Political Correctness and Social “Justice” Warriors Can Take a Flying F at The Moon And Kiss My …
Yeah ... old lady toned rear
Let’s get something straight. If you were to go to any prison to talk to any of the individuals residing there who are wrongfully incarcerated and ask them if any of the endless online controversies about something that someone said or did online were of any importance to them, they’d say, “No.”
As my Wikipedia helpfully states, I am a rape survivor. It happened 40 years ago and since that time, I’ve published 50 books, and as I’ve frequently written, I am happy. Happier and healthier than I have ever been since I was an innocent young child.
Recently, I have read some online controversies regarding the field in which I wasted too much time: science fiction and fantasy writing. There have been angry, often bizarre, and let’s not say “heartfelt” as that implies some of those involved have “hearts,” and the hearts these folks have are more along the lines of shriveled salted plums …
“Debates,” shall we say, for lack of a better word.
The first controversy involves a man named Tom Monteleone. Mr. Monteleone was a friend of the man who left my baby by himself to die and who took a decade of my life to serve his needs and interests, Alan Rodgers. Yes, I know I gave these years and this time to him. I visited him two to three times a week in the long-term care hospital after he had devastating strokes. I did this because I am a decent person and did not want him to be alone, especially after it became clear he couldn’t recover. After he had the strokes, he became like a little boy. He needed friendship and care.
Mr. Monteleone has been in and around the horror field for decades. He has won awards from the Horror Writers Association and has been an editor of big anthologies people brag about to each other, but which likely have sold only a few thousand copies. He’s a proud racist who has specific attitudes against Black Americans which are offensive to anyone with an actual heart and decency.
Tom’s racist tomes have been around for years, and I doubt this chap is a whole lot more admiring of the work of female writers, but like most gents of his generation, he knows he needs to serve up some sweet sauce in person to get what he wants in private. There will always be another fool willing to work for free or next-to-free for a man like Tom.
The sci-fi and fantasy field was insanely gender biased and remains largely-so today, despite the presence of female editors and editors of color who are working to make change. This is Robert A. Heinlein’s world: upon meeting Ursula K. LeGuin, who should have won a Nobel Prize in Literature during her lifetime, he told her husband how lucky he was that he had married a woman with, and I quote, “Such a great rack.” That, she told to me personally in case you are reading this and going, “She is such a nobody, I have never heard of her, why would she comment?”
This type of chat still goes on today. But it’s more likely that young women writers will just get 10x the rejections that young male writers do, especially if they, like me, made or make the error of writing about non-male characters and any female characters over age 25 in any setting.
Old Tom Monteleone wrote some genuinely awful screeds back in the 90s. Nobody said anything about this stuff then, and it has resurfaced since he has been complaining of awards going to … “not him” … in the present day.
Nobody with a decent heart would be likely to enjoy Tom’s written work, but since there is a well-established audience of diehard racists and misogynists, he’s probably assured of continued income, at least at some level.
We also have another controversy in the field. This one centers on Larry Correia, a hardworking and successful writer of the Monster Hunter series. Larry is politically conservative and has a large online following that agree with him on various topics like the Second Amendment and … what I’m writing about here … political correctness.
So, let’s get things straight. My credentials as a dirtbag leftist should be unassailable. I am a woman. I am a rape survivor. I am a survivor of other violent crime. I am also financially and personally successful after surviving some of the worst traumas our Western world has to offer. I am not a survivor of cobalt mining, cotton farming in India, or lithium mining in Argentina, Brazil, or Bolivia. I was raped one time, not kidnapped and held as a sex slave.
All this shit that I have just written goes on right now. Right now as I have typed.
And there’s actually a human who thinks it is her duty to ban Larry Correia from a convention of “fans” to which he has been invited as a Guest of Honor. The petition to kick Larry out centers on allegations that his presence will be “unsafe” for participants.
So, let’s talk about fucking “safe” spaces shall we?
The high priced, elite women’s college that I attended as a full scholarship student 1979–1983 has made no changes in making it an actual “safe space” for young female students. This is now 40 years after I was preyed upon by a male faculty member who wanted to see my naked body and get off by groping me. He didn’t rape me. His friend who was a much more violent criminal did.
I attended my last science fiction convention in 2015. It was Baycon in San Jose, and the theme was “Women of Wonder.” I had asked other women who’d made notable achievements to serve on a panel about women in leadership. The convention scheduled this panel on Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. in the same room that a dance had been scheduled the day before. When I and other panelists, including a Black American female television producer with many credits, arrived, we found the dance floor still set up and no seating. Those who got up early to attend sat on the edge of the wooden dance floor. Along with us.
This is the last “con” I ever attended. So, for the record, you massive group of nerds, freaks, weirdos and so-on — life’s about real life. Not your bullshit. You never read my work? You’re not my fucking reader. The rest of the world, normal living humans: those are my readers. You ARE NOT MY READERS. You never read my work because for 30–40 years you were glad to lap up Tom Monteleone’s shit, Alan Rodgers’ bullshit, you sat by and read (theoretically — I do know your “habits”) magazines edited by 350 pound men who would never in 80 million years buy anything written by somebody whose tits they’d ogled and ass they had grabbed. Quality? Ha!
Got it? That’s who you are. You are not the people you tell yourself you are better than: Larry Correia’s readers. You are not David Weber’s readers.
You are niggling, small, tiny little people. All your endless online controversies do not mean squat.
My impression of the sci-fi and fantasy world was that in the past, fans liked to get together because they shared common interests, and that the fan community was accepting of any and all.
In 2008, I was at the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, and Alan Rodgers was asked to speak on a panel about Black people in sci-fi and fantasy. Not only was there no Black individual, American or from another nation, on the panel, it was led by a writer from the UK (White) who talked about himself for 10 minutes, and had another guest (White female) who was not far behind. I was in the audience, seated next to one of the few Black fans in attendance. Repeatedly, she raised her hand to speak. Repeatedly, she was ignored. Finally, I tapped her on the arm and stood, and yelled for them to respond. Alan, to his credit, excused himself from the panel stating that he was a White man and had only written a book, Bone Music, about the blues (a Black American music art form). This is 15 years ago and the only change has been the escalation of battles between White individuals in the field. The ability to name one or two younger diverse authors has nothing to do with what I am talking about.
I do not adhere to the field any longer for many reasons, but chief among them is what I was told when I was coming up in my academic programs. Much of sci-fi and fantasy is sub-literature and that is true. And I am, and always have been, a writer interested in things other than the typical sub-literature topics and kinds of characters the genre’s actual readers enjoy.
Ironically, an article which should be particularly embarrassing for old Tom Monteleone, published in the horror publication Cemetery Dance in the 1990s, made it clear Monteleone’s contempt for a writer of literary excellence, a gay Black man named Chip Delany. Mr. Delany is now an older, senior writer, and nobody who’s actually read his work (unlike Monteleone) denies its quality, insight, and aspirations.
I have countless comments on my work, my essays here on Medium, and my published works of fiction, from people who haven’t read it.
Almost all of them are from men like Monteleone.
The tiny little people who think they’ll be accomplishing something to make people “safe” by banning Larry Correia from any event where actual readers will attend are — well — sorry. The words are lacking.
As you already know, I’m not a good writer. I’m not “famous” because I’m not a good writer. I’m not successful (I am financially successful — recovering from foreclosure and bankrupcty at over age 50 is “success”). I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually successful as well. I have achieved what I want and I am happy and satisfied with my life. I know it has had meaning, I hope to contribute more to others in the time I have left in this place, and I plan to continue to work as long as I am productive and others receive benefit and I do as well.
If I were these “social justice” warriors (and I am not — I recognize that the influence I can have for the benefit of others lies in my daily work and interactions), I’d sit down with Larry Correia and try to understand his perspective.
But that’s not going to happen. Because the “social justice warrior” is merely a mirror image of the Tom Monteleones and Gardner Dozois’ of old times. Gaining attention at the absolute lowest possible cost.
But the cost to actual equity, justice, and any type of “forward” movement, values this so-called “field” was supposedly about? Incalculable.
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