Two-time Hugo nominated fanwriter Mark Oshiro (Mark Watches Star Trek), ConQuesT’s Fan Guest of Honor in 2015, has publicly aired on Facebook his grievances about the racism, sexual harassment, and abuse he experienced at the con after working within the con’s complaint process produced no action.
In light of what I’ll reveal at the end, I find it more important than ever to talk about the persistent and pervasive racial and sexual abuse/harassment I was the victim of at ConQuesT because I did everything I was told to do in the event that I was harassed. I reported most of the events you’ll see described below, and I did not do so anonymously. I stuck my name on every incident report, partly because I was not afraid, but mostly because I wanted things to change. If putting my name on a report ensured that a better community could be built from my actions, then I felt it was worth it.
Alas, that does not seem to be the case.
ConQuesT is held annually over Memorial Day Weekend in Kansas City. The three-paragraph Behavior policy in effect at last year’s con began with clear expectations:
Behavior
ConQuesT is committed to offering a convention experience as free from harassment as we can make it for our members, regardless of characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, age, race, religion, nationality, or social class. We do not tolerate harassment of convention participants in any form. ConQuesT attendees violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the convention without a refund, at the discretion of the convention organizers.
Before suffering any violations of the con’s behavior policy, Oshiro’s weekend as ConQuesT 46 Fan Guest of Honor got off to a rocky start because of poor hospitality. He was due a comp room but had to use his own card to register ‘til the committee straightened that out. The room was in the hotel’s secondary tower. He and his friend (now partner) were driven to a restaurant for the guest of honor dinner, but were not seated at the chairperson’s table with the rest of the GoH’s (George R.R. Martin, Nene Thomas, Brandon Sanderson, and Toastmaster Selina Rosen). At the end of the meal they were asked to pay, another mistake that had to be fixed. Oshiro says there were added reasons for his sensitivity about these problems.
As a brief aside, I wanted to provide some emotional context to this. Baize and I were the only people of color in this entire group, and both of us are gay. I’ve struggled my whole life with reading situations to see if I’m actually being discriminated against, and the fear that that had happened to us was particularly strong that whole dinner. We are both part of marginalized communities that had very little representation in this group, and it became impossible not to consider the possibility that we were treated differently because of it.
At Oshiro’s first program item he was sexually harassed – by the con’s toastmaster.
I was moderating a panel titled, “Are Fans More Open Minded?” The panel progressed wonderfully for about ten minutes before it was derailed and then never made it back to normal. Early into the panel, someone in the audience made a joke about the panelist Selina Rosen, who sat next to me on my left and was ALSO a Guest of Honor at the convention. They called her a princess, and in response, she stood up and pulled her pants down to her ankles. For the next few minutes, Selina, wearing nothing but men’s boxers, proceeded to periodically rub her bare leg against mine. At first, I thought she was merely bumping me, but she kept doing it, over and over, and if I looked at her while she was doing it, she would make a face at me.
I texted Keri O’Brien, the Vice Chair for the convention, and told her that Selina had taken off her pants again. (She had done so at ConQuesT 45.) Within a few minutes, Selina had pulled her pants back up and Keri arrived and pulled Selina out of the room. Selina returned, and she made the bulk of the remainder of the panel about how fandom was NOT open-minded because someone had reported her for removing her pants. Multiple things happened in response to this. In a strange sign of solidarity, another panelist, Robin Wayne Bailey, removed his OWN shirt and kept talking about his nice body and his big muscles. Selina tried to grill multiple members of the audience to determine if they had been the ones to report her, even going so far as to yell at anyone who chose to leave the room, accusing them of being a “rat.”
(Tiffany Robbins saw Rosen’s act in 2014 and wrote in ConQuesT 45: 10 Things I Learned From Selina Rosen – “8. Sometimes, it’s okay to pull your pants down to your ankles in a public setting.”)
Then Oshiro described how, later that night at a room party in the main hotel, his partner Baize was sexually and racially harassed. (The full text of Oshiro’s post appears below, following the jump.)
On Sunday he was the moderator on a panel titled, “Erasure is Not Equality” and had this experience:
This panel was specifically about the erasure of people of color in historical fiction, fantasy, and other genres. I was the only person on the panel who was not white. Furthermore, not one person on the panel seemed to understand the point of the panel, which was to talk about erasure. Instead, the conversation teetered between self-righteous back-patting and flat-out racism. Within the first five minutes of the start of the panel, I brought up a topic for us to discuss: how “historical accuracy” is often poorly used as a defense of the erasure of people of color. One panelist, Chris Gerrib, then began to talk about how people misunderstood history. The “Indian” people in Central America were already busy “killing each other” by the time the Spaniards arrived. When I asked for clarification, Gerrib confirmed that he believed that the Spaniards were “unfairly blamed” for the genocide of the indigenous cultures in Central America. I was so horrified by his continued talk of this ahistorical point that, after very little conversation, I asked that we change topic.
This set a tone for the remainder of the panel, which was easily the worst panel I have ever been a part of. All three of the white panelists confidently stated things that were simply not true; each of them kept saying “Indian” when they actually meant Native American or indigenous; every few minutes, more than half the audience was viscerally horrified by what the other panelists said. At one point, Jan Gephardt derailed the panel into talking about women instead of race and said that she was “happy to see any sort of women, like black or white or green.” Gerrib then chimed in with, “Or purple.” She also responded to a lengthy point that myself and an audience member made about the physical and emotional injury that can come from experiencing racism by reminding us that “racism is not real” because race “is just a social construct.” During a different conversation about how many authors mistakenly blur the line between different cultural groups, Chris Gerrib jokingly said, “Did you know that the Japanese aren’t the same as the Chinese?” Jan’s response? The Japanese and Chinese just think they’re different in their heads. She heavily implied that they were mistaken in this belief.
Oshiro told about several other disturbing comments on the panel. And he outlined another harassing experience he had at a fireworks viewing party. That night, he reported all of these incidents to committee members Keri O’Brien and Jesi Pershing.
They were both incredibly professional and sympathetic to myself and Baize, and I have nothing negative to say about that specific experience. They did exactly as they should: they made the two of us feel better, and they were very thorough in getting details about all of the above experiences. I was asked what I wanted done. I did not recommend that anyone get kicked out or un-invited for future years. I simply wanted two things:
1) That those I reported not be allowed on programming that triggered such a terrible response in them. (That was mostly in regards to the “Erasure is Not Equality” panel. A panel about race should not have one lone person of color on it.)
2) That someone tell these people that there’d been a report made about their behavior and that they should not behave in a way to make people feel so upset and unwanted.
I was realistic about what I wanted. You can’t make everything a teaching moment, and some people might not want to learn. But I needed someone to tell each of these people that their actions made someone else feel terribly unwelcome at the convention. I just wanted the conversation to be started.
Oshiro completed about seven incident reports and signed them.
I was told that the concom would discuss them, and that, at the very least, some action would be taken, either a notification about their behavior and a warning, OR people would not be invited back for programming in the future.
Months went by. Jesi Pershing, in her official capacity as part of the concom, would give me periodic updates. Sometimes, if I saw her at another con, I would ask her what the status of my reports were. She had recommended specific courses of action in response to my incident reports, and [convention chair Kristina Hiner] seemed to agree to them. But last month, she finally told me that, nearly eight months after I’d reported multiple people, ConQuesT and Kristina Hiner had done absolutely nothing with my reports.
In contrast, at another convention where he experienced a problem, the committee immediately resolved his complaint:
Harassment is unfortunately a part of my experience at SF/F conventions. Not at all of them, but at most of them, something happens to me. I’m an outspoken queer Latinx, and it’s inevitable. However, since ConQuesT, every con staff that I’ve had to make a report to has dealt with my report quickly and fairly. At ConFusion this year, the concom dealt with my incident report in two hours. Meaning they spoke to the person and that person apologized to my face within two hours.
Oshiro recognized that ConQuesT was not going to take action, and decided it was time to go public.
And a month ago, after she told Oshiro about the committee’s inaction, Jesi Pershing left the committee, as she explained today on Facebook:
Shortly after the ConQuesT 2015 ended, I typed up the incident reports I had taken, along with my recommended follow-up for each incident, and passed them along to the chair. My understanding was that she agreed with the actions I recommended, and that the Board did as well. The actions I recommended either needed to come from the Chair or Board, or required certain decisions to be made by the Chair or Board before I could enact them. This is where things stalled out. I heard that the Chair and Board agreed with what I had recommended…and then I basically heard nothing.
I inquired several times, both in email and in person, over the next several months, as to where things stood, whether anything had been done, what the hold up was. At one point, it was expressed to me that the Chair was wondering, since we hadn’t done anything by now (I believe this was about four months after the con), should we even bother at this point? To which I gave an emphatic “YES” and was once again under the impression that action would be taken. It never was.
As Mark relates in his post, he was asking me for updates during this time. I let him know that a course of action had been agreed upon on (early on in the process when I thought that action being agreed upon meant action would be taken), and then, as time went on, I would have to tell him that, no, to my knowledge, nothing had been done. Still nothing. Still nothing.
In January, I had a sudden lightning bolt epiphany that, if nothing had happened up to this point, nothing was going to happen. I let Mark know that, in my opinion, the con was never going to take action on his reports, and that I was stepping down from the committee.
Combating harassment in our community is an issue that is very important to me – I’ve worked on writing and implementing Codes of Conduct at multiple conventions. When I take on a role like this at a convention, I feel that I am making a promise – a promise that complaints will be taken seriously and that, if warranted, action will be taken. I cannot work for a con that has made me break that promise, which is why I stepped down from the committee.
Keri O’Brien, who has stayed on as the 2016 ConQuesT chairperson, made this comment on Oshiro’s Facebook post:
I have never felt comfortable talking from the perspective of a whole group of people. That is not something I think I can easily do here. I am also the current chair of ConQuesT in Kansas City. A good friend of mine, Mark Oshiro, told his story today. This needed to happen I feel. There were some horrible things that happened last year and they did not get the attention they deserved. This post is part apology. Mark Oshiro and Baize Latif White should not have found out 9 months later that nothing had happened. This was a mistake, a terrible one. Caused by a series of miscommunications over the course of those months. The reasons are not as important as the hurt the mistake and miscommunication caused. ConQuesT is a very old convention but has only very very recently instated any sort of behavior policy. ConQuesT 46 was one of the first years that formal reports were taken in under this system. It was not handled well, at all. But this does not mean that it cannot learn from those mistakes. As chair for this year, it is my responsibility to ensure that any reports taken at con are dealt with in ways that respect our membership and our policies. Thank you for taking the time to read this, Keri O’Brien
O’Brien is just one of hundreds of fans who left comments on Oshiro’s Facebook page. Among them was Chris Gerrib who set out to apologize, only getting it right on the second try after Oshiro answered his first attempt, “I don’t se an apology here.” Gerrib wrote in his initial comment:
Since I was mentioned by name in the original post, I feel I should respond. I want to apologize. What I *intended* to say was that the Inca and Aztec empires were unpopular with other native tribes, and that the Spanish used that unpopularity to form an army with themselves at the head. I did not communicate that correctly, and I’m sorry. I don’t recall saying that the Spanish were unfairly blamed for anything, but if I said or implied otherwise I was wrong. Much of the current issues with Central and South America can be traced to bad Spanish decisions and/or conduct.
Then he followed up:
I am sorry you were miserable on the panel, and I’m sorry what I said caused that. My statement at the time was in error.
(Gerrib also discussed this at File 770 and in a similar comment on Vox Day’s post about Oshiro’s revelation.)
Other notable responses include K. Tempest Bradford’s “Expect More From Your Regional Convention”:
Kansas City fans have pointed out that it is the very essence of a local con. Most folks running it and putting people on panels know each other well and know the panelists. Robin Wayne Bailey is a local and, from what I can gather, a regular at that con. Selina Rosen, who pulled down her pants, is apparently a serial pants taker off-er at that very con. Yes, this is a small local con. That means it’s probably even easier for programming volunteers to know that they’ve staffed a panel about diversity and erasure with one person of color and a bunch of problematic white folks who are prone to undressing at the slightest provocation.
And Rachel Caine is calling upon audiences not to let things slide, in “Dear Regional SFF Conventions: Enough Already”
But you know what? It’s not necessarily the fault of the volunteers throwing conventions. Audiences and panelists must hold each other accountable if fandom is going to continue as it began. ConComs are not gods. They can’t vet moderators, they can’t interview panelists about every panel topic to see if they’re qualified. They are organizers of a show for which they don’t get paid, and while they do shoulder the burden for responding to bad behavior, WE are responsible for responding immediately to the bad behavior in the first place. (I have been guilty of letting things slide, of trying to play “can’t we all get along,” of not pushing myself hard enough to be articulate and responsible. And I’m sorry. If you see me falling short or saying dumbass things, stand up and say so. I will learn and grow as a person from that discussion.)
Surprisingly, Oshiro says he’s still going to the Worldcon in Kansas City this year.
¶
Mark Oshiro gave general permission to share his Facebook post; the full text follows the jump.
TRIGGER WARNING: For extended, detailed talk of racism, sexual harassment, abuse
This has not been an easy post for me to write. I’m keeping the introduction of it relatively short because I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Over the past nine months or so, the events of my weekend at ConQuesT 46 have haunted me, and recent events inspired me to finally talk about my experience. I have spoken to nearly fifteen people, most of whom are a part of the SF/F community, about what happened to me so that I could get some insight. Was what I experienced wrong? Was I imagining the intensity of the weekend? Is it wrong for me to publicly talk about it?
In light of what I’ll reveal at the end, I find it more important than ever to talk about the persistent and pervasive racial and sexual abuse/harassment I was the victim of at ConQuesT because I did everything I was told to do in the event that I was harassed. I reported most of the events you’ll see described below, and I did not do so anonymously. I stuck my name on every incident report, partly because I was not afraid, but mostly because I wanted things to change. If putting my name on a report ensured that a better community could be built from my actions, then I felt it was worth it.
Alas, that does not seem to be the case.
*
I was invited to be the Fan Guest of Honor at ConQuesT 46. (From here on out, GoH will stand for Guest of Honor.) I was thrilled to take part in it, not just because I’d attended ConQuesT 45, but because George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson would be guests alongside me. Hey, for my first GoH gig, that’s a pretty spectacular line-up! I arrived to Kansas City on the Wednesday before the convention, and my friend at the time (now partner) Baize was my guest. We headed to the con hotel and, upon check-in, discovered that we were placed in the secondary tower of the hotel, not the main one; the room was also not paid for, so I had to put my own card down. This was fixed by the time dinner was over, but it was a disconcerting start to a bad weekend. On Thursday evening, I was driven to Jack Stack BBQ for the guest of honor dinner, which Baize and I were quite excited about. We are both fans of the Song of Ice and Fire books and the show, so it felt like a very special occasion. We were ten minutes or so late due to going to the wrong location first. When we arrived, all of the guests of honor were present with their own guests, and they were all seated at the table. There were two open spots next to George R.R. Martin, so I gestured to them as I arrived, and Baize and I moved to sit in them.
The con chair, Kristina Hiner, stopped us. She told us the seats were for her and her husband. She then gestured behind us to an empty table two tables away from the main one, and told us we could sit there. By ourselves. I am certain she saw the glare of anger on my face and the confusion on my guest’s. We were so shocked that we couldn’t even say anything. She then quickly suggested that we sit at the table with the staff members, and we took the only two spots left at said table. They were literally the farthest point away from the Guest of Honor table. If it were not for our friend Jesi and two other staff members who briefly greeted us, not one person at that table would have ever said a word to us. We were ignored and segregated from the main table the entire time. (As a brief aside, I wanted to provide some emotional context to this. Baize and I were the only people of color in this entire group, and both of us are gay. I’ve struggled my whole life with reading situations to see if I’m actually being discriminated against, and the fear that that had happened to us was particularly strong that whole dinner. We are both part of marginalized communities that had very little representation in this group, and it became impossible not to consider the possibility that we were treated differently because of it.)
At the end of the meal, I was asked to pay for mine and my guest’s meal, unlike the entire guest of honor table. This was rectified after I told the server to please tell Kristina to include us on the main bill, which had nearly been paid for without us on it. After the meal, Kristina finally spoke to me after our initial confrontation, and I told her that we were in the wrong hotel, that my room had not been paid for, and that I felt weird about the evening. She assured me that everything would be taken care of and that my guest and I would be treated well.
I’m including this at the start of this because I want everyone to have context. While I didn’t make a report about this or opening ceremonies, I thought it relevant to include it here. It is necessary to help explain the atmosphere of this convention. When it wasn’t outright hostile to Baize and I, we were utterly invisible. Mistakes happen at cons, and by no means do I think that ConQuesT or ANY convention should never have anything go wrong ever. However, this was the start of an unnerving pattern.
By the time I got to programming on Friday afternoon, I felt deeply uncomfortable about my experience at ConQuesT thus far. I had two panels that I was on prior to Opening Ceremonies. I was moderating a panel titled, “Are Fans More Open Minded?” The panel progressed wonderfully for about ten minutes before it was derailed and then never made it back to normal. Early into the panel, someone in the audience made a joke about the panelist Selina Rosen, who sat next to me on my left and was ALSO a Guest of Honor at the convention. They called her a princess, and in response, she stood up and pulled her pants down to her ankles. For the next few minutes, Selina, wearing nothing but men’s boxers, proceeded to periodically rub her bare leg against mine. At first, I thought she was merely bumping me, but she kept doing it, over and over, and if I looked at her while she was doing it, she would make a face at me.
I texted Keri O’Brien, the Vice Chair for the convention, and told her that Selina had taken off her pants again. (She had done so at ConQuesT 45.) Within a few minutes, Selina had pulled her pants back up and Keri arrived and pulled Selina out of the room. Selina returned, and she made the bulk of the remainder of the panel about how fandom was NOT open-minded because someone had reported her for removing her pants. Multiple things happened in response to this. In a strange sign of solidarity, another panelist, Robin Wayne Bailey, removed his OWN shirt and kept talking about his nice body and his big muscles. Selina tried to grill multiple members of the audience to determine if they had been the ones to report her, even going so far as to yell at anyone who chose to leave the room, accusing them of being a “rat.” Near the end of the panel, an audience member asked the panel if fandom could be considered open-minded when it clung to so many of its own racist/sexist/homophobic heroes uncritically. Specifically, I addressed this in the context of the World Fantasy Award and brought up the fact that many people do not think we should criticize H.P. Lovecraft. Robin Bailey then responded by saying that anyone who spoke about Lovecraft’s racism should be considered “human garbage,” and said that Lovecraft was just a product of his time.
Following this panel, I went to opening ceremonies, where I once again felt invisible when Selina Rosen skipped introducing me. It was not until people in the audience yelled this out that they came back to me.
On Friday night, at a room party in the main hotel, my partner Baize was sexually and racially harassed by someone attending the same dance party: Liz Gooch. At multiple points during the evening, she gestured behind him as if she were going to grab his butt. She kept referring to it as his “juicy booty.” She danced around him and told me to “not let this sweet piece of chocolate go.” Despite that our body language clearly showed discomfort, Liz would not stop harassing either of us. We had to move to another side of the room, and we eventually told the person running the party what she was doing. We both considered that perhaps she had been so forward and gross because she was drunk, but I had multiple interactions with Liz Gooch when she was sober following that night. The next morning, she was leaving an elevator as I was getting in a different one. She turned around and made a number of sexual gestures while pointing at Baize, which including kissing faces, winks, and licking her lips in an exaggerated manner.
On Sunday afternoon, I was the moderator on a panel titled, “Erasure is Not Equality.” This panel was specifically about the erasure of people of color in historical fiction, fantasy, and other genres. I was the only person on the panel who was not white. Furthermore, not one person on the panel seemed to understand the point of the panel, which was to talk about erasure. Instead, the conversation teetered between self-righteous back-patting and flat-out racism. Within the first five minutes of the start of the panel, I brought up a topic for us to discuss: how “historical accuracy” is often poorly used as a defense of the erasure of people of color. One panelist, Chris Gerrib, then began to talk about how people misunderstood history. The “Indian” people in Central America were already busy “killing each other” by the time the Spaniards arrived. When I asked for clarification, Gerrib confirmed that he believed that the Spaniards were “unfairly blamed” for the genocide of the indigenous cultures in Central America. I was so horrified by his continued talk of this ahistorical point that, after very little conversation, I asked that we change topic.
This set a tone for the remainder of the panel, which was easily the worst panel I have ever been a part of. All three of the white panelists confidently stated things that were simply not true; each of them kept saying “Indian” when they actually meant Native American or indigenous; every few minutes, more than half the audience was viscerally horrified by what the other panelists said. At one point, Jan Gephardt derailed the panel into talking about women instead of race and said that she was “happy to see any sort of women, like black or white or green.” Gerrib then chimed in with, “Or purple.” She also responded to a lengthy point that myself and an audience member made about the physical and emotional injury that can come from experiencing racism by reminding us that “racism is not real” because race “is just a social construct.” During a different conversation about how many authors mistakenly blur the line between different cultural groups, Chris Gerrib jokingly said, “Did you know that the Japanese aren’t the same as the Chinese?” Jan’s response? The Japanese and Chinese just think they’re different in their heads. She heavily implied that they were mistaken in this belief.
Holly Messinger, a ConQuesT staff member, was also on the panel. She spent a great deal of time talking only about her own work, repeating the message that she had read “five books on Indians” and that she had written her first black character, who kept the white character “sane.” She stated at one point that she was “terrified” about the response her book would get because people would get “mad” about her writing an “Indian” character. When I asked for clarification – specifically, was she worried about getting representation wrong? – she told the room that she had no concern about that. She’d read five books about “Indians.” She was concerned that people of color would misinterpret her.
There were many more incidents on this panel, and I could not recount them all here. The panel ended on a sour note, too. Baize spoke up and pointed out that part of the problem with erasure was that there was only one person of color on a panel about race. Holly Messinger shot back, “Well, we’re in the Midwest.” I left the panel feeling drained and numb. If you were at ConQuesT that weekend and you wondered why Closing Ceremonies started late, it’s my fault. I dashed up to my hotel room to cry because I felt so triggered, rejected, and alone. I’ve been on uncomfortable panels, but this was unique. The entire panel was argumentative; my questions as moderator were constantly avoided or ignored; anything I tried to state was fought or dismissed or contradicted. It was exhausting.
Sunday night, at the viewing party for the fireworks display, someone accidentally sat on a remote and turned off the live news broadcast. A man behind Baize and I yelled out, “Cocksucker!” at whomever made the TV go off. We were both holding hands at the time, and while we didn’t think the expletive was directed at us, we still turned around and glared at the man. After the fireworks, I left the room quickly because… well, I’d heard so much nonsense all weekend that I needed to get out of that space before I lost my temper. The man sent his friend after us – some young woman whose name I did not get – who then harassed us for nearly a minute by repeatedly telling us that her friend was sorry and that we “needed” to know that he was a nice person and not a bigot. When I told her that I didn’t care, she actually said, “But I need you to know he’s a really nice guy.” It took me telling her, “Please leave me alone right now” for her to leave the hallway.
That night, I reported all of these incidents in one long session with Keri O’Brien and Jesi Pershing. They were both incredibly professional and sympathetic to myself and Baize, and I have nothing negative to say about that specific experience. They did exactly as they should: they made the two of us feel better, and they were very thorough in getting details about all of the above experiences. I was asked what I wanted done. I did not recommend that anyone get kicked out or un-invited for future years. I simply wanted two things:
1) That those I reported not be allowed on programming that triggered such a terrible response in them. (That was mostly in regards to the “Erasure is Not Equality” panel. A panel about race should not have one lone person of color on it.)
2) That someone tell these people that there’d been a report made about their behavior and that they should not behave in a way to make people feel so upset and unwanted.
I was realistic about what I wanted. You can’t make everything a teaching moment, and some people might not want to learn. But I needed someone to tell each of these people that their actions made someone else feel terribly unwelcome at the convention. I just wanted the conversation to be started.
*
I moved on. It’s now been nearly nine months since this happened. Why did I wait so long? Why didn’t I say anything earlier? Initially, it’s because I believed the process would work. I completed about seven incident reports total, as far as I can recall. I put my name on them, and I signed them. I was told that the concom would discuss them, and that, at the very least, some action would be taken, either a notification about their behavior and a warning, OR people would not be invited back for programming in the future. Months went by. Jesi Pershing, in her official capacity as part of the concom, would give me periodic updates. Sometimes, if I saw her at another con, I would ask her what the status of my reports were. She had recommended specific courses of action in response to my incident reports, and Kristina seemed to agree to them. But last month, she finally told me that, nearly eight months after I’d reported multiple people, ConQuesT and Kristina Hiner had done absolutely nothing with my reports.
I’ll reiterate that. No one was contacted. No one was spoken to. As far as I know, none of these people even know that they harassed me or my partner. Neither Kristina Hiner nor any of the Board ever took the steps to make any sort of follow-up happen. When Jesi realized that there was not going to be any movement whatsoever on this, she decided to step down from ConQuesT as a staff member. She could not, in good conscious, continue to work for an organizing that refuses to take action.
Harassment is unfortunately a part of my experience at SF/F conventions. Not at all of them, but at most of them, something happens to me. I’m an outspoken queer Latinx, and it’s inevitable. However, since ConQuesT, every con staff that I’ve had to make a report to has dealt with my report quickly and fairly. At ConFusion this year, the concom dealt with my incident report in two hours. Meaning they spoke to the person and that person apologized to my face within two hours. At that point, it almost seemed comical that over half a year had passed, and both ConQuesT and Kristina Hiner did nothing at all.
That’s why I’m talking. I did what I was supposed to. I kept quiet, I trusted the system in place, and it completely failed me. I will not be attending ConQuesT this year or for the foreseeable future. (I’m going to WisCon for the first time instead!) I don’t feel safe there, and ultimately, that’s why this bothers me so much. There are people who are part of that community who were actively hostile to me, and when I reported them, the message was sent loud and clear:
We don’t care about you. At all.
You have my permission to share this post on your own pages or outside Facebook.
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@Jim Henley: But the Guy Who’s Just Asking Questions was big enough to say he didn’t think I’m a liar when I say I have no idea what the people involved look like! That’s a Nice Guy! And gosh… no one but him mentioned the appearance of the people in question in over 150 comments before he busted in all white-knighting. Almost as if we were judging them by their behavior and not appearance already!
@Lauowolf: I don’t give Mr. No Shirt a free pass, but yeah, I focused more on a serial pants-remover and sexually harrasser who couldn’t keep her leg to herself. And as has been pointed out, removing pants (IMHO for any gender) is more taboo in most settings than a guy removing a shirt.
As far as the “human garbage” comment, I’ve read enough nasty Lovecraft-apologist comments in recent months that, while I felt it was bizarre and spiteful, it didn’t bother me as much as the sexual harrassment (not just by Rosen, but the person who harrassed Mark’s friend, too!). Honestly, there were so many bad things in that weekend for Mark (and others), some things caught my eye and attention more than others. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of things that don’t get as much airplay, thanks – just please keep in mind also that it doesn’t mean people are unaware or don’t care about the other events. The concomm’s overall treatment of him royally pisses me off, as a former concomm’r and volunteer at a couple of small cons – but I’ve said a lot less about that. :-/
I hear ya (and empathize).
ETA: Sorry, editing snafu. I forgot to paste this: My apologies for contributing to the impression that it’s all about the pants, because (I’d hope obviously) it is so not.
A lot of us had that feeling of utter bewilderment when we got to Mark’s description of Rosen’s behavior. It sounds like it was something genuinely new in many of our experiences, and we are a crew who’s collectively seen a lot of weird stuff. If she hadn’t been on the panel, then Bailey’s disgusting behavior would have gotten more of the spotlight. But I don’t think I should feel apologetic about having the stronger reaction to something that was more intense for Mark and much more unprecedented to me.
@Bruce Baugh: Thanks – very well said.
@JJ:
In the first part of this thread, I think that the emphasis on her taking her pants off, as opposed to the dude taking his shirt off, and as opposed to her far more egregious behavior of sexually harassing the moderator, was weird.
It make me feel uncomfortable and made me feel like I wasn’t sure what was going on – is this (perhaps unconscious) anti-fat bigotry? Or is it just a coincidence?
That you keep on parsing this position as that I’m “insisting” that “is… related to her physical appearance” – even though I’ve already explained to you that I’m not claiming certainty about what was going, and even though I’ve made that clear from my first comment – makes you seem like you’re responding to strawmen, rather than responding to what I actually write.
One thing that’s so maddening about (some, not all) microaggressions is that they’re ambiguous. If the matron seats that couple before me, even though I was here first, is that about me and my identity, or is it something else? If the counterperson is noticeably nicer to the people who he helped before me, than to me, it might be prejudice, but it might be other things. Etc, etc.
It’s usually a mistake to try and talk about these things outside of certain spaces, because the usual result is people demanding that I acknowledge that I can’t know for certain what was going on (true!), or attacking my motivations a la Jim Henley.
P.S. You mentioned before that you call out “fat-shaming or appearance-shaming” when you see it; I neglected to respond to it, but I wanted to say, thanks for doing that.
I think we may be piling on to Barry Deutsch a bit much. I do think he misjudged this community, but I can see why he would have had that concern, knowing what he did. I might have done the same. Unless he’s been around here before (which I don’t recall in a year of mostly lurking), maybe let’s cut him some slack?
@Laura Resnick: Great comments on panels, moderating, etc. I’d like to add: If all else fails, someone who “doesn’t know why they’re there” can keep from wasting people’s time by listening more than speaking, and not taking over the panel to move it to a topic they want to discuss. Sometimes the “don’t know why I’m here” panelist forgets this simple approach. And in 45 minutes, hopefully they can think of something to say or ask, however minor. 😉
This reminds me: Years ago, I had to help take over programming & pre-con guest interaction for a small con. An author submitted a nifty panel idea that obviously played to her writing, and we used it. We e-mailed her the list of panels we wanted to put her on, with descriptions, including of course hers. She was like “well if that’s your take on X, I’m not interested in being on the panel, just leave me off.” (I can’t find the e-mail, so I’m paraphrasing wildly.)
I was floored, since it was her freaking description! I was like GAAAAAH! (head desk) I tried to be polite as possible in replying to say that, well, it was her description, so I was pretty confused. She realized her error and apologized, we had the panel, and I presume it was fine. At least, she didn’t suggest any changes to the description. To this day, I’ll never forget it, and I still wonder what was up. Maybe just a brain fart, as they say. But as an in experienced con programming person, this was worse for me than “why am I here.” 😉
/rambling, sorry
@jonesnori: I’m not sure I feel it’s relevant, but he’s not completely new to File 770. I recognize the name and icon, although, to reference another thread, I’m not always good with names/faces. 😉
@NowhereMan: Thanks (?) for that report about RainFurrest. “old-fashioned regular assault” is now better, I guess. But that proves why cons need codes of conduct AND need to enforce them.
@Bruce Baugh: Yeah, we’re used to guys being shirtless and flexing, and people being incompetent with arrangements while power-tripping, and sexual/racial harassment, but women who repeatedly depants in public is a new one on us, and thus got a bigger WTF reaction.
Thanks, jonesnori.
(And this isn’t my first time here, but neither do I think of myself as a regular.)
(Am I really the only person who, while reading a story like Mark’s, googles the names of the major characters and sees photos of them?)
I do at times just because I’m shallow and want to see if my idea of just what kind of person they are is correct–this works really well with the minor puppy types; their pictures all seem to look like serial killers or supercilious toads.
Granted it’s shallow and probably wrong but then I’ve spent most of my life working at jobs where I have to deal with the public. After a while, you can usually get pretty good at reading people.
From what I’ve read, Ms Rosen strikes me as just one of those people who’s an asshole because that’s how she gets attention. I’m not sure I would have called it sexual harassment–I think it was just plain harassment to create an unpleasant scene. If he’d called her out on it on the panel, I’m sure she would have made an even bigger scene.
And, I know we’re not supposed to talk about what he should have done and what we would have done but damn–grow a back bone when it comes to your boyfriend/partner/whatever. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ and then moving off comes to mind.
Draw the line already.
Barry has given great comics recommendations ! In any case, I think it was a valid observation to throw into the mix for people to contest or consider.
Actually, Rosen while memorable was not the worse thing that jumped out at me. It was the con board doing nothing after promising to address Mark’s concerns by speaking to people directly.
And the treatment of his boyfriend; later partner was infuriating.
The weekend when taken as a whole sounded terrible. I am feel empathy for the individuals named as such are learning it in a such a public forum; the con board really did them no favors by coddling them or avoiding the situation.
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Barry’s been around a fair amount. I may have noticed this more than others because I know Barry, and therefore recognized and remembered his name when I saw it.
I didn’t check out what any of the participants looked like either, but I also didn’t get the impression that people were particularly freaked about the pants-dropping more than the leg-rubbing, merely that some found it funnier.
I also think that someone using a pseudonym to rail against people doing things “secretly” and then complaining that it’s just fine to do things under a pseudonym because you might get splashback if you did it openly has just engaged in massive goalpost-shifting, while pretending not to notice. For that matter, a panel moderator reporting someone to con management for objections behavior is not “secret complaints,” it’s responsible behavior. As is making formal harassment complaints and signing their name to them.
Incidentally, anyone who’s considering nominees for Best Graphic Novel (or whatever the comics category is) could do a lot worse than read Barry’s latest HEREVILLE volume, HOW MIRKA CAUGHT A FISH. Mirka is, as they say, not your average time-traveling, monster-fighting, Orthodox Jewish girl…
Barry Deutsch: One thing that’s so maddening about (some, not all) microaggressions is that they’re ambiguous.
I’m not saying this here to pile on, but because I think it’s important to be said and thought about.
One of the things about microaggressions which is so insidious is that the people who’ve frequently been subjected to them (and I’m speaking from experience here) tend to start seeing them in everything.
Comments 2, 6, 19, and 24 were from someone who found the de-pantsing amusing.
Comments 15, 20, 21, 30 and 50 were from people criticizing the behavior.
That’s it. Out of the first 53 comments in this thread, that’s all that was said specifically about the depantsing. The rest of the comments were about all the behavioral problems and the concom’s response (or lack thereof).
Comments 54, 56 and 57 then referred to the assault part of the behavior.
It might be advisable to consider the magnifying effect each of us perceive, due to the effect that our life experiences have on our own lenses.
Barry Deutsch has commented on file770 before. I remember being really excited the 1st time I noticed as my husband and I are big fans of his Mirka books. Our copies are frequently on loan wandering around our community.
He’s not a regular poster but has posted a few times since I began lurking here.
We might want to keep our anger where it belongs: concom not handling multiple harassment reports. Also no real apology has been made to Mark Oshiro that I’m aware of. Hiner (chair of Conquest 46) has resigned from Worldcon. That leaves 3 board members still on the Worldcon concom and we never did find a list of the Conquest 46 concom. They promise to take things seriously at Worldcon but no idea what procedures are in place. I couldn’t find a committee devoted to dealing with CoC/safety issues.
I think I may have spent too much time watching the changes at Readercon and Arisia and reading their policies and procedures. It’s warped my standards for other cons.
While everybody’s ideas have to stand on their own, mine included, the way I feel is that little is gained by looking at anything but the gestalt — the pants dropping and leg rubbing as a collective experience. Because the result of dividing them is what I’ve seen in a number of comments, going off on an unproductive tangent about trying to quantify which is worse, or if one behavior by itself is enough to justify a complaint.
ETA: Deleted the top quote since it turned out I didn’t really respond to that after all…
You said it much better than I did.
@Mike Glyer
Thanks
@All
I just read all the new comments on Mark Oshiro’s post. His post has been shared over 1,000 times. No new apologies. Good news is several of the GoH for this year’s Worldcon stopped by to make sure he knew they were available if he has any problems: Pat Cadigan, TNH, and PNH. I would not want to face the wrath of that trio.
This year’s Worldcon concom is going to be under enormous stress:
1. Puppy leaders stating they will be conceal carrying – weapons policy is not yet up
2. Harassment problems will be under major scrutiny this year thanks to blowing it with Mark Oshiro
3. Business meeting is likely to be heavily attended this year and possibly more contentious if puppy leaders and followers show to disrupt
I don’t envy them their jobs.
@Tasha – you raise a good point (well you usually do but this isn’t an exception) – this is a con that could feel even more stressful than normal for people running it. Last year’s kerfuffle is now more like trench warfare. It is a US election year and it is already even more heated than usual and some of those conflicts are partly mirrored in wider fandom.
Apart from send good psychic vibes their way, it would be nice to think of some positive make-all-the-worldcon-volunteers-etc feel happier ideas.
Hey, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve concluded that my previous concerns were misplaced.
I committed the typical mind fallacy. While I read a story about so-and-so behaving terribly, I reflexively google them to see what they look like. So long before I reached the comments, I had a good idea of what several of the principals look like.
And I thoughtlessly assumed my behavior here was typical. But it’s pretty obvious, from reading the responses I’ve gotten, that at least in this instance my behavior was atypical, and most people responded without having any idea of what the folks they were talking about looked like.
So I apologize for getting it wrong, and for digressing the thread. (I hesitated to post this comment for that reason, but decided on balance it was better to acknowledge my mistake and move on.)
Thanks to the folks who helped me see my error.
@Kurt and @Tasha, thanks for your complements about my comics; I really appreciate them.
@Mike: Point about gestalt well taken.
ETA:
@JJ: Point about “tend to start seeing them in everything” well taken, as well, although in some cases I think that point is over-applied. (But maybe not this case.)
@Barry Deutsch: Thanks for the apology and explanation, and apologies to you from me if any of my comments to you were out of line.
@Barry Deutsch
Apology accepted. Apologies are always good to do here. I hope I wasn’t too harsh towards you. If I was I apologize. Discussions on topics like this are hard as we all bring our own baggage and assumptions.
@Camestros Felapton Apart from send good psychic vibes their way, it would be nice to think of some positive make-all-the-worldcon-volunteers-etc feel happier ideas.
A special filk to be sung at the after con party? Some kind of small favor to be delivered to all the staff on day 1? Credits for the hotel equal to a cop of coffee? A File 770 certificate of thanks for service? Appreciation ribbons? A set of trading cards with the Guest of Honor pictures or caricatures?
It’s not safe to mention this sort of thing. I’m still frustrated we haven’t done a collection for the various Brackett runners for gift cards for their favorite online book outlet.
Barry Deutsch: Hey, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve concluded that my previous concerns were misplaced.
We all tend to read what other people say in the context of our own perceptions, knowledge, and experience. That’s just a human thing to do. And sometimes we end up being unfair without realizing or intending it, because of that.
Honestly, when I went back and listed the comments in which the depantsing was actually mentioned? I was utterly shocked. Because my perception was that there were way more of them, too.
It’s a really tough line to walk: recognizing when we are being subjected to microaggressions and knowing enough not to be willing to accept them or take them onboard — and starting to see microaggressions in everything, to the point where we aren’t seeing the actual situation. This is something I’ve struggled with in the past.
Thanks for the walk-back. I know that your intentions were nothing but honest and caring.
Tasha Turner: A special filk to be sung at the after con party?
The idea is to make the MAC II conrunners feel better, not worse. 😉
Whew!
@JJ
That’s why I had a list silly. We could write it for them to sing? Look over the guests and see whose going to be there whose musical and get them to sing it. Scalzi & MRK…
Pant-dropping and pant-dropping. What I have a bigger proboem with regarding Rosen is this:
1) During her panel she was actually called out from it, had to leave it, because her behaviour was not ok. This by the con administration.
2) Back (with pants), she does not avvept any fault of her own – even after having been told by the administration!
3) She, in a position of a panelist, tries to find a member of the audience to attack because off an offense she herself was guilty of.
4) Her co-panelist, knowing there was a complaint that the administration reacted to repeats the same offense Rosen was told to stop with.
In both occasions with no repercussions whatsoever. And in one case still defending his actions because “body-positive”. Has he no respect at all for the administration who deemedbthe behaviour was inappropriate? Why else would they have called Rosen of the panel to have a talk with her?
“The Phantom” wrote:
“Curt Phillips on February 22, 2016 at 6:20 pm said: “This from a person who writes here under the name “The Phantom”…”
“Well, Curt, and Laura, and rcade, why do you suppose that is? Could it be that I’ve seen the type of endless, limitless revilement visited upon those who are just a little different, who perhaps hold views that vary from the Party Line?”
Dude, we are *all* of us a little different in one way or another. I don’t care about the differences; I care about the things that make us the same. We are all people. We all have thoughts and we like to express them. We all think and care about *something*, even if what *you* think and care about isn’t the same as what *I* think and care about. We are all part of Fandom; thus we *should* be able to talk freely to each other and receive a fair hearing. Those are the things that I think we all have in common; that’s why we’re in this community. The differences really don’t matter at all, at least not to me. As for names, the name I post under is the one I was born with, and the name I’ve walked around in fandom with all my life. If you walk up to “Curt Phillips” at a convention” and say hello, you’ll be talking to me. If I walk up to someone whose badge reads “The Phantom” at a convention, I won’t have a clue if I’m talking to you or to some fan of Lee Falk (who created The Phantom in the comics) or to some schmo off the street. That’s why I question the use of pseudonyms in these postings. But if you and others feel that using them is important to you, I can certainly accept that. I don’t fully understand it, but then I don’t have to fully understand it to accept it. If you feel that you need a pseudonym to *enable* you to speak freely then that’s certainly a good thing *IF* your free speech is also honest speech. And that’s the only reason I have a problem with pseudonyms; sometimes it’s impossible to know if what I’m reading is really honest or not. If I post something that’s dishonest, I – Curt Phillips – can and ought to be held accountable for it. If “The Phantom” posts something that’s dishonest, well, how can a phantom be held accountable for anything?
Not that I think you’ve posted anything that’s dishonest; I don’t think that at all. I disagree with some of your points, but I have no reason to doubt that you’ve made them from your honest convictions. But I’m just making an assumption there. Just giving you the benefit of a doubt. I have nothing else to evaluate your words by, whereas you can find quite a lot by and about me on-line and in the fannish press to use to evaluate my writings by if you wanted to go to the trouble of looking them up. See the disconnect in this situation?
HOWEVER, if using a pseudonym is what makes the difference between saying what you want to say or saying nothing because you don’t feel safe to express yourself otherwise, then those pseudonyms are not only a good thing, they would be a necessary thing. If Fandom is about anything at all, it’s about communication, and no voice should ever be silenced out of fear. Not even the voices we might disagree with. *Especially* not those. I simply find it a little frustrating that I can’t connect the pseudonyms I read with people I might know and interact, but I guess that’s just my problem.
My apologies to all for revisiting the pseudonym topic, particularly here – where I *really* don’t want to inflict any distractions from the issue that Mark Oshiro’s posting has introduced. Please consider this a sidebar, and now that I’ve gotten it off my chest, maybe I can resist revisiting it again in the future.
“The Phantom” also wrote:
“Read back some of the comments in just this thread. I should give you my address, in case y’all might want to drop by?”
No, but if I met you at a convention I might want to get to know you, or maybe buy you a beer and talk with you a while. Or maybe not. Maybe we wouldn’t get along in person. But then we don’t have even the option of finding that out as long as one of us is a phantom…
Well, Curt, and Laura, and rcade, why do you suppose that is? Could it be that I’ve seen the type of endless, limitless revilement visited upon those who are just a little different, who perhaps hold views that vary from the Party Line?
Oh woe to your manly self. I suppose that gun you carry with you everywhere you go can’t protect you from the terrible calamity of having the stupid things you post on the internet criticized. Seriously, you aren’t criticized because you are “just a little different”. You are criticized because you say incredibly stupid and often racist things.
You misunderstood the point of my comment. I don’t question your choice to post under a pseudonym. A lot of people here do that, and to me that’s no better or worse than me using my real name.
I question you insulting someone as “gutless” for doing something secretly while you’re pseudonymous.
You called a convention as a “gathering of friends” in your defense of the no-pants panelist. This is not an accurate description. People at a con should recognize that they’re not only among friends and act accordingly. You can get away with stuff among your friends that wouldn’t be appropriate in a group of people you don’t know well (or at all). When you’re at a public event that includes your friends and a lot of newcomers, you need to be more mindful of how your actions might be perceived.
Also, some people at any con might be dangerous, so assuming everybody is a friend can make you vulnerable. A fan at a con once threw a cup of warm vomit in Alan Dean Foster’s face. Not everybody in fandom is a friend.
The last time I attended ConQuesT, which as I recall was 6 or 7 years ago, RWB and SR displayed the same behaviour. It weirded me out, as I am not from the area and do not know them. Watching them was uncomfortable.
I’ve not been back since, but that is due to time and travel issues.
@Barry Deutsch
Something else I should have mentioned earlier in the thread is that we’ve discussed this incident in two other threads prior to this post going up. We discussed much more than the pants. I’d say half of our discussion happened on the day Mark Oshiro’s post went up on FB and the following day’s regular pixel scrolls. It was brought up in the comments. This thread may not give the most balanced view of our discussion on the topic.
@Curt Phillips
We have months of background with The Phantom which reflects in how we are responding to them here.
@rcade I question you insulting someone as “gutless” for doing something secretly while you’re pseudonymous.
This is certainly the point I was clumsily trying to make.
Oddly enough, “body positive” is not the same thing as “it’s okay to rub your body parts on unwilling people.”
As someone who will be volunteering at MidAmericon II and filking as well, thanks! File770 has much to answer for, er, be congratulated about when it comes to filk lyrics… 😉
Curt Phillips on February 23, 2016 at 5:52 am said: “Dude, we are *all* of us a little different in one way or another.”
Yeah, no. Not so much.
However, I’d like to bring your attention back to the point, because you’re talking about ‘safety to hold a different view’ in the middle of a witch hunt.
I have a blog that goes back to 2005, I have a Yahoo email list still active from the 1990s, and I used to have a Geocities site from back in the mists of time but they shut it down ages ago. If you can’t click on my name to go see who you’re talking to, you don’t have any business complaining about ‘accountability’.
“If you walk up to “Curt Phillips” at a convention” and say hello, you’ll be talking to me. If I walk up to someone whose badge reads “The Phantom” at a convention, I won’t have a clue if I’m talking to you or to some fan of Lee Falk…”
It won’t be me. The Phantom does not appear in Meatspace, that’s the point of a pseudonym. Why? Let me demonstrate:
Aaron on February 23, 2016 at 6:04 am said: Oh woe to your manly self. I suppose that gun you carry with you everywhere you go can’t protect you from the terrible calamity of having the stupid things you post on the internet criticized. Seriously, you aren’t criticized because you are “just a little different”. You are criticized because you say incredibly stupid and often racist things.
Yeah, I really want to meet this guy at a convention. Seems like big fun.
Imagine getting that kind of mau-mau in person, by surprise, because of mentioning something in passing that seems self-evident. Fuck yes, I have a pseudonym.
And that is why I sympathize with Selina Rosen, who was brave enough to let it all hang out on a panel called “Are Fans More Open Minded?”, for ghod’s sake. Which she was obviously put on because she does over the top shit like pull off her pants. Which is a traditional clown act, and everybody here knows it.
So she did what she was put there to do, and now she’s a sex criminal because some pissy hipster said so, and then went on about the fricking Aztecs in the next paragraph? That’s self-refuting. I’m not going along with that band wagon.
I don’t know her, I didn’t see what went on, but this witch hunt part right here, this shit I recognize. Also the geek-shaming and weirdo-baiting, seen that before too. Luckily I write under a PSEUDONYM, so “Aaron” and “JJ” and a few more can’t call me at 3AM to play ding-dong-ditch.
I will also call bullshit on you guys yelling at Barry Deutsch, even though he backed off on his own and possibly does not want me on his side. We would not be having this conversation if it was Tricia Helfer whipping off her pants at a con instead of Selina Rosen. And you all know it. Self evident truth, going to get flamed because ‘how DARE you!!!’, you are all utterly full of it.
Behold, the tolerance of fandom. I’d chew off an arm to avoid being stuck in a room with this kind of tolerance.
I have something to add.
Yes, I primarily commented on the pants-removal. Of everything in the account, that was the one that startled me the most. “Selina had taken off her pants again.” Sadly everything else just kind of got a sad/angry head shake from me.
I honestly don’t know what she thought she was doing in bumping/rubbing Mark’s leg with her own. Every time he looked at her, she made a face. Was she trying to make him uncomfortable, or did she think she was commiserating with him? No idea, and frankly it doesn’t matter.
I think the behaviour of Liz Gooch was disgusting. Her actions during the dance and at the elevator later in the con were objectifying and gross.
Finally, and yes, the part that should get the most attention, is there were formal complaint procedures, they were followed, recommendations were made, Kristina Hiner acknowledged the recommendations, and then…..did nothing. As I said in a prior Scroll, “ignore it and hope it goes away”. I don’t have a big enough word for the level of disdain and disrespect and incompetence that shows.
@Barry Deutsch
You have now educated me about the typical mind fallacy and I thank you for that.
It’s worth mentioning that we could probably do a whole thread about each of the terrible things that Mark experienced at the con–we’ve been talking about Rosen, but we could spend just as much time on the Lovecraft defender, people shouting homophobic slurs in public…it is an all you can eat buffet of shitty behavior, here. 🙂
@John Seavey:
Topped off with a great big giant helping of The People In Charge Of This Not Happening Were Told And Did Nothing.
I can feel a little for the guy who shouted the homophobic slur, and hope that he found it a teachable moment.
Not the same degree, but I’ve noticed that I tend to use the Lord’s name in vain quite a bit. Not as angry swears, but often as an expression of surprise. I am also in a choir that sings religious music and performs in churches. One evening I was suddenly struck by the fact that I had probably exclaimed “Jesus!” in an approving fashion to the chorister beside me (who had just sung an extremely difficult piece near-flawlessly). In a cathedral.
oops
I hope that man at the viewing party learned that casual words can be hurtful, and to watch his language around strangers and acquaintances. (Intent isn’t magic.) His following actions, however, aren’t a good sign. Sending a friend out to insist to the people you hurt that you’re “really a nice guy” is, well, incredibly self-centred.
This whole thing is very sad.
I am curious about the disconnect between a formal complaint process with signed forms and everything and then no action or feedback …
How does this happen ? Are there not formal resolution procedures that must be followed by the board ? At the very least if nothing is done, that should have been acknowledged back to the reporter of the incident.
Banning was not being requested by the complaint just a discussion.
Though that brings to my mind that the person receiving the harassment should *not* have to have a say in the actions taken by the board. That is an unfair burden on the reporter.
@ Barry Deutsch
Hmm. Well I had a great response to here, all reasonable and acknowledging your good points while disagreeing and … yeah. So, I’m glad I was storing everything up and reading to the end of the comments; thank you for being so reasonable about it, and I know just what you mean about micro-aggressions being so ambiguous, and thank you for bringing it up.
Regarding the depantsing I suspect my song contributed a disproportionate number of mentions. Oops.
The Phantom wrote:
I see that you understand why people sometimes use pseuds on the net. And given that the disagreement your receive on File 770 has made you so worried about your own safety (in the complete absence–as far as I have been able to see; feel free to set me straight if I have missed something–of death or rape threats, or people calling your work and trying to get you fired) I would guess you understand why women and minorities and people who actually do death threats are more likely to do that, right?
However, I’m not seeing much difference between your discomfort prompted entirely by argumentative but not threatening text and Oshiro’s discomfort prompted by physical stroking from someone sitting right there making faces. (Well, I am seeing a difference, but it’s not really to your credit, so let’s pass over it.)
Um yes, given that Correia and Torgersen started the slagging, apparently as a market stance, I don’t see that as either suprising or bad.
Remember that all Oshiro originally asked for was for the concom to take Rosen aside and have a private word with her, thus preserving her dignity while addressing the actual problem soon enough that she would be able to remember what she did. You mention having a disability that makes you behave inappropriately sometimes–isn’t a quiet word in private that respects your dignity rather than a public dressing down during the panel what you would want in Rosen’s place? It’s surely what I would have wanted.
And furthermore even after the con, all Oshiro wanted was for the concom to have a private word with Rosen. Again–that is what I would want in Rosen’s place if I had done something inappropriate and made people uncomfortable. Oshiro’s actions throughout are consistent with someone trying to be as kind as possible to someone who didn’t know what they were doing was wrong. So I don’t see that your complain has any grounds at all.
@Tasha
Ah, I had missed that Oshiro was the one who texted the concom. Thank you for setting me straight.
More generally I agree with Mike that “ugly souls” may be getting a bit carried away here. Thank you, lurkertype, for amending it.
@JJ
Well, I’d like to point to the claim on Bailey’s part that criticizing Lovecraft makes one “human garbage”–a claim Bailey says he doesn’t remember making, but still. That claim would also be pretty egregious, in my opinion–a hurtful thing to say that appears to be directed specifically against those fans of color who have objected to Lovecraft being the face of the World Fantasy Awards. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of bad behavior to go around.
I think “took off her pants” is getting a lot of screen time because it is quick to type, sounds funny, and obviously transgresses social norms, rather than because Rosen’s was the only behavior worthy of note.
This is one of the main reasons why I stopped going to cons. Why oh why would I *pay* *money* to go to a panel of people who are there just for the comped membership when I had heard the *exact* *same* *people* rant or mansplain about the exact same topics at a party the previous weekend?!?
In a non-SF/F situation (work event) in which I was thrust into moderating a panel where one of the panelists didn’t show up and the other one refused REFUSED to discuss the topic he had signed up for and all he could do was whine that MIT – where he was not a student (he had his own business elsewhere) – wouldn’t buy him this $10,000 camera lens he wanted. He was supposed to be talking about the Occupy movement’s use of Twitter and social media. No matter how many times I or the audience tried to bring him to the topic at hand, he refused to talk about it. He spent 20 minutes talking about the difference between U.S. and U.K. screen sizes. Zero minutes talking about social media for activists. Most of us eventually left the room. There were people from really cash-strapped nonprofit organizations who had paid good money for this conference, and this privileged twit offended them to the core.
I have been to too many cons where it’s the same thing. It’s one thing if the audience brings you there. It’s entirely another when the panelist(s) is like “I don’t know or care about the topic.” You have insulted me and wasted my time.
Trigger warning: sexual and racist abuse
We definetly haven’t spent enough time over the abuse Baize received from Liz Gooch all weekend. Her behavior was deplorable.
This is not how you treat someone. Bystanders should step in. This is disgusting. It’s hard to read the description. I really have no polite way to talk about my thoughts on this. My rage is just too high. It’s also triggering for me as I was bullied in this manner in public school 7-9th grade. It’s something I prefer not to think about. The cool guy who joked about finding me sexy and touching me when he had an audience. I’d hoped others would tackle it.
This brings us to the concom. Which appears to have no policy on what to do once you’ve had an incident report because never really expected to need one?. Yet another concom whose paid no attention to the various harassment scandals over the last few years and the great resources and templates and policies created to help other conventions over the last few years not make the same mistakes.
We have 2 people (Keri O’Brien and Jesi Pershing) take a report and behave in a supportive manner at the time. One of those people is the vice-chair (Keri O’Brien). From what little I can gather the reports were handed off to the chair and/or board to be dealt with. Keri O’Brien says there were miscommunication problems. Neither the board nor chair has made any comments throughout. Nothing was done for 9 months. Jesi Pershing resigns:
Mark Oshiro goes public.
The Chair/Hiner quietly resigns as Local Liaison of Worldcon 2016. We still have heard nothing from the concom or the board.
I believe the concom and board owe apologies to everyone involved. Had they done as Mark Oshiro asked this would not be news. This would have been a private matter (unless any of the people in the incident reports decided to go public).
I’m waiting for the explanation of the miscommunications which led to this scandal and how your going to avoid it in the future. I’m waiting for apologies. I’m waiting for the concom and board to take responsibility. I hope it doesn’t take another 9 months to do so. I understand you are people under a lot of stress and mistakes happen. But one should own up to their mistakes and take responsibility.
Tasha – there is so much disgusting about this whole weekend. To my mind the harassment of Baize and the badly programmed Erasure panel are the worst things mentioned, the one for individual behavior and the other for both individual and corporate, in that the Programming team should have known better.
The failure to respond after the fact is another corporate failure, but having seen cons with the best of wills fall down on this, I have hopes that they may still be able to redeem themselves at least somewhat.The best policy will fail if procedures are not good. Single point of failure is just one common mode of failure.
I do hope they come back and deal with it, for everyone’s sake. The public airing of this makes that more likely.
We all get that. What we’re confused about is that this seems to mean, according to your own statements, that you’re a coward and you hate yourself. We’re just worried about you, is all. 🙂
I will not snark at The Phantom.
I will not snark at The Phantom.
Snark accomplishes nothing and derails from an important discussion.
I will sit back and listen instead.
Others will make the points I wanted to make anyway.
(Litany Against Snark, anyone skillful?)