Open Reply to Mr. Wright
From the Pen of Fail Burton, concerning my recent departure from an organization no longer properly calling itself SFWA (the Science Fiction Writers of America), rather than SFWA (the Socialist Fantasy-believing Witchhunters of Agitprop):
I don’t really see how you or Mr. Torgersen had any choice. Though you may not be being targeted as individuals, you are certainly on an informal blacklist because of being white, male, and heterosexual, and therefore responsible for anything any other white, male, and heterosexual has ever done throughout all time and space. When this is turned on its Orwellian head the PC call this “Islamophobia” and “homophobia,” though there is no proof of such a movement within SFF.
However there is absolute proof of heterophobia, androphobia and a marked disdain for whites and everything they do. I have the quotes and lists of institutions to back that up. On the other hand, if anyone wants to prove me wrong about the a lack of misogyny, homophobia and white supremacy in SFF, you need only provide quotes and a list of institutions that speak to an ideological disdain for non-whites or women such as an analogue to a Tiptree Award for male-centric literature or whites-only “safer-spaces” at SFF conventions. Those quotes and lists of institutions must be broad-based, not one guy.
I am glad you did not portray this as a lashing out at liberalism, or the Left or even feminism. I do not regard any of those as interchangeable with bigotry – they are Americans I disagree with, but they are Americans – my neighbors. The problem is that, being immersed in anti-oppression movements and narratives, those places make excellent hiding places for bigots in the same way “anti-Zionism” is a hidey-hole for Jew-haters and Confederate War re-enactors complain of infiltration by white supremacists.
It’s pretty clear in this specific case of the SFF community that a rabid form of QUILTBAG intersectional feminism is in place that has broken off from its egalitarian parents who wanted nothing more than equality before the law and in cultural custom and practice. A worthy goal in my opinion. I want my mother, nieces and sisters to live as expansive a life as possible. But I do not want them to hate me because I am straight, white, and male. That latter is not feminism, it is pure hatred flying under a false flag.
Anyone looking at the 2013/4 Nebula Awards can see the writing on the wall: the slate is nothing more than a faux-feminist affirmative action initiative that has absolutely nothing to do with literary merit, or even SFF in the case of “Hild.” In terms of promoting or partaking in a genre as literary movement, in my opinion the SFWA is done, finished. When one can change only a few words around and not figure out if quotes are from “Mein Kampf” or a QUILTBAG feminist in search of “social justice,” it’s time to deny that Orwellian use of the term, and call it out for the lie it is. Identity as a moral ethos has come to rule, and principle has taken a deep, dark, dive into the sea.
Unfortunately, as a straight white male, under the terms of that ethos, one is perpetually wrong, regardless of what one does. The best one can achieve under those circumstances is to bow and become an “ally.”
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
