Otter's Rock

You've probably seen end-otw-racism in the last few days, trying to get people to support their efforts to get the AO3 to actually DO something about the racism problem that AO3 has admitted that it has. Here's their call to action post, with a brief summary of the problems and what they want people to do about it.

Basically, there have been problems with racism at AO3 since the beginning, and they did acknowledge the problems in 2020 and promise to fix them, and haven't actually ... done most of the things they said they would. They have started to implement blocking and muting, which is good, because those are vital tools for fans of color to protect themselves from racist harassment, but they haven't updated their TOS or changed their Abuse policies or hired the diversity consultant they said they were going to.

And that's a big problem. Among other things the original head of the Abuse team--the one who set it up and developed the policies and procedures still in use today!--was a noted racist who has since been banned from at least one convention and at least one fanwork exchange for making a lot of fans of color uncomfortable. This is not the only problem with a white supremacist culture in the organization, but it is emblematic of the larger issues with the organization's culture that have not been addressed. (That link is from 2020, but nothing substantial has changed since then, alas.) If you think that the AO3 is fine, and people are overstating things, I really encourage you to go read that post and the links in it. And then go read these tweet threads about what the state of things at AO3 is now. Maybe also go read Stitch's excellent essays on racism in fandom (and remember that people have tried to destroy her life--get her fired and get her on terrorist watch lists--for writing them).

What sorts of things does end-otw-racism want? Basic stuff that AO3 should already be doing. For example, people should not be allowed to harass people through AO3 using trolling fanworks, harassing tags, and comments. Yet when people use these parts of AO3 infrastructure to harass people of color and create a hostile environment for them, AO3 Abuse says there's nothing they can do and it doesn't count as harassment under the site's TOS.

end-otw-racism is not calling for censorship. They are calling for the OTW to realize that AO3 currently has a Nazi Bar Problem. You cannot have a safe that is safe for both nazis and people of color. If you try, the nazis will harass and drive out the people of color. Tolerance is not a moral principle, it is a peace treaty; if one side does not abide by it, asking the other side to abide by it is asking them to lay down and accept their abuse. And free speech is incredibly important, but it has limits; and those limits are where you are using speech to harass people and incite violence, which some people are using AO3 to do!

I hope that you will all support end-otw-racism in calling for the AO3 to fulfill its promises and address the issues in question, and I hope the AO3 will listen.

TW for racism, genocide, and fascism.

Every year at Worldcon, there is an award given out that is not a Hugo.  It is the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and it is sponsored by Dell publishing house.  It's named after John W. Campbell, who edited Astounding (later Analog) Magazine for decades and in so doing shaped the field of science fiction.  Campbell was one of the main people who took the pulps of the 20s and pushed and prodded the authors into becoming better writers.  Having read some of the best SF/F stories of the 20s-40s, there is a HUGE difference in quality of writing (plot construction, characterization, worldbuilding, themes, eloquence and wordsmithing, everything) between the stories of the 20s and the stories of the 40s, and pretty much everyone who was involved at the time agree that John Campbell was a major part of the reason why.  He was incredible at taking a new author under his wing and shaping and polishing and encouraging their writing and helping them be the best they could be.  John W. Campbell was a great editor.

John W. Campbell was also a fascist.  He was racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and ableist, and he was outspokenly so even for his time.  He was authoritarian and distrusted democracy.  He once wrote a column supporting the shooting of student protesters.  He believed in eugenics.  He was colonialist in the worst possible sense of the word.  He shaped SF/F to fit his view of what the world should be, both by picking what authors got published and dictating what they should write.  Some of the most disgustingly vile SF/F stories ever published were commissioned by him and written to his specifications, including Heinlein's infamous novel "Sixth Column" in which the "happy ending" is genocide.  (He's also the reason why "hard" SF can include stuff like telepathy.)

This year's Campbell Award winner is Jeanette Ng.  An Asian woman.  Originally from Hong Kong, who vocally supports the Hong Kong protests.  Someone Campbell would have despised and used his considerable influence to keep out of SF/F.  Here's how she began her acceptance speech: "John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, is a fucking fascist."  (Here's a video.)  Here's a transcript, go read her speech, it is awesome and short.  (And if you get to the end of the speech and wonder what "the hat thing" is, here it is.  Her hat had a peacock tail, and she could trigger the tail to stand erect from the hat.)

As always, when some major (white ablebodied heterosexual male) historical person gets rightly identified as having done and said really terrible things in addition to the good things they did, there is handwringing and pushback, especially when the person pointing out the problems is a woman of color.  But I am very glad that from what I can tell most people are supporting Ms. Ng.  She got a cheer when she gave the speech, and people are continuing to back her up.  A number of past Campbell Award winners support her, as does at least one of this year's runners up (Rivers Solomon).

Justine Larbalestier, who did her dissertation on early SF/F: "I doubt many Campbell defenders have read all his editorials. I have. @jeannette_ng is spot on."

Here's Cory Doctorow's response on BoingBoing: It Needed Saying, in which he goes into greater detail as to why Ng is spot on the money.

John Scalzi said he knew Campbell was a racist, but had never wondered whether he might be a fascist, and pointed out that it's because as a white male writing the sort of action-adventure/"hard" SF that Campbell loved, he's never HAD to consider the question, and that was pretty much true of all the people who didn't like what Ng said.  Also, that Ng was probably right that Campbell was a fascist, and she definitely had the right to say what she did.

My personal take is that I believe Campbell's contributions to the genre should be remembered.  All of them.  Including the shitty ones.  Especially the shitty ones.  You cannot separate out the good things he did (helping the overall quality of writing in SF/F increase, mentoring lots of writers over the decades) with the evil things he did (keeping anyone out of SF/F who wasn't white, male, straight, able-bodied, and encouraging racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, classism, authoritarianism, and every other -ism out there).

And for damn sure his name should be taken off the most prestigious award for Best New Writer.