Did Archon make the right decision when it cancelled Tim Bolgeo as fan guest of honor? Those voting “no” include the following bloggers —
Jason Cordova at Jason Cordova’s Website – ”Uncle Timmy and the Thought Police”
The reason I am coming to his defense so vociferously (ah hell, biracial man with a vocabulary is rolling up his sleeves) is that back when I was first starting out on the convention scene, not a single con wanted this no-name biracial guy who wrote a book as a guest. Not a one. Cons who pride themselves for their “diversity” told me to kindly “piss off”. Cons that I lived less than five minutes to wanted nothing to do with a local author. Cons who are always claiming to want to showcase new and upcoming authors wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole.
Then I got this email from Uncle Timmy and his daughter, Brandi Spraker, completely out of the blue. They’d heard about me through Travis S. “Doc” Taylor and wondered if I would be up to being a guest at Libertycon. I was thrilled. I was also confused, because after asking around, I’d heard that only “Baen authors” wanted anything to do with Libertycon. Which didn’t bother me much, because I enjoy almost all of the authors in Baen’s stable. Eric Flint, Charles Gannon, David Weber… all of them I’ve read, and all of them I enjoy. So I accepted and flew across the country to be a guest. And you know what?
I’ve never felt so welcomed at a convention as I was at that Libertycon.
Reblogged by Tim Gatewood at Minister Is A Verb – “Uncle Timmy and the Thought Police”
Uncle Timmy is one of the most decent men I know in fandom and his influence can not be overstated on fandom in Memphis and the entire state of Tennessee. Archcon will not see me or anyone who respects Southern fandom until they reverse this decision. Letting one whiny-baby who does not even know Tim Bolgeo keep him from the honors that he richly deserves is beyond cowardly.
Reblogged at Mishaburnett— “Yep. The haters win again.”
Stephanie Osborn at Comet Tales – “Archon Does Itself a Disservice by Disinviting Tim Bolgeo”
Uncle Timmy is not some redneck unlearned hillbilly. He is a nuclear engineer who made a successful career at the Tennessee Valley Authority, working on nuclear reactors, only recently retired. He is a thinking man. He puts out a newsletter of information, jokes, and other such that he and his readers (I’m one) run across, and he discusses them, and he invites and prints discussion by his readers on that information. Sometimes this involves putting a distasteful story into the newsletter so that he can point out a fallacy. Somehow some anonymous person took a couple of these and twisted them around to make it look like Uncle Timmy believed that tripe AND AGREED WITH IT.
Nothing could be farther from the truth — I’ve had any number of conversations with Timmy, and he is fair-minded, “color blind,” and I have never, EVER, heard the word “bigot” used in the same sentence with his name until today. And yes, I said today. Insofar as I have been able to determine, from the original protest to the revocation of the invitation took less than 24 hrs. To say that I am dismayed and dumbfounded is a massive understatement. To say that I am disappointed in Archon’s convention committee is putting it mildly
C. Blake Powers at Laughing Wolf — “In Defense of Timmy and Calling Out Fascists and Cowards at Archon”
He was guilty of double-plus-ungood-think, and the usual manufactured evidence was presented and pushed by an anonymous source seeking to have Timmy removed as Fan Guest of Honor at Archon.
Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation — “The latest from the fainting couch brigade, they go after Uncle Timmy”
First off, anybody who has ever talked with Tim Bolgeo knows this allegation is crap and Archon is being stupid. Uncle Timmy is no racist. His crime was reposting jokes that would have been okay to laugh at if they’d been told by a comedian on TV. One lone ANONYMOUS jackass threw a fit so Archon tossed him….
Second, I’ve met Tim Bolgeo several times, and I’ve met members of his family. He’s a good dude. He’s a decent human being. I’ve had conversation with him about various controversial issues, and he was never anything but polite, funny, smart and articulate. He helped me out when I was first starting my career, and the first out of state con I ever attended as a pro writer was one that he’d been organizing for 25 years….
Vox Day on Vox Populi – “SF/F Thought Police Strike Again”
I told you none of this was about me, none of it ever had much to do with me. But now you know why I have never backed down to the petty pinkshirted grotesqueries. SFWA, Archon, Rutgers, Smith, Brandeis, Haverford, it’s all the same. It’s all about control of the narrative, control of the organization, and control of the lines of communication.
That’s why toleration is not an option. That’s why preening oneself on refusing to take a stand is moral cowardice. Those are merely slow forms of surrender and submission. Sad Puppies was the first time the pinkshirts have been punched in the mouth in decades and they reacted like a vampire to Holy Water. But it was a mere splash, when what is needed is an inexhaustible firehose.
Cedar Sanderson on Cedar Writes – “Archon’s Shame”
…Tim Bolgeo was the very soul of kindness and let me stammer at him until I had made some sense, then spent a good fifteen minutes talking to me about ways to approach conventions and promote myself. I doubt he will remember this, as I suspect he is like that with everyone. Approachable, warm, gentle…
I only wish I could say that I could trust a certain convention to behave that way toward its guests. Unfortunately, Archon is now on my list of conventions to never approach as a professional, or even as a guest, I would be fearful to attend, lest they did to me what they are attempting to do to Tim Bolgeo.
Amanda S. Green on Mad Genius Club – “The full moon rose and the craziness came out”
The craziness has just been compounded. It seems if you yell loud enough, concoms will cave, whether you have a valid point or not. The concom at Archon has announced it is withdrawing its invitation to Uncle Timmy to be Fan GoH because people had to go out and find a reason to object to him. Go, Crazies! In fact, go away. Far, far away.
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These are general, not specific, comments — Rules Of Thumb which in an ideal world would be respected by the relevant people. In my opinion, YMMV and all that.
It is the responsibility of a convention committee to vet the public statements of a prospective guest prior to invitation if they are going to be using embarrassment about any public statements by that prospective guest as a criterion for invitation.
To publicly uninvite a guest is a public shaming; a violation of the spirit of contract whether or not a legal violation of contract in any given jurisdiction; an insult; a declaration of anethema; an extreme measure not to be considered lightly: a “nuclear option”, so to speak.
To my knowledge (limited, as I am not a lawyer), to publicly uninvite a guest is a possible ground, depending on individual state law and depending on the reason(s) for uninviting that guest, for a lawsuit for defamation of character or similar. Again, YMMV and all that.
This is not the first time a convention has uninvited a publicly announced Guest of Honor for a personal opinion held by that person. I note parenthetically that this has never, to my knowledge, worked out well either for the targeters (the convention) or the target (the former GoH).
This is not the first time a local fandom has sandbagged (abusively piled onto) one, individual fan. The tendency toward a mob kicking someone who is down is a known and unfortunate habit of human beings throughout history
Related to this, it is my considered opinion that some future edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual will recognize schadenfreude as a mental illness or a syndrome, or as evidence of an underlying mental illness or syndrome.
Related to this, the use of the term “butthurt” may be defined as: To be derisive and belittling toward someone suffering real, significant pain; to be so insensitive to another’s pain as to not care about the level of violence physical or psychological done unto them; to laugh at someone who has been anally raped; to be so morally bankrupt, sadistic, and/or sociopathic that one approves of someone else being anally raped.
Mileage does not vary with regard to the preceding two paragraphs.
These are general, not specific, comments — Rules Of Thumb which in an ideal world would be respected by the relevant people. In my opinion, YMMV and all that.
It is the responsibility of a convention committee to vet the public statements of a prospective guest prior to invitation if they are going to be using embarrassment about any public statements by that prospective guest as a criterion for invitation.
To publicly uninvite a guest is a public shaming; a violation of the spirit of contract whether or not a legal violation of contract in any given jurisdiction; an insult; a declaration of anethema; an extreme measure not to be considered lightly: a “nuclear option”, so to speak.
To my knowledge (limited, as I am not a lawyer), to publicly uninvite a guest is a possible ground, depending on individual state law and depending on the reason(s) for uninviting that guest, for a lawsuit for defamation of character or similar. Again, YMMV and all that.
This is not the first time a convention has uninvited a publicly announced Guest of Honor for a personal opinion held by that person. I note parenthetically that this has never, to my knowledge, worked out well either for the convention) or the former GoH.
This is not the first time a local fandom has sandbagged one individual fan. The tendency toward a mob kicking someone who is down is a known and unfortunate habit of human beings throughout history
Related to this, it is my considered opinion that some future edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual will recognize schadenfreude as a mental illness or a syndrome, or as evidence of an underlying mental illness or syndrome.
Related to this, the use of the term “butthurt” may be defined as: To be derisive and belittling toward someone suffering real, significant pain; to be so insensitive to another’s pain as to not care about the level of violence physical or psychological done unto them; to laugh at someone who has been anally raped; to be so morally bankrupt, sadistic, and/or sociopathic that one approves of someone else being anally raped.
Mileage does not vary with regard to the preceding two paragraphs.
These are general, not specific, comments — Rules Of Thumb which in an ideal world would be respected by the relevant people. In my opinion, YMMV and all that.
It is the responsibility of a convention committee to vet the public statements of a prospective guest prior to invitation if they are going to be using embarrassment about any public statements by that prospective guest as a criterion for invitation.
To publicly uninvite a guest is a public shaming; a violation of the spirit of contract whether or not a legal violation of contract in any given jurisdiction; an insult; a declaration of anethema; an extreme measure not to be considered lightly: a “nuclear option”, so to speak.
To my knowledge (limited, as I am not a lawyer), to publicly uninvite a guest is a possible ground, depending on individual state law and depending on the reason(s) for uninviting that guest, for a lawsuit for defamation of character or similar. Again, YMMV and all that.
This is not the first time a convention has uninvited a publicly announced Guest of Honor for a personal opinion held by that person. I note parenthetically that this has never, to my knowledge, worked out well either for the convention) or the former GoH.
This is not the first time a local fandom has sandbagged one individual fan. The tendency toward a mob kicking someone who is down is a known and unfortunate habit of human beings throughout history
Related to this, it is my considered opinion that some future edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual will recognize schadenfreude as a mental illness or a syndrome, or as evidence of an underlying mental illness or syndrome.
Related to this, the use of the term “butthurt” may be defined as: To be derisive and belittling toward someone suffering real, significant pain; to be so insensitive to another’s pain as to not care about the level of violence physical or psychological done unto them; to laugh at someone who has been anally raped; to be so morally bankrupt, sadistic, and/or sociopathic that one approves of someone else being anally raped.
Mileage does not vary with regard to the preceding two paragraphs.
This country is filled with old white guys who everyone swears is friend to all races, puppies, and children. And these guys love sharing their racist jokes over email. That’s their right, but if you can’t restrain yourself from sharing those racist jokes, maybe you shouldn’t be a federal judge (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/see-racist-email-sent-out-federal-judge) or the guest of honor at a convention. It’s 2014, get your shit together.
I’m sure that guy would be perfectly nice to my face, but as I’ve discovered in between my birth and 2014, most of the time you scratch the surface of these guys and they are really full of virulent hatred and want you to go back overseas where you came from, even though you really come from New Jersey. I’m not going to assume that’s the case with him, but then you shouldn’t put fans of all races in the position of having to wonder which one this guy is. It must be wonderful to have the white privilege to not have to negotiate these sorts of interactions. SF fandom is no longer a bunch of white people from the urban northwest whose idea of ethnic is Italian and Jewish. We’re not the other anymore, we’re fandom too, and it’s time for everybody to act like it.
It’s fine to tell people not to crack racist jokes, but it’s not fine to couple that with a fake lecture about what “SF fandom is no longer” that is purely a product of your own biases. “A bunch of white people from the urban northwest whose idea of ethnic is Italian and Jewish” — anyway, I thought the slogan was “Blame Canada” not “Blame Seattle.”
I admit it, I’m biased against people who email each other racist jokes.
I see you’ve retroactively edited your post since I replied. If I could do that I’d correct the obvious typo in my original comment. And since you’ve chosen to focus on the typo, I assume you don’t take issue with the actual substance of the comment.
The duck test applies here. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s most likely a duck. And if you publish a “fanzine” (seems more a conservative political journal from what I read) and fill it with racist jokes, if your language is peppered with racial epithets so casually used you probably don’t even notice (“honest injun”) you’re probably a racist.
Yes, Archon failed to do due dilligence. Yes, it would have been better if he’d not been invited in the first place rather than invited and then having his invitation rescinded. But the truth is, a complainant pointed out to the convention that they appeared to have included a GoH who had a habit of saying racist things in his official publication, and the convention acted appropriately by deciding his inclusion was problematic in light of that.
The conservosphere section of SF can bleat about free speech all they like. But this is yet again not a case of censoring free speech. It is a case of yet again reminding the old guard that they don’t have consequence free speech.
The person who made the original series of complaints: still anonymous? Here I was thinking, were it a case for trial, you’d meet your accuser. I can”t help but think this just might be someone harboring a grudge and trying to work vengence.
“Yes, Archon failed to do due dilligence”
Few conventions – if any – do that sort of thing, I would imagine. Conventions tend to ask people to be a GoH based upon personal contacts and general knowledge of the individual.
Michael, if few conventions vet their GoHs to make sure they don’t, for instance, write e-zines that are full of prejudicial comments couched in shallow excuse of “politically incorrect humour,” that doesn’t make any given convention failing to do so any less of a failure.
Frankly fandom isn’t the same place it was in 1965. This sort of behaviour isn’t endearing. And cries of “thought police” ring hollow in an organization with no central controlling body. If people in the old guard are finding the public less receptive to their involvement, that isn’t an evil Orwellian state. It’s just a culture that grew up with a very different set of expectations about what behaviour is appropriate.
zagrobelny on May 21, 2014 at 8:34 pm said:
This country is filled with old white guys who everyone swears is friend to all races, puppies, and children. And these guys love sharing their racist jokes over email.
I’ve thought of starting The League of Evil Old White Guys. I’ve got an idea for the membership cards. The purpose of the organization is to circulate stories about all the evil things we are planning to do to people who aren’t members. We really haven’t done much since we invented jock itch. We’ll have to do better.
Jock itch or jerk itch?
Just because a Facebook account uses an obviously pseudonymous name doesn’t make it any more anonymous than a Facebook account that uses a real sounding name. It may well be a name that all of the user’s friends know him by. And if it is consistently used in a social media forum, the person develops a reputation – regardless of whether or not he uses the name on his birth certificate.
I’m anonymous here, even though I signed my real first name in the name field.
In this particular case, while anonymous on Facebook, Bolgeo’s accuser says he presented his complaint in person at the Archon meeting last weekend and no one has contradicted that statement. So I decided anonymity isn’t a genuine issue because it should not be that difficult to find out the name the person is known by in that group (which might even be an ordinary name, not a handle). And even what that one person said and wrote is only significant because the committee made a couple of contradictory decisions about the information, the latter one, of course, being to rescind Bolgeo’s invitation.
While you may well be named John, there’s not much at stake if we choose to believe you. And ultimately, even the anonymity of Bolgeo’s accuser matters little because people don’t have to depend on his word about things, they can go and read Revenge of the Hump Day for themselves.
All that said, I still don’t like seeing hundreds of people being drawn into controversy because of a complaint by someone who goes by a handle, and his FB page is fronted with a photo of somebody in Joker makeup.
The anonymity doesn’t matter. The accusations were *checkable*. People have checked them, and they feel that Bolgeo’s fanzine is indeed full of casual racism. The person who first pointed this out is now irrelevant; it has been independently verified by many people. (And apparently they also complained in person at an in-person meeting, so not actually anonymous anyway.)
What’s much more interesting is the split between the people who see it as full of casual racism, and those who do not. Has anybody tried to take that one on? Really talk to people on both sides, look at examples, see how different people are reacting to the same statements?
What concerns me is the segment that brushes off the casual prejudice (whether racism, sexism or religious prejudice) under the guise of him preferring “politically incorrect” humour or being an “equal opportunity offender.” These are not things to be defended.
“What concerns me” is that Mr. Bolgeo has been hanging out at various cons for decades and was apparetntly loved by all…until one or two jackasses made it their mission to humiliate and destroy him just to make a spiteful, self-righteous point.
That is truly indefensible.
#screwtheglitteryhoohas
Unknown by most doesn’t necessarily equate to loved by all. Frankly my only knowledge of the man is through his awful publication full of hateful things. He might be a nice person. But I don’t know that. I can only adjudicate what I can see – his extensive published record.
As someone who is old enough to remember when a former Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, was dismissed after a racial joke he told came to light, the issue wasn’t whether he was a nice guy or did a good job. It was the racism. I’d like to think we’ve learned a thing or two about such things since 1976, but maybe not.
The Revenge of Hump Day archive on libertycon.org appears to have had its directory listing rights disabled, so it’s a bit more difficult finding and reading the newsletter for yourself to make your own decision. Not impossible, the PDFs are still there and can be found through a Google search…
And the Archon group has gone “closed” so the record there is no longer visible to non-members.
@Andrew: Interesting development about the FB page. I put in a request to join. After all, I am a past Archon fan GoH. George Takei was a guest the same year — for some reason he attracted much more attention.
I can still get into Bolgeo’s zine here — http://www.libertycon.org/index.php/lc-info-3/the-revenge-zine.
It looks like these guys (also anonymous as far as I can tell) are also voting no: https://classicallyeducated.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/pc-runs-amok-in-science-fiction-community/
Although they link it to other