Horror Writers of America President Lisa Morton announced on HWA’s Facebook page that David A. Riley is now off the award jury he’d been appointed to.
In regards to the situation involving David Riley, who announced on his blog that he would be serving on the Anthology jury: We’ve reached out to Mr. Riley, and both Mr. Riley and the HWA have agreed that it’s in the best interest of all for him to step down. Mr. Riley will be replaced on the jury immediately by Nicole Cushing. The HWA thanks Nicole for stepping up, and we would also like to thank everyone who has shared their opinion on this matter.
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Is “transgressive ideas” the new aristotle paraphrase for white supremacy and fascism? Why not use those words instead as those are the issue at hand?
@Lela E. Buis
I did. You’ll be amazed at how much weight I give to a single unsupported claim on a comment of an article.
I know I’m amazed at how much value you’re giving it. It’s almost as though the threshold is incredibly low for anything that supports your claims, but anything that doesn’t gets dismissed because, hey, it’s about the principles, amirite?
In my opinion: No.
But based on what you’ve said previously here, I doubt you mean the same with “bullying” as I do, which means my answer is to a different question than the one you probably intend to ask.
They’re being kind, because equating black feminism with racism is kinda dickish. Besides all that horseshit about reverse racism, you don’t get to dictate to people what they get angry about and what they respond to. If you think there’s something they should respond to, make your case, just don’t cry double standards if you don’t get anyone but racists and MRAs and gamergaters rushing to your cause. Consider instead that your cause might be horseshit.
What people get angry about and what they respond to are revealing of their ideology. If someone is suppressing transgressive speech about a particular issue, then it’s a matter of ideology. That’s what I’m pointing out here. Activism can be dangerous to the unity of a community. I’m calling for more respect and unity in the community–not ostracism.
You’re trying to derail the discussion on racism now by going back to the question of HWA.
This has always been about the HWA. You have attempted to derail it to a discussion about “reverse racism” in the SFF community but refuse to provide any examples of what you consider this to be, instead pointing to an entirely different issue that by all appearances amounts to a healthy case of free speech being used by people on all sides of the matter.
This bullying and harassment are meant to silence particular viewpoints, while others are allowed free expression.
No one has bullied or harassed Riley. Your definition of “bullying” appears to be so broad as to be meaningless, since under it, almost any disagreement seems to count as “bullying”. And neither Riley or the HWA have been silenced. No one has prevented Riley from speaking his mind on any topic. No one has prevented the HWA from taking a position on any topic. No one has been silenced. In fact, the only person who seems to want to silence anyone is you, as you seem to think that speaking out against someone with racist views is “bullying” that person.
Check the comments.
I have. I don’t see any threats against Saldana in the comments of either of the articles you linked to. Did you bother to read those comments before you pointed people to them?
Is “transgressive ideas” the new aristotle paraphrase for white supremacy and fascism? Why not use those words instead as those are the issue at hand?
No, these are only a couple of examples. Other issues I’ve come across recently include Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings as a romantic couple, a Jewish woman falling in love with a Nazi, and a white person wearing blackface as sunscreen. All the writers who posed these situations were attacked by the community.
All the writers who posed these situations were attacked by the community.
Define “attacked”. Give examples.
My viewpoint is silenced every time an editor sends me a rejection slip. I manage to get on with my life in spite of that. Riley, I’m sure, will get on with his.
If you don’t want to discuss “Riley and the issue of racism”, perhaps you shouldn’t be commenting on an article with Riley’s name in the headline, describing an event that never would have happened were it not for Riley’s racism.
The right to free speech includes the right to say “That question you asked was really stupid and irrelevant to the topic at hand”.
If you want to consider me bigoted against racists, I can live with that. You may even use my bigotry as a reason not to buy whatever fiction I am fortunate enough to see published in the future (if these editors will ever stop silencing my transgressive viewpoint).
In my opinion: No.
But based on what you’ve said previously here, I doubt you mean the same with “bullying” as I do, which means my answer is to a different question than the one you probably intend to ask.
Then what do you consider bullying? Please provide examples. Keep in mind that one of my recent concerns has been about author bullying within the community.
I have asked a number of questions that are now being attacked
Your questions are being criticized. That’s the nature of free speech. At this point, we can pretty much safely conclude that your definition of “bullying” and “attacked” are so ridiculously broad as to be entirely meaningless.
No, because any strong response to bullying will itself be bullying and this logical paradox is how Captain Kirk defeated Fasclibtron, the AI Overlord of Safe Space, which to the untutored eye looked like a golden utopia of peace and freedom, but whose absence of bullies and racists hinted at a dreadful genocide, or at least an approach to freedom of speech that let non-racists and non-bullies argue strenuously against racists and bullies, harassing them out of existence over generations of vigorous debate!
As far as I’ve undetstood, your definition of “transgressive speech” means promoting fascism and white supremacy. If you mean something else, please tell us.
Till now, you’re pointing out nothing that’s relevant to the question of Riley being suitable as a juror. You’re what-iffing a hypothetical black feminist who in your view is actually a reverse racist misandrist (which, btw, is NOT synonymous with “black feminist”), who you apparently think should be seated without protest on such a jury as proof that Riley should ALSO be seated without protest. You don’t actually provide any proof that there is such a person who has provided such public proof that she might not be impartial as a juror. You’re pointing out death threats to Zoe Saldana to show why objecting to Riley as a juror is wrong – even though no one has made death threats to Riley and no one here has condoned death threats to Riley, so it’s completely irrelevant to Riley’s case.
Let me ask you the same question I asked Darrell – suppose you were a lawyer representing a POC and Riley came up as a prospective juror in your client’s case. Knowing his history as Darrell now does (however reluctantly and half-assedly he finally informed himself about it) would you allow Riley on the jury for your client without an objection, or make an objection to him as possibly impartial based on his public history of expressed racist opinions and attempts to impose those opinions on the public by running for office with the avowed intent to make laws based on those racist opinions?
All the writers who posed these situations were attacked by the community.
Define “attacked”. Give examples.
I’m not supporting any of these views, only pointing out that they are transgressive ideas that have been attacked.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/author-jenny-trout-and-the-feminist-censorship-brigade/
http://www.newsweek.com/bizarre-nazi-love-story-thats-tearing-romance-novel-community-apart-360965
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/21/racism-row-novel-coals-pearls
Google Require Hate.
Is there any mechanism in our society for free speech to counter bullying (as has been suggested)?
No, because any strong response to bullying will itself be bullying
Does this counter the assertion that free speech from everybody will take care of any issues then?
@Lela E. Buis on April 15, 2016 at 10:07 am
Ok. So having a premise that people think is stupid is a transgressive idea, and a negative review is an attack, therefore harassment, therefore death threat.
Got it.
So you want to do gishgallop monologues in everything but the issue at hand. My recommendation is that you write a blogpost about those issues somewhere else instead of continuing with your derailing and whataboutery.
“Then what do you consider bullying?”
Google Require Hate.
I’m aware of her activities. She’s a particularly vile case, and one that has raised questions in the community about how to deal with it. You are aware that she professes to be a POC, right? She was considered to be a rising star until her background of hate speech was discovered. Why hasn’t there been a movement to boycott her work and drive her out of the community?
Duh.
Oh, so criticising things you disagree with is now suppressing them.
So can forcing other people to tolerate the intolerable because you think criticising things you disagree with is suppression.
Why would you demand that, say, black people respect and be united with racists? Or that gay people be respectful and be united with homophobes? Or women be respectful and be untied with misogynists? You are insisting that those sections of the community give up their right to free expression, to free association, to give up their own self-respect, dignity and safety in the interests of people who hate them? A society like that is either maintained through oppression, or is inherently unstable and doomed to change or die.
Ok. So having a premise that people think is stupid is a transgressive idea, and a negative review is an attack, therefore harassment, therefore death threat.
People don’t campaign to get books removed from retailers or award shortlists just because they think it’s a stupid idea.
So you want to do gishgallop monologues in everything but the issue at hand. My recommendation is that you write a blogpost about those issues somewhere else instead of continuing with your derailing and whataboutery.
Would you like to follow my blog? I’ve done a whole series on this topic.
Is this a joke?? A long text documenting the bullying actually won a Hugo last year (Beale No Awarded that one). She is a pariah, there are extremely few people who wants to do anything with her and they are heavily critisized for it.
It is truly staggering that you can be so ignorant on that.
Why would you demand that, say, black people respect and be united with racists? Or that gay people be respectful and be united with homophobes? Or women be respectful and be untied with misogynists?
Would you rather we continue to have train wrecks like last year’s Hugo controversy? It’s fairly easy to follow the train of event that led to that. I’m not the only voice calling for more respect and unity within the community as a result.
I’m not supporting any of these views, only pointing out that they are transgressive ideas that have been attacked.
Are you seriously citing an article from the MRA apologist site A Voice for Men as your support? If one actually goes to the article by Jenny Trout, one finds her exercising her free speech and asking others to do the same. If that blog post is your definition of “attacked” then my days of not taking you seriously on the subject have come to a middle.
a Jewish woman falling in love with a Nazi
Yes. People were critical of a work that depicts a woman in a concentration camp falling in love with a Nazi guard. Go figure. And they were critical of it and thought it shouldn’t be honored with an award nomination. You have yet to explain how criticizing a work is “attacking” someone.
a white person wearing blackface as sunscreen
That’s not actually the problem people had with the novel in question. Did you actually read the article you linked? Given how you have misrepresented this case (and others), I’m beginning to question whether you’ve actually read the things you are citing. Either that, or you are just being disingenuous. And once again, people are being critical of a piece of work. That’s how free speech works. People can express an opinion on art. People can be critical of organizations for promoting that art. Why do you hate free speech?
It counters the assertion that all ideas deserve equal respect, that if you criticise someone you must accept all criticism as of equal worth, that if you are strenuous in your responses to things you feel strongly about then you must accept all strenuous responses as valid, and that if you accuse someone of harassment then when you engage in lengthy and highly charged debate with someone, you yourself are guilty of harassment. It counters the idea that it is not possible to make intelligent distinctions between debate and harassment, activism and bullying.
Why hasn’t there been a movement to boycott her work and drive her out of the community?
There has. Have you not been paying attention? Many people have boycotted her work. One of the few places still willing to publish her work is Clarkesworld, and there has been plenty of criticism of that magazine for doing so.
For Lela, as for the Puppies generally, it’s clear that “bullying” is an antinomian matter. If you’re one of the right people, you can’t bully, because the truth is on your side and upholding the truth is never bullying. Conversely, if you’re one of the wrong people, you must bully, because the truth is not on your side, and in the absence of the truth, all you can have is force and fraud. If you’re one of the wrong people and you’re not bullying, that just means that you’re lying. You can avoid bullying and lying only insofar as you agree with the right people.
There’s nothing more to it than that. None of it is about the actions people take, or how they take them. It’s all about what side you’re on, and when you know which side someone is on, then what they’ve done or said is irrelevant. (I wrote this while others wrote the half-dozen comments above it. I think that Lela’s approach to “supporting” “citations” is evidence for the claim here – it’s all about stances and sides, not at all about the truth of anyone’s actual words.)
Is this a joke?? A long text documenting the bullying actually won a Hugo last year (Beale No Awarded that one). She is a pariah, there are extremely few people who wants to do anything with her and they are heavily critisized for it.
It is truly staggering that you can be so ignorant on that.
There was actually soul-searching on the issue. See article here that describes it as a “division” in the SFF community. The problem is that because she has represented herself as a POC, people want to be blind to her racism and bullying behavior and to promote her as an author. In this case her hate speech is so bad that they can’t, which causes a quandry.
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/benjanun-sriduangkaew-revealed-to-be-troll-requires-hate-winterfox/
Yes. I would much rather have controversy and train wrecks than make concessions to malicious fools. You’re asking other people to be cringing doormats based on a principle that you can’t even articulate other than ‘it’s wrong for you guys to cause a fuss.’
There was actually soul-searching on the issue. See article here that describes it as a “division” in the SFF community.
So you actually knew there were people who were part of a “movement to boycott her work”, but you just decided to lie and ask why there wasn’t? You are just digging yourself deeper into your hole at this point.
Seems to me you wouldn’t want that, because you’ve interpreted disagreement with your ideas here as ‘attack’ – why would you invite people to read your blog when they might disagree with (read ‘attack’) your ideas there? Or do you want them just to silently read your blog and raise your click numbers without ever commenting when they disagree?
Or maybe you do realize that public disagreement and objection – even vehement objection – is actually not always bullying, but you just hate to admit it here because that would take away all your grounds for calling the people who object to Riley as a juror ‘bullies’?
Don’t be silly. Of course they do. You can be “transgressive” and well executed, and get away with it. You can be “non-transgressive”, and poorly written, and get away with it.
When you’re both, that’s when you get caught out.
How goes your hunt for those threats by the way? Wouldn’t want this to derail that particular derail.
ETA: I’m defining “transgressive” to the best of my abilities, which is “stupid underlying principles”.
Are you seriously citing an article from the MRA apologist site A Voice for Men as your support? If one actually goes to the article by Jenny Trout, one finds her exercising her free speech and asking others to do the same. If that blog post is your definition of “attacked” then my days of not taking you seriously on the subject have come to a middle.
a Jewish woman falling in love with a Nazi
Yes. People were critical of a work that depicts a woman in a concentration camp falling in love with a Nazi guard.
a white person wearing blackface as sunscreen
That’s not actually the problem people had with the novel in question. Did you actually read the article you linked? Given how you have
You’re actually going to support all these attacks? There’s been an assertion that free speech will take care of itself, but there are definite cases where it goes wrong.
The campaign headed by Jenny Trout was particularly egregious. The campaign branded Fiona Man as a racist and child molester and succeeded in having her books pulled from Amazon. Then it turned out that she was a black woman writing about a woman of her own race. Trout wrote something to the effect of “How was I supposed to know that?”
Sarah Wendell found that complaining about the Jewish/Nazi romance led to bullying and threats from the Christian Right. The image of blackface on the cover of Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden was cited as one of the prime transgressions.
Lela E. Buis:
Again, a long documentation about Require Hates harassment won a Hugo. That means that the absolute majority of the fans were abhorred by her actions and wanted more people to know about her harassment and bullying.
Oh, and by pure chance the number of people who voted No Award against this was about the size of the puppy voters. Oh, what strange fate? Could it be possible that the puppies were angry when people actually tried to do something against harassment?
This is of course pure speculation.
Exactly what attack? Which statement is it you want us to say that we do not accept? It is very hard to say something about some vague attacks no one knows how they were formulated. Try to be specific.
And also, try to keep this to Science Fiction and Fantasy. Or at least related. Otherwise you might as well ask us to condemn world famine or absolutely anything in the world. We are not here because we want to be dragged into a cultural war.
Yes. I would much rather have controversy and train wrecks than make concessions to malicious fools.
Your prerogative. Be aware that suppression of ideas reduces our freedoms.
http://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/sites/default/files/Sealion_MBaird(1)_1.jpg
Exactly what attack? Which statement is it you want us to say that we do not accept? It is very hard to say something about some vague attacks no one knows how they were formulated. Try to be specific.
I was specific. I’ve given three examples of author bullying which resulted in damage to the author’s reputation and livelihood.
You’re the one who wants people to be politely silent in public when they see racism. I’d say that’s more a suppression of ideas than a trainwreck is. Whatever else it is, a trainwreck is noisy.
Or maybe you do realize that public disagreement and objection – even vehement objection – is actually not always bullying, but you just hate to admit it here because that would take away all your grounds for calling the people who object to Riley as a juror ‘bullies’?
The issue was that HWA made a decision and then were harassed until they changed it. This is where the campaign crossed into bullying behavior.
Seems to me you wouldn’t want that, because you’ve interpreted disagreement with your ideas here as ‘attack’ – why would you invite people to read your blog when they might disagree with (read ‘attack’) your ideas there?
Personal attack. I welcome discussion about my blog posts, but would like to keep it neutral space i.e. I discourage flame wars there.
1) About which person involved in Science Fiction, Fantasy or Fandom?
2) Exactly what statement?
3) Exactly what damage?
4) Do provide links so we can have any idea what you are talking about.
5) See that the links are to reputable sources.
You’re actually going to support all these attacks
They weren’t “attacks”. They were criticisms. That’s what free speech is all about. As I said before, your definition of “attacks” seems to be so broad that is is meaningless. Now that’s you’ve given examples of what you consider to be “attacks”, you’ve confirmed that your opinion on the subject is completely worthless.
The campaign headed by Jenny Trout was particularly egregious. The campaign branded Fiona Man as a racist and child molester and succeeded in having her books pulled from Amazon.
No, it did not brand her as a racist and a child molester. It said that the book contained racism and child molestation. Your inability to distinguish between the two is part of the problem. Having Amazon pull a book that was criticized is part of having free speech in a society.
Sarah Wendell found that complaining about the Jewish/Nazi romance led to bullying and threats from the Christian Right.
So, you’re not complaining about the reaction to the book. You’re complaining about the reaction to the reaction. Exactly who gets to have free speech and who doesn’t in your world? Do people criticizing a Jewish/Nazi romance get to speak up, but people criticizing the criticism don’t?
The image of blackface on the cover of Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden was cited as one of the prime transgressions.
But that’s not the main reason the book was criticized. The book was criticized for a whole host of reasons, and if you’d read the article you linked to, you’d know that. A book that depicted a society in a manner that some considered racist was criticized, as was a magazine that published an excerpt from it. And that’s perfectly okay. That’s how free speech works. Clearly you don’t like free speech when people say things you don’t like.
I’ve given three examples of author bullying which resulted in damage to the author’s reputation and livelihood.
You’ve given three examples of authors publishing books that damaged their reputations. You’ve given no examples of “author bullying”.
You’re the one who wants people to be politely silent in public when they see racism.
I haven’t said that anywhere. The question is whether racists deserve freedom of expression or whether these expressions should be suppressed by activist attacks.
You’ve given three examples of authors publishing books that damaged their reputations. You’ve given no examples of “author bullying”.
You must be defining bullying in a strange way. Please research the topic of author bullying. There’s a lot of info out there about it right now.
The issue was that HWA made a decision and then were harassed until they changed it.
They weren’t harassed. You don’t actually know what the term means, and are using it to mean “people continued to disagree with their decision”. That is how free speech works, but you don’t actually like free speech.
Be aware that branding anyone who responds to unrestrained attacks by malicious idiots as suppressing ideas is effectively siding with the malicious idiots. You are arguing that people under attack have less rights than the people attacking them. You are literally calling for the suppression of the people under attack, because to respond to the attack is to suppress the freedom of the people attacking. This is asinine.
The issue was that HWA made a decision and then were harassed until they changed it.
They weren’t harassed.
I respectfully disagree.