Thinking about Wiscon

[redbird]

As many of you know, Elizabeth Moon recently made a post about citizenship, Islam, and assimilation that combined a rather narrow view of what assimilation should mean with claims that Muslims are inherently unfit for citizenship. It was quickly and widely linked to, and a lot of people argued with her in comments on her LJ. After two or three days, Moon deleted all the comments and basically declared the conversation over.

I've read and liked some of Moon's books, but this isn't the first time I've been disappointed by the opinions or actions of writers whose fiction I liked. The reason this is an immediate issue is that Moon is one of the guests of honor for next Wiscon; the other is Tiptree Award winner Nisi Shawl (nisi_la). The responses to Moon's post included requests that Wiscon rescind that invitation, because the opinions Moon was stating were offensive, and inappropriate to the Wiscon ethos.

The concom have thought about it, and decided that Moon will still be co-GoH next May. What they say about wanting to open a dialogue sounds good, but not having been privy to the concom's conversations with Moon, I don't know what sort of dialogue she's interested in having on any of those topics. (I am assuming they're using the term loosely to mean a conversation between people who start out disagreeing, rather than a literal one-on-one.) But that isn't the main point. The problem is that we may lose other people, either people who've been coming for years but now feel unwelcome, or people who were thinking of attending for the first time, and now don't feel welcome or safe.

I don't know how much can be achieved with even very good programming, given this context: but I suspect there's going to be a lot of 101-level discussion, again, and people torn between wanting to counter prejudice, and being tired of having to do so over, and over, and over.

I've been going to Wiscon regularly for fifteen years. In a number of ways, this is my community. I'm still planning to attend, partly to support Nisi and partly because there is a lot that is good about Wiscon, and a lot of people I want to see. But that's an easier choice for me than for some of my friends, because while I disagree with what Moon is saying, it doesn't make me personally feel unsafe or unwelcome. I'm not one of the people she disapproves of, and who hear similar views in too many other places.

(I don't remember, this long after, whether anyone tried to convince con committees not to honor Orson Scott Card that way, after he'd started arguing that the government should arrest and imprison enough gay people to scare the rest of us [back] into the closet. I just know that I skipped a few cons because of him.)

Comments

[anne]

I was already not planning to go, but if I had my membership already, I'd just go and cut her dead.

[aedifica]

I am planning to go, and it will be my first Wiscon... but if I didn't have other reasons for wanting to go, I'd at least think twice about whether I wanted to go to a con that seemed likely to be *full* of drama.

[anne]

The people I know who go to Wiscon are nifty. I wouldn't want to deprive myself of their company (or of Nisi Shawl). I think you'll have fun and I hope you'll post reports.

[hypatia]

But that's an easier choice for me than for some of my friends, because while I disagree with what Moon is saying, it doesn't make me personally feel unsafe or unwelcome.

This is precisely why I'm strongly considering /not/ going. I want to stand in solidarity with those who feel unsafe because of her.

I realize that this is a curmudgeonly position, but I'm alright with that.

[bcholmes]

I don't think that solidarity comes from the curmudgeonly place.

[dichroic]

I wouldn't have been planning to go anyway. If I had planned to, I think my own choice would have been to still go on the theory that there need to be many voices on the other side of that conversation, and people to suppose anyone who does feel threatened but decides to go anyway.

But I can see that not only is it easy to see good arguments for either choice, but that it's a case where individual perceptions will be very different and have to be respected. (Well.... actually I can't think of too many cases where the latter half of that sentence isn't true, but especially so this time.)

[randomness]

The first I heard about this controversy was when I read this post, so I don't claim any personal stake here. That said, I can point you to a long comment thread in Nick Mamatas' LJ which you might find interesting if you haven't seen it already. Fortunately for me I read that after I read your post, or I simply would have failed to have context.

The post itself is snarky, but the conversation is more serious.

[avram]

I vaguely recall there being some argument over Card being GoH at a Lunacon back in the '90s. Enough so that Card chose to give a speech about freedom of speech and being open to opposing views.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Vericon (Harvard's F/SF convention) had Card as their GOH in 2008, which caused a fair amount of controversy (and certainly dismayed me as an alumna of Harvard and HRSFA, the organization running the con). They refused to back down, citing that this was only about his novels, as if one can divorce the work an author used to earn fame from the causes an author uses that fame to promote.

I was disappointed and saddened when Boskone had him as GOH, but I was heartbroken and felt personally rejected when HRSFA's Vericon did, as it had never been for straight people only during my tenure. I've been to Boskon since but I don't know if I'll ever go to Vericon again. Considering Ms. Moon, my dismay is more abstract since I've never been to WisCon; if I were a regular WisCon attendee I'm not sure which emotion I'd be closer to feeling, but if I were Muslim, I think I'd be closer to feeling the latter.

http://community.livejournal.com/vericon_fans/12911.html <-- a relevant discussion

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't bother me to the same degree at another con, because most cons aren't overtly political. Most cons invite writers exclusively to honor their writing, and I might not go to their speeches, but I don't think their politics are relevant to the job. Wiscon invites people because of their political orientation as well as their writing, so I think we need a higher standard.

I feel unsafe around Moon, in the same way that I generally feel unsafe around bigots. I persist in the belief that anyone who thinks Group X is undeserving of human rights will, sooner or later, think the same thing about me. But I feel safe about Wiscon in general, because I know and respect a large portion of the other 999 people who'll be there.