Larry Correia won’t be one of the guests when the Origins Game Fair takes place June 13-17 in Columbus, OH. Shortly after publicizing that Correia had been added to the lineup, John Ward, the event’s Executive Director, received so many negative social media comments (on Twitter, particularly) that he announced Correia’s invitation has been rescinded.
Ward wrote on Facebook:
I want to discuss our invitation to Larry Correia a guest at Origins. By all counts he is a very talented author.
Unfortunately, when he was recommended I was unaware of some personal views that are specifically unaligned with the philosophy of our show and the organization.
I want to thank those of you that brought this error to our attention. Origins is an inclusive and family friendly event. We focus on fun and gaming, not discourse and controversy.
I felt it necessary to recend [sic] his invitation to participate in the show. I apologize again to those of you that were looking forward to seeing him at Origins.
John Ward, Executive Director
Many of the critical tweets mentioned Correia’s history with Sad Puppies.
Correia subsequently responded on Facebook with a statement that begins:
So I’m no longer the writer guest of honor at origins. My invitation has been revoked. It was the usual nonsense. Right after I was announced as a guest some people started throwing a temper tantrum about my alleged racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever (of course, with zero proof or actual examples), and the guy in charge (John Ward) immediately folded. He didn’t even talk to me first. He just accepted the slander and gave me the boot in an email that talked about how “inclusive” they are….
His statement also says “none of these people can ever find any actual examples of me being sexist, racist, or homophobic.”
BEFORE AND AFTER:
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What do you believe is this better method of discourse that will sway Saul to become an apostle?
It’s not so much the method but the decision to remain engaged. Otherwise, if something isn’t working, try something else.
@David W
And the relevance of the vote to leave the EU – which is not related to Islam except as much as some EU citizens happen to be Muslims – to Islam is what, exactly?
Do you actually know anything about Europe, or are you just calling out a few canards you’ve heard?
@Mark
It’s related to the Brexit rejection of having the U.K. remain open to further immigration under E.U. laws, which includes the immigration of Muslims. Given the terrorist attacks (as well as planned ones) that have taken place in Britain that were carried out by jihadis, it’s a factor in said vote.
O my word this thread is alive again.
They stabbed it with their steely files, but they still can’t scroll the beast.
Man, come on. I had a pixely night and I hate the f’n Eagles, man.
@johnstick
Writer, I giggled at it. 🙂
@David W
And how does that invalidate my comment that people who believe that Muslims can’t be British are Islamophobes?
Beyond that, you’re not actually proving that that attitude exists in any great numbers. It’s an attitude even more extreme than just racism or Islamophobia. Look at the numbers for political parties that espouse that extreme position in Britain – they’re tiny. A Tory MP claiming it would be in serious trouble. Even the Leave campaign with their dogwhistle racism didn’t take that position – although some of their supporters certainly did.
Stop trying to claim that it’s anything other than a fringe position in Britain in some sort of attempt to cover for those in the US who want to perpetuate it.
@ David W.,
Muslims are generally a well respected part of British society; they tend to come from parts of the old Empire, after all, and often these families have lived in the UK for decades if not generations.
Ans as someone who lives in the UK and experienced the the Brexit rhetoric, religion was never a particularly big issue in the debates or the media.
It was indeed a lot about immigration – but it was mostly about numbers, and that largely meant it was about all those horrible Europeans, in particular Eastern Europeans (who are often Christian of some denomination or other), who come to the UK and supposedly both a) steal jobs and b) lay heavily on the welfare system and in particular the NHS, at the same time. So the point was to leave the EU so as to allow the UK to control immigration to exclude those unwanted Europeans, and instead be able to allow members of the former British empire – such as people from Pakistan or Bangladesh, who tend to be muslims.
In other words, the rhetoric mainly avoided the topic of religion. But the result in essence is for immigration of muslims from the former Empire, and against immigration of more-likely Christians from continental Europe – rather than the opposite.
See for example this article in The Independent.
Well, I guess Brexit also was about not letting in christians? I’m thinking of the christian terror attacks carried out in Britain. Such as when Darren Osborne drove a van into muslim worshippers. Perhaps Brexit was about not letting in catholics after New IRA sent a series of bombs?
If you want to use terrorist attacks as an argument.
British Filer reporting in:
^What Mark said.
Are there any Filers who voted for Brexit who care to chime in? Data points just don’t write themselves.
And Anti-Catholic prejudice had nothing whatever to do with The Troubles in Ireland…
Honestly, it seems to me that anyone who can say with a straight face to people pointing out parallels in Catholic prejudice (now accepted as nonsensical by the mainstream) vs. Islamic prejudice (Still very sadly mainstream) that terrorism by small minorities that shared the religion weren’t a part of the factors the last time around really wasn’t listening.
@David W.–
Yeah, yeah. Every generation of nativists xenophobes has reasons why this time it’s different. It took damned near two centuries for anti-Catholic bigotry to die as a significant factor in this country, it it wasn’t because Catholics were doing anything that much different from their neighbors.
Fenians, Molly Maguires, anarchists, the Mafia, the IRA. All real things used to demonize American Catholics. That’s a list rather myopically focused on my own ethnicities, and even for that it’s not really complete.
Every generation of nativists thinks their bigotries are objective judgments of real concerns. These immigrants, this time, are different, we’re always told.
Because encouraging bigots to believe their bigotry is rational and acceptable will totally send the right message, right?
David, change the ethnic identifiers and it becomes seriously hard to tell the difference between the nativist rhetoric of the 19-teens and 20s, and today’s.
@David W.
How exactly is that going to help you with the fact that the extreme position you were talking about is a fringe one in Britain? The onus to prove it is mainstream enough to even be “fraught” is on you as far as I’m concerned.
(Not to mention that, you know, it’s clearly Islamophobic, which was the original point)
(Note that nothing I’m saying should be taken as denying that Britain harbours racism and prejudice and that it’s as serious an issue for us as it is in the US, simply that the position David described is extreme even among the right, being held fully only by tiny fringe orgs such as the EDL or Britain First. It would be “fraught” within UKIP who oscillate between trying for the mainstream and aiming at the fringe, and beyond the pale for a Tory party candidate)
I did not vote for Brexit, but my area went for it by about 90%, so I am, in fact, actually pretty familiar with the arguments, even beyond any British person paying attention to what was on the news, which was plenty. The issue was European immigration, specifically Eastern Europe. I had many, many leaflets come through my door scaremongering about how the entire population of Bulgaria was going to move to my small rural town any minute now. I heard “jokes” in my local Co-op about how the small Polish population living in a neighbouring town made it not really a British town. Islam being the issue would have required all the people voting for Brexit to be complete bloody morons given the demographics of Europe. I never heard or saw anyone in my area making that argument.
But please do try to move the goalposts so you don’t have to listen to the actual British people in this thread.
Also, ^what Mark said.
@Lenora Rose
There are parallels, but there’s never an exact parallel. Anti-Catholic prejudice based on a loyalty to the Pope over one’s country was a real thing, even when John F. Kennedy because the first elected Catholic President in 1960. We’re obviously still coping with anti-Muslim prejudice today, witness the ofttimes reference to Barack HUSSEIN Obama by many. Assimilation is a process that takes time as well as understanding, and as I mentioned earlier there still a significant population of blacks in the U.S. that are stigmatized because of their race. You can’t say the same about Catholics as a group, who are no longer considered potentially subversive.
I’m not arguing that there’s a good reason for prejudice against Muslims, but those that do harbor prejudices do have their reasons, and addressing those reasons is necessary.
Islam being the issue would have required all the people voting for Brexit to be complete bloody morons given the demographics of Europe.
From the NYRB review I linked to earlier:
No? There is no reason to be prejudiced. Just as there is no reason to be bigoted, sexist or homophobic. You can’t address reasons that do not exist.
However, you can have a discussion why it is wrong to be prejudiced, a bigot or a homophobe. And discuss the reasons why you should not be and why it is wrong to utter bigotry. But you shouldn’t accept people defending their bigotry. It should be confronted, not accepted as one opinion among others.
@David W.
I must have missed the follow-up “… and this is why they voted for Brexit”, yes? Because what I was talking about, in the bit you quoted, was Brexit.
Hampus, what if one of the reasons for not liking Islam was this a genuine problem that was directly linked to the faith? I’m old enough to remember similar issues with Catholic marriages in the U.S. where the church would not recognize a civil divorce, but at least it didn’t have quasi-legal powers over financial settlements.
@David W
You need to provide evidence that actually links into to the claims you have made. The attitude you described is beyond just “a threat”, it’s a belief that all of Islam is so incompatible with being British that no Muslim should be allowed to be British.
Ditto your claims about Brexit being fueled by attitudes towards Islam – a mere 4.4% of the British population and one that would be less affected by Brexit then many other groups.
Or you could address the fact that no matter what the prevalence of that view, it is clearly Islamophobic.
(Also, ^what Meredith said.)
David, change the ethnic identifiers and it becomes seriously hard to tell the difference between the nativist rhetoric of the 19-teens and 20s, and today’s.
Or that of the early 19th century, and today’s. It’s the same rhetoric, with only the names changed. Those of us who were paying attention in US history, when we were in school, have noticed.
If I understand, your argument is the same as that we shouldn’t like judaism because of halachic law where a man can refuse a woman divorce? And what kind of ridiculous quote is this?
Do you really think women muslims in britain have fewer rights than women in Saudi-Ariabia or Afghanistan? For real? If not, why are you adding such stupid quotes? And do you believe that all muslims in UK are affected by sharia courts? If not, why are you using this as an argument against all muslims?
David, change the ethnic identifiers and it becomes seriously hard to tell the difference between the nativist rhetoric of the 19-teens and 20s, and today’s.
There isn’t. But considering what happened with the partition of British India in 1948, I’m happy the outcome(s) in the U.S. has been far more peaceful. Sometimes differences can’t be overcome.
David W, it has been demonstrated from time immemorial that you can’t logically argue someone out of a position that they hold for emotional reasons.
In other words, no amount of facts will sway a bigot. Sometimes (and only sometimes!) an emotional appeal will. (Having a friend or family member that turns out to be a member of a despised or stigmatized minority, for example.)
Hampus, according to the article I cited it’s the case that Muslim women don’t have the same standing under law in sharia courts than they have in British civil courts. Make of that what you will.
In other words, no amount of facts will sway a bigot. Sometimes (and only sometimes!) an emotional appeal will.
I think it’s more a longer process of discovery rather than a Eureka! moment. It took decades for women to win the right to vote in the U.S. in 1920, and a lot of long, patient work went in to making that happen.
@David W
Sharia courts have no standing in British law. What point are you trying to make?
I’m starting to smell a gish gallop. Unless you start addressing points previously made to you then I’m writing you off.
According to the article you cite, sharia courts have no legal rights at all in Britain, so that is hardly relevant. British law always have precedence. And brittish law is the only one that can recognize marriage or divorce. All decisions made by a sharia court have to be accepted by an ordinary family court to get legal status.
And there also exists jewish halachic courts in the same way as there exists muslim sharia courts. These courts are only for arbitration. They are not a legal system.
https://fullfact.org/law/uks-sharia-courts/
@David W.
Sharia “courts” have no standing in British law; they’re not a court at all. They’re only for religious matters, and they have no inherent power other than religious and social pressure.
In other words, ^what Mark (and Hampus) said.
@Mark
Sharia courts have no standing in British law. What point are you trying to make?
They do have the standing to arbitrate disputes, but do not trump the British court system. But the point I was making in the context of there being misgivings about Islam because of the perceived unequal treatment of women under sharia law.
@Mark – as to my broader point, it’s about the simple value of discussion, which is something I think Filers are supportive of by nature.
@David W.
Sharia law isn’t British law. They have exactly the same standing to arbitrate disputes as any other non-legal body: Only that which is granted to them by the petitioners. British Muslim women have exactly the same legal rights as everyone else.
Oh, and you never replied to me pointing out that your quoted article had nothing to do with Brexit. We value discussion, but good discussion requires people to acknowledge when they were wrong or made a bad argument instead of moving onto the next point and hoping no-one will notice.
And the same against Judaism then, I expect. Please note that Sharia in the Quran is much different than Sharia law as used in Sharia courts. Just as halachic law is not the same as the laws in the torah and even then something that jews mostly do not follow.
It is so weird with people making up special rules of why Islam is dangerous because of Sharia and can’t understand that just as in judaism, not all muslims are interested in these courts or their interpretational laws. That neither Islam nor judaism are tied to these laws or court systems.
@David W
Nope, that wasn’t your point. You didn’t just want discussion, you wanted discussion of an obviously Islamophobic position as if it were some sort of valid point, where we would have to debate both sides without calling an Islamophobe an Islamophobe. Nothing you’ve brought up makes it any less Islamophobic, or any less extreme.
(ETA: ^what Meredith said.)
Ha! I’d just come back to add that discussion about whether someone can be considered/is capable of being fully [human/nationality/whatever] isn’t a discussion worth having because it legitimises it as being something that is debatable, but instead I can just say:
^Mark said it better.
@Meredith
Have we done that joke enough to make it a tradition already?
@Meredith,
Point taken about noting points. Other than that poll I cited I don’t have conclusive evidence about the Brexit vote being primarily about Islam. All said poll shows is that there’s some general misgivings about Islam in the U.K.
@Mark,
I was bringing up those positions as examples of things that someone could claim were reasons they had for being suspicious of Muslims. I know of people who believe in such things, and that they need to be engaged with if you want to counter such sentiments. Doing what WisCon did with Elizabeth Moon is fine for WisCon, but it’s not feasible for the whole country.
Really, Americans shouldn’t try and drag Europe into things to support their arguments unless they’re really, really sure the local Europeans will agree with it. We have our problems, but they’re not necessarily the same problems, and we will 100% gang up on you if you’re wrong.
Anyway, should the USA Filer contingent wish to get back to the America-focused debate, I think we’ve thoroughly covered the European aspect.
@Mark
I think the rule is “do it twice and it’s a tradition” so yep, we’re good to go!
@Hampus
You are also making excellent if different points and I do not wish you to feel left out. *fistbump*
David W. on May 21, 2018 at 11:36 am said:
David, *I* have exactly the same standing to arbitrate disputes in Britain. If a bunch of people agree to allow me to arbitrate between them, I have that much standing. And I’m not a UK citizen, don’t live there, and last visited in 2016.
How about you use your concern trolling to address the unequal treatment of women under US law? We’re dying in droves here compared to many Islamic countries. Our health is worse. Our babies die at higher rates. We’ve never even had a woman as head of state.
I can’t see that the whole country has banished Elizabeth Moon, so not sure why this straw man is brought up.
Ctein, Just a brief note. Looking back, I can see how it could be easily interpreted that I was directing my last comment about academic terms towards you, but I meant it is as a general comment about academic language in everyday debate, which I should note is often not easily separable from certain forms of activist communities who both draw on those forms of language and often originate them (Think about someone like W.E.B. Du Bois who has a foot in both camps). I think your pragmatic approach certainly has a lot of value, but I also think that these sorts of fights are always going to have messy linguistic dimensions to them. (This could be longer, but I’ll leave it there.) I’m also glad that my posting was of some use. To be honest, I was a bit concerned that my own language might have alienated some, and I suspect I would have written something more in the spirit of what you discussed if I were to write it today.
The level of anti-Catholic bigotry in this country is often underestimated, and has a strong connection to similar views in England. (Milton for instance exempted Catholics from the right to free speech.) The Maria Monk incident gives some sense of the extremes that that bigotry could take. Monk wrote a sensationalist description of living in a monastery, which was on the face of it, complete nonsense. At this point, it’s almost comic reading, but the book led to mob violence and the destruction of a couple monasteries.
The fundamental problem with the position taken by David W is that is fundamentally built on stereotyping, and reducing the immense complexities, conflicts, and contradictions of a belief system held by billions of people into a monolithic structure. There are multiple versions of Sharia law structures for instance, which never gets mentioned whenever Sharia is mentioned, and very different ways that the law is implemented in different countries.
*fistbumps Meredith*
@David W
So, you’re back at the same place you started? That’s an excellent demonstration of the level of discussion you want to see.
Like Meredith (^^^) I see no benefit to continuing this little Euro road trip.
@Hampus
It’s just to make clear that the debate continues elsewhere, whether it takes place at WisCon or not.
Yes, we are actually debating here, so I do not think anyone has missed this. Also, racefail was not a small thing. It was debated everywhere.
I assume you’re referring to Racefail 2009. I read the original post from Jay Lake on his LJ at the time that started that all off. Poor Jay did not deserve all the shit that came his way afterwards.
I’m not going to gish gallop with you. There have been too many gish gallops already lately. But I actually used the wrong name. I remembered Moon being involved there (in a bad way), but that was actually a year before.