Feeding the Trolls: an open letter to Vox Day.

[la_marquise]

Not everyone on the internet agrees with each other. Not everyone is kind or nice or decent. Some people are controversial, for good or for bad. It's part of how we are as a species -- we argue, we confront, we question. Some people are painful to know, to read. Some people speak frightening truths.
Some people are just disgusting -- racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic -- the list goes on. Usually, when I see such people in action, I back button, refuse to give a platform to their prejudices.
Not today.
Today, writer and blogger Vox Day, aka Theodore Beale, has called a fellow writer -- a gifted, intelligent, brilliant woman writer of colour -- inferior and uncivilised on the grounds of her skin colour.
This man stood as President of sfwa and failed -- but some people voted for him.
This is not acceptable . Not in any way acceptable. I cannot read his words and stay silent. No, Mr Day, you do not get to say that and be allowed to pass in silence. You don't get to pull your 'freedom of speech' card on me. Freedom of speech cuts both ways, applies to all parties. You've had your say.
Here's mine.
It's you that's uncivilised. You are a racist, sexist bigot and I am ashamed to be in an organisation which contains you. I intend to write to sfwa petitioning them to withdraw your membership. In the country I come from, what you posted is hate speech. You are of course free to dismiss me as a feminazi, to deride my opinion on the grounds of my nationality (I'm British), to claim I have no right to any opinion, to post insults about my writing, appearance and career. I don't care. I've had enough of you and the culture of prejudice, privilege and institutionalised abuse that you represent.
And you don't get to silence me.

I'm not linking to his blog. I'm not interested in increasing traffic for him. Readers can find it if they wish.

Comments

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

HERE HERE!!!

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

He's a very weird bloke. He's also prone to posting links to the Daily Mail to prove his points, which as we all know, has the drop on crazed hordes of Moslems over-running this country.

Profoundly intellectually dishonest. His 'sigma male' definition sounds like the common-or-garden sociopath so I suspect that one's answer is right there.

I'm not up for withdrawing his membership, as it supports his view that women writers (who, as we all know, rule the entire universe with an iron oven glove*) are Out To Get Him, but in the UK, this would be hate speech and he almost certainly would be booted out for it. I'm not sure where US law stands on this.

*BTW next Wimmins' Illuminati Cabal is on Monday, my place. Bring cake.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I don't know what the US law is on that, either. And I don't care if he thinks the wimminz are after him: this one *is*, and what he wrote is disgusting.
Cake and wine :-)

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of him and I'm not about to google for enlightenment. He sounds like a total dickhead.

[lagilman]

Beyond dickhead...he's a classic case of failure being blamed on Others, with bile stirred into the mix.

Hateful is the least of what can be said about him.

Previous to this I would have been hesitant to call for a revocation of membership, because that's a tool that can be abused, but attempting to use SFWA's forum to launch a hate-screed against a fellow member should certainly call for censure/banning.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

He's on the shortlist of people about whom, if he were run over by a bus, my reaction would be "Good riddance." A completely loathsome piece of shit in every way possible.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I just read his blog, and - yeah, wow. I'd have thought the racism there was enough to get him booted out, even omitting the misogyny.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Ugh. This is upsetting.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's deeply upsetting.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The UK may have it's problems with equality as I have more reason than some to know, but glad I am that we do not accept such Nazis and their hatespeech and sadly, there are more than enough of them about.

Well done you!

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Good god. I knew better than to google that--that--

Good god.

I need to shower from the inside out.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

He's long been known as one of SF's fringe nutters. I did have a crack at him a while back. Weirdly, although the content is frequently appalling, his writing style on his blog is much better than in his fiction, which is like someone parodying a bad romance novel.

[hano.livejournal.com]

Oh. Him. Most of the time I tune him out cos he's fucking insane. But yeah, I'll pop over there and call him out on this.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

He's got a real bee in his bonnet about how more people read his blog than other people which I would really really REALLY like to see evidence of.

I've seen a lot of claims from various quarters about blogging that X has Y people reading them therefore they have more influence than 'insert random person'... which I'm dubious of because web stats are a bit of a nightmare to track accurately, and secondary checks (like does other person get picked up by a range of media etc...) suggest that he's talking shit.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Oh you made me go and look again....

Need to wash my brain in bleach.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Passing the brain bleach.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Gods - Worthy of the National Front.

I wonder if this was the guy at ChiCon who was calling for the extermination of 90% of the human race as useless.

I'm going to have to stop ignoring vile shitheads when I'm on panels if this is what comes of not calling them out.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I don't know about Chicon, but yes, this is straight out of the NF/BNP/EDL songsheet.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I went and looked. I read the comment thread. I was actually going to comment, but my keyboard had more sense than I and gave up on me.

The level of sheer ignorance among his adherents would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. One actually said. "Nobody flooded Africa with non-Africans and gave them special rights and privileges." As a citizen of one of the nations that colonised Africa in the nineteenth century and did exactly that I thought I ought to put my hand up.

But he'd probably just say I was making it up.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Yes, he'd probably say you are lying because of the Feminazi Commie Agenda. The paranoia level in the comments threads is tin-hat high.

[xenaclone.livejournal.com]

AMEN!

He might like to recall that every last one of us is descended from dark skinned Africans.

[aberwyn.livejournal.com]

He denies this with his blather about "genetic science" and "closely related species."

Foil-hat wearers are rarely up on modern science. His goes back to Herbert Spencer, I suppose.

[vaughan-stanger.livejournal.com]

It's 2013 and we still have shitheads like this to contend with? This is not the future I expected. And it's not the present all sane folk deserve.

I, too, won't generate traffic by visiting this idiot's blog. But if I ever find myself in the same room as him, he'll get a piece of my mind. He'll need more than a tin-foil hat to protect his ignorance.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

OMG, how atrocious!

Thank you for writing this! ::applause::

[taldragon.livejournal.com]

i'm not googling Vox Day but if the Carl Brandon society accepts donations in his name, Mr Scalzi will match it (and be amused)?

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/06/13/pledge-matching-today-for-the-carl-brandon-society/

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Thank you. I've gone and donated.

[arkessian.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to grant him his assertion that he's less than human. It is, after all, self-evident...

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

Why did I have to go and have a look? My brain needs a good scrub, would anyone be so kind as pass the bleach, please?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I think you'll find someone has provided a bottle of brain bleach up above there! :o)

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Brava. I am not going to look at his blog. But I am going straight over to the Carl Brandon Society and donate.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I am deeply disturbed by this. Deeply disturbed that SFWA has permitted such a person use SFWA resources to disseminate his incitement to hatred.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

TO be fair, they didn't realise what he was doing, and pulled the link as soon as they discovered it. He is in breach of the rules on how their twitter feed is used, however, and as such they may have grounds for action against him.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

You know, I have relatives in Mississippi for whom it is still 1950 or so inside their heads, people who have never got over Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, let alone 1964 Civil Rights Act, and while they're bigots, they would never imagine saying in public (or writing in a public forum) the things this git does. It would be rude, and while they can't seem to break the brainwashing with regard to the bigotry, they do understand the notion of "This is an incredibly hateful and hurtful thing to say to or about someone." They may also, of course, be aware they don't have a leg to stand on in support of these feelings other than "This is because of the way I was raised, in order to assure my support for a blatantly racist system of human exploitation, kthx."

I salute you and all the other members of SFWA who are asking that organization to take advantage of this abuse of the use of their Twitter feed privileges to clean house.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Your relatives are clearly better people than him, if they see that it is hateful and hurtful.
And long time no scroll: I was just thinking about you last night and hoping you were okay :-)

[uk-sef.livejournal.com]

{ Applauds }

A lot of the science writers are also opposed to Vox Day. Though PZ appears to have missed this instance thus far. Too many pieces of slime vying for his attention perhaps.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I didn't know that. Interesting!