la_marquise | Red Writer: I stand with Irene Gallo.

Near the middle of The Grass King's Concubine there's a three page section where one of the protagonists (Aude) explains to one of the inhabitants of the Grass King's reign the basic principles of socialist. It's in chapter 17, pp.217-19, if you want to check. It states, pretty much in black and white, that the character -- and the author, as it happens -- is opposed to a system in which a small number of people have the bulk of the wealth and power, at the expense and to the detriment of the many. I believe this to be true and I included it in the book on purpose. Both Grass King and its sequel, A Fire of Bones which I am working on at present, are overtly, deliberately, avowedly political books. I'm a political writer: more, I am an openly socialist writer. And I'm proud of it. No insult calling me a communist or a pinko or any such thing can offend me, because this is who I am, at core; these are my principles and I hold to them. A system which favours the few over the many is broken. A system in which wealth trickles upwards from the poorest, the excluded, the disprivileged, is immoral. Oppression, deprivation and exclusion are the fruits of unregulated robber-baron capitalism, and the latter in the form in which it currently exists is industrialised feudalism.

A few weeks ago, Tor books art editor Irene Gallo, writing in her own space and under her own name, not in relation to her employer, called Theodore Beale aka Vox Day, the leader of the self-named 'Rabid Puppy' movement which is presently trying to spread the culture war between hard right and centre-right in the U.S.A. a racist, sexist, neo-Nazi. And she's right. I'm not going to provide links here to prove this: I have no interest in giving the man the clicks. But google him, look at his website and you will quickly find that Ms Gallo wrote no more than the truth. Today, Mr Beale is spear-heading an attack to get Tor to fire Irene Gallo, for daring to stand up to him, and getting his followers to write letters to this effect. He does not like what she said. And he wants her silenced and punished.

Mr Beale defends his own abusive language in terms of the U.S. free speech laws, and has used that to launch racist, sexist, homophobic and bullying attacks on many people within the sff community. He has a *right* to be abusive, he tells us, over and over. But he does not believe that this right to what he calls 'free speech' should extend to anyone who contradicts him, or talks back. He does not believe that Irene Gallo has this right. Oh, he has wrapped this up in a specious argument about her position in the industry, but she made her remarks about him in her private capacity. While he abused his membership of SFWA, the official body for professional SF writers, to use the sfwa twitter feed to make a vicious racist attack on writer N. K. Jemison. For this, he was thrown out of SFWA. If anyone has demonstrated an abuse of position, it's Beale and not Ms Gallo.

Mr Beale believes in freedom only for himself and those who agree with him. He believes he has the right to police the words and lives of everyone else and punish or destroy them if they offend. He is the perfect robber capitalist, dreaming of a world in which the rich -- and he is very very rich -- control everything, from resources and awards to bodies and thoughts of those who he considers his inferiors. He's trying that today with TOR books.

And this red writer is standing here in his way. The US culture war does not belong in our genre, which is global and not the property of any one interest group or political belief. Do I want right-wing books and writers in my genre? Yes, I do. Writing belongs to us all. Do I want *only* right wing books and *only* white, straight, American male writers? No, because that is counter not only to the roots of sff -- which lie in the work of writers of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and political views -- but to my personal principles, which believe in inclusion and support for the many rather than privilege for the (predictable straight white male) few.

I stand with Irene Gallo.

Or, and if you want to go and denounce me and my books as communist, feel free. I'm not ashamed of my politics.

Skirt of the day: denim.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tolerance matters, I agree. And indeed, it should go both ways. But assumptions about the nature of either side do not help -- and you are assuming that those of us who are not pro-puppy are narrow-minded and narrow in experience. I can't speak for Irene Gallo, but I read books by writers of all kinds of political and social backgrounds and from cultures other than my own and by people who are not like me. I hold the views I do after a lifetime of thinking and reading and observing and listening, not because they come from an echo chamber of any kind.
I am very happy to engage in positive debate, but I can't see how this can happen if assumptions of this kind are made by either side. And I come from a culture in which people who are not the dominant group are expected always to make extra effort to understand those who are dominant, and to make allowances, and to listen and be nice -- but cannot expect to be treated with the same respect in return. So perhaps you can understand that I am wary of being asked to be more tolerant while also being assumed to be unthinking or narrow-minded. Particularly when the request comes from someone I don't know.

I am wary of being asked to be more tolerant while also being assumed to be unthinking or narrow-minded.

This. A thousand times, THIS.

Crazy(because folks on *that* side of the aisle seem to forget this is the dynamic they're subjecting us to!)Soph

I owe you an apology. My use of "and others" was not intended to mean you personally. I have a lot of firmly held beliefs. I even have more than a few preconceptions. But I don't know you or your work well enough to make such a suggestion. If you took "and others" to mean you specifically, then I apologize.

Thank you for being a pleasant hostess. It is a rarity in this thing. To the extent that there are sides, it is a rarity all around.

As a matter of being equally courteous, I'm going to snip the rather lengthy response that I had prepared. I don't see the point in consuming your bandwidth.

[snip]

I will make one modest point. The SP slate, as deplorable as all slates (open or whispered) are, is a response to a lack of courtesy. It could have been avoided if the literati had been mindful of the fact that the diverse world in which we live includes a fair number of people that honestly disagree with their perspective. Perhaps if the literati had remained focused on writing, editing, reading, and otherwise supporting the best SFF regardless of political content, then we wouldn't have this mess. Rule #1 should always be to write the best story one can. Let the chips fall where they may.

As a nod to GRRM, Eric Flint, and a few others, I will gladly acknowledge that there were/are non-political issues in play as well that many pro-SP folks seem quite willing to overlook.

Thank you! And thank you for being courteous, too.
I'm British: I don't see a lot of the discussions that go on around the Hugos at cons, and I don't read about them that much either, as to me they are mainly a U.S. thing. I am aware of this because it came up with the voting at Loncon last year, which was in my country. So I can well believe there has been discourtesy and that is regrettable. I tend to believe that all fiction is political, but I also believe that there should be space for all perspectives. I don't always agree with the politics of, say, Poul Anderson, but I love his books!

I'm just a reader....not a writer.

And I readily agree with the need to allow all perspectives to be heard. One factor....and there are several in play, IMO....is that there are people in the literary/publishing world that are more supportive of authors/artists that reflect their admittedly leftist view of the world.

This has been a steady trend in the US for 40 years give or take across a broad range of fields and interests. The Hugo kerfuffle is just the signal of that regrettable trend finally reaching the SFF publishing end of things.

I'm British, so I can't really speak to the US circumstances. And British ideas on politics tend to be rather different to US ones, too!
I'm with DAW, though, and while I don't read everything they publish -- not enough hours in the day! -- I think they have writers from right across the spectrum: Lisanne Norman, Edward Willett/E. C. Blake, C J Cherryh on the more conservative end of things (all great writers, too), to people like me on the left, and all sorts in between.
As I said, I like a mix.

Red Writer: I stand with Irene Gallo.

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