guest escapes out a window.
The tragedy of all the posturing is that Correia’s readers go away satisfied there’s “nothing to look at here” while the Tor.com readers probably won’t even look at Correia’s post, much less read between the lines to see his (possibly unintended) recipe for making gaming conventions more diverse.
(Y’know, there might be a panel in this for Smofcon. And since I happen to be doing programming for this year’s Smofcon. Hmmm.)
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I am about as involved in board-gaming fandom as I am in science fiction fandom. In board-gaming fandom I am interested in Euro-games, mostly those which are strong on strategy. In sf fandom I am mostly interested in fanzines with a current heavy involvement in APAs – running APA-L and LASFAPA.
In both fandoms I find very little (if any) “racial” and ethnic animosity. In both fandoms “racial” and ethnic differences are noticed but are not discriminated against as such: it is mostly a situation of “what do you do which is of interest to us.” In sf fandom, this can be something as simple as “Hey, I like talking to you.” In board-gaming fandom it is more “do you like the same games I do?” or things similar to that.
The problem which both fandoms seem to have is that minorities just do not seem to be attracted to our activities. In both fandoms the doors are open for anybody to enter who is interested in what we do. What is a problem is that the doors are open to anybody of whatever “race” or “ethnicity” who wants to come through them but it is mostly just white people who come through those doors to experience the interesting things inside.
“Tor.com readers probably won’t even look at Correia’s post, much less read between the lines to see his (possibly unintended) recipe for making gaming conventions more diverse.”
Well, no they won’t, because Tor.com moderators have been removing from the comments every link to Larry’s response.
I’m not sure why you qualified your description of Larry’s “recipe for making gaming conventions more diverse” as “possibly unintended”. When he enthusiastically agrees that inviting divers people from divers backgrounds is a good way to grow fandom, how can you imagine that diversity resulting from this would possibly be unintended?
Marty: We’ve experienced that opening the doors only does so much. Thus that one point of agreement for Correia and George that some kind of evangelizing is needed.
J.C.: Terming it a “recipe” is ironic. Larry primarily is interested in discrediting the Tor.com post and George’s claim that there is a problem to be solved. But Larry — totally in character — also has to prove he is better at solving the perceived problem than George. It’s hard work always being the smartest guy in the room.
Mike: “Fisking” wasn’t coined by Eric Raymond. It comes from Robert Fisk, a hard-left reporter for Britain’s INDEPENDENT who was the first person ever to interview Osama bin Laden. I think “fisking” means what Correia did–looking over a piece and commenting on every point.
Mike: Sometimes being the smartest person in a particular room on a particular subject is not as difficult as other times.
Martin: To what are you responding? Mike didn’t say that Raymond coined “fisking”, only that he defined it. And while indeed it “comes from” the name of Robert Fisk, that does not, as one might infer that you are implying, mean he had anything to do with coining the term, since what it actually comes from is blogger replies to Fisk’s work. Captain Boycott didn’t coin the term derived from his name either.
The most instructive thing here is the identification of the phrase “social justice warrior” as another way to marginalize activism and characterize it as far left lunacy. It’s the second time I’ve seen someone use it in a pejorative vein this week — as ever, the best lack all conviction, while the backlash is full of passionate intensity.
DB: I was just trying to explain where the “Fisk” in “fisking” came from. I agree that Robert Fisk did not define the term, but rather people angry at Fisk (and I think the term pre-dated blogging). Martin
Well Correia works to widen the divide between Golden Age fans and Diversity Age fans. He rants at one side, trying to bully them, and just driving them farther away, then assures the other that everyone who isn’t with them is too disgusting to actually listen to. He’s a bit of a one-man bridge fire, really.
So I’m not the slightest bit surprised they’re talking past each other on this.