Darrell Schweitzer released the program for the 2016 World Fantasy Convention and promptly came under a hail of criticism from writers.
Much of it was directed at a program title found to be offensive – “Spicy Oriental Zeppelin Stories.” During the afternoon the item was renamed “Outrageous Aviation Stories, Flying Pulp Oddities.”
Other Twitter users complained that women are underrepresented in the overall count of writers mentioned by name in panel topics, as are fantasy works written less than 20 years ago.
Sarah Pinsker discussed her concerns in a series of tweets, now collected on Storify.
Here are some of the highlights of the conversation.
SARAH PINSKER
He also said he'd get rid of "perversely alluring" freaks, and attribute Victor LaValle's book to him.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
He wouldn't listen at all when I pointed out there were more mentions of Lovecraft in the program than all women or works by women COMBINED.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
He explained that "Spicy Oriental Zeppelins" was a fan in-joke, and I obviously didn't get it. I said it was racist & insulting to nominees.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
+ @kijjohnson and @UrsulaV have written amazing award winning animal fantasy in the last few years. +
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
+ he said "Watership Down is recent compared to Aesop and Chaucer." AESOP AND CHAUCER. The modern field doesn't stand a chance.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
I tried giving him a chance. I wrote to him privately when I saw the programming draft and said "please change this." He agreed to some but+
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
+he also said "nobody has complained." WITH ME IN FRONT OF HIM COMPLAINING. I tried. I'd rather work with than rant on Twitter.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
But not one of the changes he promised is on the new list, so I'm not going to be quiet. It's an awful list, and WFC should be ashamed.
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
But how much slack do you cut a con when they do this? The private FB group is full of excitement over this program. Nobody said "wait."
— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) August 1, 2016
KEN LIU
https://twitter.com/kyliu99/status/760221655532732417
CARL ENGLE-LAIRD
World Fantasy Convention less interested in women than in Flying Beasts That Aren't Dragons.
— Carl Engle-Laird (@EngleLaird) August 1, 2016
LIZ BOURKE
I have seen the World Fantasy Con 2016 programming. It is a flaming rubbish heap of profound, profound ignorance and disrespect.
— Liz Bourke (@hawkwing_lb) August 1, 2016
HEATHER CLITHEROE
Wow. The World Fantasy con program is shockingly offensive and filled with outdated references.
— Heather Clitheroe (@lectio) August 1, 2016
JAYM GATES
World Fantasy Con San Diego was one of the worst weekends of my life. Sounds like they're committed to keeping the problems alive and well.
— Jaym Gates (@jaymgates) August 1, 2016
GREG VAN EEKHOUT
"Spicy Oriental Zeppelin Stories"?That we even have to point this out… #wfc2016
— Greg van Eekhout (@gregvaneekhout) August 1, 2016
JOHN SCALZI
Oh, World Fantasy Convention. I'm sure giving a panel the title "Spicy Oriental Zeppelins" seemed a fine idea at the time, didn't it.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) August 1, 2016
So the fellow who named the panel "Spicy Oriental Zeppelins" said it was a fannish joke? There's one google ref to it ever. By him. In 1998.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) August 1, 2016
DAVE PROBERT
Play the World Fantasy Con programme drinking game. Down your drink at every mention of HP Lovecraft. You'll be dead drunk before in no time
— Dave Probert (@GeekPlanetDave) August 1, 2016
ANN LECKIE
The Offensive Prize goes to the "Spicy" panel, but "Atheist Fantasy" gets the coveted Are They Smoking Something trophy.
— Ann Leckie ? (@ann_leckie) August 1, 2016
Oh, no, you know what? I think there's a more offensive one than the Spicy one. The judges may have to re-award that.
— Ann Leckie ? (@ann_leckie) August 1, 2016
DAVID MACK
So … the #wfc2016 program. JFC, why can't the F/SF community seem to make it through a week without lighting a new dumpster fire? *sigh*
— David Mack (@DavidAlanMack) August 1, 2016
DONGWON SONG
@anniebellet haha come hang! We can sit in the bar and play games and eat spicy oriental zeppelins.
— dongwon (@dongwon) August 1, 2016
WESLEY CHU
So. There was a WFC panel called Spicy Oriental Zepplins? Shoot, who outed my stripper name?
— Wesley Chu (@wes_chu) August 1, 2016
KAMERON HURLEY
Zeppelins clearly taste like chicken. Spicy chicken. Zeppelin chicken. I WILL BROOK NO ARGUMENT FROM THE YOUTHS https://t.co/Maw9JYR8NR
— Kameron Hurley (@KameronHurley) August 1, 2016
WHY ARE YOU ALL AGAINST DUNE NOW KIDS THESE DAYS MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS https://t.co/SDuWCwE9yX
— Kameron Hurley (@KameronHurley) August 1, 2016
ANDREA PHILLIPS
And when I say "like me," I mean: people interested in works by women, works by people of color, works written in the last, oh, 20 years.
— Andrea Phillips (@andrhia) August 1, 2016
And in the meantime Justin Landon has been tweeting suggested revisions to make the problematic items workable – or snarkier, depending on how they struck him….
JUSTIN LANDON
Instead of FREAKS, how about we do this instead? Number 7 WFC panel.. pic.twitter.com/EI8OnsNb8O
— Justin (@jdiddyesquire) August 1, 2016
SWM isn’t a racial slur.
But “whitesplain” kinda is.
JJ:
You know, even if they are friends with him (which I have no idea of how you know), I prefer to discuss what they say instead of them as people. And do actually believe that they can speak for themselves, even if they might be friends with him.
@JJ
Color me shocked
Oh lookie it’s @Bill to mansplain to me
Whitesplain: white people explaining to PoC why PoC are wrong about PoC issues using words such as PC and overly sensitive to downplay PoC feelings
It’s like all the old grumpy straight white men are here today to be examples of how racism is alive and well in SFF. No my statement isn’t racist even if one of you doesn’t fit the descriptor – systemic racism, unconscious bias, and asshats come in all races, sexes, sexual orientation.
JJ on August 5, 2016 at 2:14 pm said: Oh, lookie! Lee Weinstein, Robert Whitaker Sirignano, and Milt Stevens are all good buddies with Darrell Schweitzer! Why doesn’t that surprise me?
Why don’t you ask your buddy Darrell to come over here and speak for himself, instead of you all engaging in a bunch of dissembling and disingenuous behavior on his behalf?
Guess again. I’ve never even met Darrell Schweitzer. However, I sympathize with anyone who donates quite a lot of their time for the common good and gets nothing but a ration of shit for their efforts.
You used “white”, in its racial meaning, as an insulting term. Is there any other context in which you could do that and it wouldn’t be racist?
Are people still arguing on this level? 🙁 I thought society had come a bit longer.
If you are part of the people in default privilege then it’s not… You know this is 101 stuff you can look up using Google. Use, don’t use, learn, educate yourself, or look foolish. It’s up to you.
Hampus Eckerman: You know, even if they are friends with him (which I have no idea of how you know), I prefer to discuss what they say instead of them as people. And do actually believe that they can speak for themselves, even if they might be friends with him.
Sure, they might be able to do that. But that isn’t what they’re doing. They’re all just repeating the same tired excuses that TMP already beat to death earlier in the thread.
I thought that it was quite bizarre that they were doing this, as if they hadn’t actually bothered to read the comments first.
And then I realized that their purpose in doing so wasn’t to engage in a genuine dialogue with the other people here. It was just to beat everyone else here over the head repeatedly with the same old tired apologisms… apparently in the hope that doing so would make people change their minds.
It’s funny, though, how none of them feel compelled to engage in apologism for all of the blatant sexism, ableism, and genre blindness manifested in that WFC programming schedule as announced. I can’t figure out whether that’s because they don’t notice it, or whether they just don’t think it’s a problem.
If you are part of the people in default privilege then it’s not
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. I just don’t think it’s the right way.
If you use a person’s race to denigrate them then that’s racist. If you use their gender (like “mansplaining”), that’s sexist. There aren’t carve-outs so that one side gets to do it, and the other doesn’t.
@JJ
Both? If they do notice it, it’s not a problem, but for the most part I don’t think they notice it.
The *splaining terms are pretty much all rooted in the idea that a person on the side of privilege is explaining to a person on the side with less privilege why they aren’t allowed to be bothered by something. In our current society, there is virtually no field (maybe the raising of children, and that only because child-rearing is itself denigrated) where women as a group have more power than men*, and at least as few are the fields where PoC have privilege.
*yes, an individual woman might have more power than an individual man. we’re talking in aggregate. Which is self evident but let’s cut off that stupid argument before it rears its ugly head.
@JJ: I guess since in Ye Olden Dayes, they didn’t have Spicy Cripple Zeppelins? Because there hasn’t been a suffragette/Ms. Magazine — MLK/Malcolm X — Cesar Chavez movement happen for disabled people? People with disabilities haven’t yet been Uppity enough to get a backlash? grumbles to self, wonders if scythes will attach to wheelchair
And of course the genre blindness is perfectly okay. Cartoons and comics are for children, not Serious Thinkers. You can’t say anything deep about the human condition in a graphic novel, nor in a work aimed at teenagers, or heaven forfend, a romance.
The ghost of Lovecraft and his way of thinking seems to be still overly influencing WFC. Maybe they need to hire a good exorcist.
Or just, y’know, pay attention to the incoming email that politely asks “Um, is that really a good idea?” Bless Sarah Pinsker for trying.
———————————————————-
All right, can we get some sorta wonton wrapper around ground/minced chicken (for K. Hurley) with Sichuan spices, then? In an elongated ovoid shape, maybe with some kind of garnish for engine and gondola. Mock poultry or firm tofu with spices for the vegetarians. In a pinch, stuff kung pao chicken into a wrapper, fry.
I just feel they should be crunchy on the outside, squooshy on the inside.
I still want the potato wrapping, because gluten free (yes, perhaps it’s all a fad, as the lovely gentleman grumbling ahead of me in the line the other day said, but so are Doritos).
@Bill – If you use a person’s race to denigrate them then that’s racist. If you use their gender (like “mansplaining”), that’s sexist. There aren’t carve-outs so that one side gets to do it, and the other doesn’t.
No, I have nothing to say. I just wanted to see if it looked as silly the second time. And, yep, it does.
Lurkertype, yes, scythes will attach to wheelchairs. You’ll find the general principles illustrated well in the famous Japanese documentary series about “extreme” vehicular design, Speed Racer. Adaptation to smaller-scale mobility assistance technology can be found hither in and yon in some American horror films.
Hope this helps.
Ok, so now it is calling people out for their sexism that is sexist. Okeey…
I’ve got very mixed feelings about a lot of language like the various splaining terms. They’re useful, but I doubt they have legs. I realize “mansplaining” is easier than “you are a pedantic, condescending, tiresome asshole used to talking down to women”, but I think the full form is more productive.
I wouldn’t put “pedantic” into the connotations for mansplainer; for one it puts pedantry in a bad light, for another pedants tend to be correct.
“You are a self-righteous, condescending, tiresome asshole used to talking down to women” would probably be a better choice.
Hampus Eckerman on August 6, 2016 at 12:15 am said:
“If you use their gender (like “mansplaining”), that’s sexist.”
Ok, so now it is calling people out for their sexism that is sexist. Okeey…
One of the characteristic rhetorical tools of modern hate movements, and (no doubt by complete coincidence) the alt-right, is the co-opting of civil rights language and discourse, so claiming that it’s sexist to call out their sexism is right out of the playbook. See Daniels, J. (2008). Race, Civil Rights, and Hate Speech in the Digital Era. Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media (pp. 129-154). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.; McNamee, Pena & Peterson (2010)
@John A Arkansawyer
I can’t be bothered to type out (note changes to make it accurate in all that *splain* means* You are a self-righteous, condescending, tiresome asshat talking down to PoC/LGBTI/women/disabled/others about our Own Selves like you know us better than we do. Treating us like 5-year old children rather than the adult human beings deserving of respect we are. (Wow that’s a lot to fit in) when a single word does the trick when dealing with repeat asshats
Example: You are a self-righteous, condescending, tiresome asshat talking down to PoC explaining to PoC why PoC are wrong about PoC issues using words such as PC and overly sensitive to downplay PoC feelings when ignoring all the reasons why “Spicy Oriental Zeppelin Stories” is a problematic panel title.
Words such as: privilege, SWM, whitesplain, mansplain, have an evocative reaction and might not be best when doing activism or outreach
I think I’m having a strong reaction to the suggestion as it feels like a microaggression. Here yet again, I the minority, am being asked to do more when communicating with the offended default privileged who is currently being an asshat to me, friends, family, and large groups of people around the world. Notice it’s not just about them being condescending asshats – it’s about them removing our agency and real-lived experiences.
@Tasha Turner: Like I say, I’ve got complicated feelings about it. I’ll try to sort them out so I can express them productively rather than offensively. But I’ll say this: I think in public discussion, “asshat” is more effective than (for instance) “mansplainer”. No explanation, just “You’re being an asshat.”
Crap. I can’t edit on this ancient browser. This is what I wanted to add:
The asshat is not the audience. The audience matters. The asshat? Not so much.
Gotcha – the lurkers reading matter not the asshat I’m talking to. But in that case I probably need to leave out “your a condescending asshat”. Being the good, rational, commenter takes all the fun out of interaction on the Internet 😉
There are times when one simply runs out of spoons or has interacted with the asshat in a community enough times and needs to call something/someone what it/they is/are for one’s self-care. Allies can be the long explainers at those situations.
@Matthew Johnson: “One of the characteristic rhetorical tools of modern hate movements, and (no doubt by complete coincidence) the alt-right, is the co-opting of civil rights language and discourse, so claiming that it’s sexist to call out their sexism is right out of the playbook.” You may not know this, but Hampus knew several of Anders Breivik’s victims, and shared (and shares) their interests. What you’re doing here is exactly like blaming Jews for making all that mess on Krystallnacht. It is remarkably vile and shameful, and I hope that you will have an opportunity to realize just how much so.
(It is, of course, possible that you know what it’s like to be accused of being part of the movement that motivated the man who gunned down people who matter to you. If so, even more shameful behavior here.)
@Karl-Johan Norén: “I wouldn’t put “pedantic” into the connotations for mansplainer; for one it puts pedantry in a bad light, for another pedants tend to be correct.” In mine, pedants go wrong precisely because they they refuse – and are often proud of this refusal – to take a full account of context. As, well, several folks are displaying in this thread.
I must say that the last couple pages of comments have been intensely unpleasant to read. I’ve hung with the thread in hopes of something interesting/useful/enjoyable coming along, but odds seem thin.
Bruce Baugh:
My interpretation was that Matthew wasn’t talking about me, but about Bill. But thank you for your vigorous defense. 😉
Hampus: I like your contributions, and wish you well.
I’ve looked over the MACII schedule comparing the titles to WFC 2016. I think MACII did a much better job with titles. They have a number of similar retro panels but labeled them appropriately I thought. I know many filers have looked over MACII – which panels looked really interesting? I don’t know how I’d pick if I were going.
@Tasha Turner + @JJ
Absolutely not trying to lecture, some of my points doesn’t seem to be making it through as clearly as I would like (neurodiversity? my reaction to people not catching my meaning is usually to get very precise, very literal, which you may be mistaking for lecturing). Try again: if a site is both a news site and a community, I think it should be able to be approached as either, because the news side will constantly be drawing in people who aren’t aware of the community side. If I was approaching a community alone (and I’ve been a long term member of both disability and fan communities), obviously my approach would be different, but I don’t feel my approach was inappropriate to a news site. If you disagree, then I’m sorry you feel accused, that wasn’t the intention, but beyond that we’ll have to agree to disagree.
@JJ ” I’m frankly boggled that you consider yourself an activist”
Shrug, the TV and radio interviews, the journalists writing articles around my opinion, the friends in the movement would all seem to differ. And frankly we all have the right to call ourselves activists, we don’t get to make that decision for other people. We get enough of that from the normies.
@lurkertype ” wonders if scythes will attach to wheelchair”
Who needs scythes when you have footplates? So nicely placed for intersecting achilles tendons 😉
Wheelchairiot.
David Gillon: if a site is both a news site and a community, I think it should be able to be approached as either, because the news side will constantly be drawing in people who aren’t aware of the community side.
Hey, you can think whatever you want, and take whatever approach you want — what Tasha and I have both been trying to tell you is that the one you have chosen is not only not likely to be very effective here, it is likely to have the opposite of the effect you desire. IMO, it makes you look arrogant and clueless.
As I said, it’s important to know your audience. You think that the primary audience here is the transient, uninvested sort that goes to sites like CNN or Buzzfeed while they’re skipping around to a bunch of websites. You are wrong. Sure, there are going to be a few people here who fit that description. But the vast majority here are people who have become familiar with each other, have shared intimate details of their lives and challenges, and are incredibly, incredibly bright. Insulting those people by assuming that none of them noticed the ableism in the WFC schedule, and that they need a Disability 101 course… well, you might want to reconsider that approach.
My point, which you seemed to have missed entirely, is that it seems to me that you are too busy trying to transmit your message to pay attention to where you’re sending it. That, I think, is a mistake. You’ve come off as not only lecturing a lot of people here about that which they are already aware, many of them live with it every day. How would you react if I came along and lectured you about disability and ableism?
As far as being an activist, sure, you can call yourself one and do whatever you think an activist does. I’ve got no problem with that. But I’m a bit mystified as to why you’d want to sabotage your cause by behaving in such an arrogant and clueless way.
Good luck to you.
JJ:
I really wish people you would stop trying to bite the head of newcomers. It makes this a less fun place to visit. 🙁
Yes, we are a community, but there is a limit on how defensive we have to be about it.
@David Gillon:
Hello! I had a reread of the first page of this thread, and I would like to say that the ableism in both the original and amended programming might have gotten a little more discussion if we hadn’t had people rather quickly trying to excuse or downplay the “Spicy Oriental Zeppelin Stories” title. When that happened, it essentially took over the thread, as that kind of thing is wont to do.
Tasha mentioned the phrase earlier, “someone is wrong on the internet”, and many of us don’t want to let -isms stand unchallenged in these comment threads because we don’t wish to appear to condone them with our silence. (Also, heated disagreement trumps heated agreement every time. I didn’t notice anyone trying to excuse Panel 7’s title.)
I’m sorry that you felt ignored and dismissed.
I’d quite like to avoid wheelchairs for my entire life, but if that turns out not to be possible, I’m totally attaching scythes. I get the footplate thing (ooh, sharp!), but I’d want to cut a wider swath. 😉
@David Gillon, I’m guessing many of us read the WFC program list and had a negative reaction to pretty much all of it, including the ableism. What bubbled to the top for discussion purposes was “Oriental,” but not because it was the only or even the most heinous aspect. Instead, it was because of where the conversation was led by a few people who wanted to know why use of that term was offensive and one who wanted to explain at tedious length why it was wrong to be offended by the word.
Yes, this is a news aggregator site, but that’s the spindle around which a pretty vibrant community has coalesced and many of us respond in fairly predictable ways. So, I feel pretty confident, without having had to watch them, that many of the people reading the article at the top of the page had responses ranging from disgusted eyerolls at yet another comprehensive institutional fail to some variant of “What the actual fuck?!” Some of us will have been more sensitive to some aspects of the failure than others, but all of them would have been widely noticed.
Hampus Eckerman: I really wish people you would stop trying to bite the head of newcomers. It makes this a less fun place to visit.
I really wish you would consider the context more closely before making statements like this — especially since you haven’t been participating in that thread of the discussion.
I feel that sometimes less-than-pleasant things need to be said, but I try to say them as civilly and politely as possible. My impression is that you can’t stand any sort of confrontation, that to you it is the same as conflict and that any sort of confrontation upsets you — whereas I think that there is a real distinction between the two.
Most of the time if you say things I don’t agree with, I just don’t say anything about it. You do you. I’ll do me. 🙂
If you think I can’t stand any kind of confrontation, you have missed a lot of what I have written. But I do feel we have very, very different opinions of what is polite.
@David Gillon
I’m fracking tired of conventions treating disabled people like less than human. Ignoring our needs, treating us like we don’t exist, when they do acknowledge us too often it’s to mock/complain/insult/ask why they should have accommodated us. I can’t believe they called us freaks in 2016.
I’m proud of co-signing Mary Robinette Kowal’s (MRK) accessibility pledge. (Google)
I’m thrilled there is a FB group made up of SMOFs, JOFs, and other interested parties who are working to fix a number of the accessibility issues with conventions. I wish I had energy to be more involved. (link on MRKs pledge)
I think the Accessibility Checklist for SFWA Spaces is a good starting point for conventions looking to address issues and make their conventions more accessible. (link on MRKs pledge)
Bruce: Hampus is correct about my intention, but I apologize that I was unclear to the point of making you (or anyone) think my comment was aimed at him rather than in agreement with him.
(That is to say — missed the edit window — that he’s right in thinking my comment was aimed at Bill.)
Matthew: In that case, my apologies for the misunderstanding. (And I assume it was mostly on my end; it’s been a day of painful medical junk, which clouds my judgment.) I’m sorry for leaping onto the wrong conclusion so vigorously.
Bruce, no apology necessary, but thanks. Apologies on my end for being unclear, and I’m sorry to hear about your medical troubles.
Bruce, I would like to say that a) I’m very sorry about your painful medical junk and b) I really like the cute black kitty in your avatar.
On a not-unrelated note, I recently told a music friend of mine I’d point him to useful links about questions of cultural appropriation in SF. I started in on that and realized I was not so knowledgeable as I’d thought. Would anyone have one link they think might be more useful than others?
I like Jim C Hines on the topic http://www.jimchines.com/2014/05/diversity-appropriation/
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And who else rants on Twitter?
Donald Trump.
Political correctness gone amok regarding convention programming. Have any of these people actually attended the conventions they complain about?
Have any of these people actually attended the conventions they complain about?
Yes. Pretty much all of them have attended the WFC, multiple times. Your point?
Andrew Porter: Political correctness gone amok
Yeah, anytime someone says this, it translates to “apologism for racism/ sexism/ homophobia/ misogyny/ ableism/ or other form of callous dismissal of legitimate grievances”. 🙄
It’s probably not a good idea to try that one on here.
@Andrew Porter: Did you actually read what was written? If so, you would have noticed that the person who started complaining said this:
So that’s one. I’m pretty sure some of the other people quoted have attended. They don’t mention it in those tweets. But you could ask them, if you’re genuinely curious.
You are judging everything in the light of today’s political correctness, not in context with the times people wrote in.
By that standard, all works published before about 2010 should be banned from discussion, all authors writing before then also banned.
And nearly everyone here comments using a screen name, instead of their real name.