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Requires only that you continue to read this thread: Benjanungate II


Galactus

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Are you serious? Lol.

I recently watched Outlander, which also had a lot of Gaelic. Have you watched the show? I'd love to know whether they used authentic Gaelic, or just invented it! :rolleyes:

I haven't seen Outlander, but something tells me they'll be getting that particular aspect of things right.

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...

I didn't say you were like RH - I said that your reaction to a PoC making polite and cogent comments was to snap and snarl and miss the thrust of what she was saying; hence lending credence to the idea that PoC need to be loud and belligerent if they're to get a decent hearing.

....

Yeah, this was SocialJusticeDarkstar's point (and mine), the fact that sometimes POC need to be belligerent to be heard (see my last post).

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I haven't seen Outlander, but something tells me they'll be getting that particular aspect of things right.

Yes, the author of the books (Gabaldon) did a shitton of research, I believe. I've read the first few books, but I lost interest: too dense, if you get my meaning.

The show was pretty good!

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Yeah, you missed my point as well. Sigh.

I didn't say you were like RH - I said that your reaction to a PoC making polite and cogent comments was to snap and snarl and miss the thrust of what she was saying; hence lending credence to the idea that PoC need to be loud and belligerent if they're to get a decent hearing.

Got that?

At what point did I 'snap and snarl'? Because I said the privileged can engage in regular debate?

If that's your definition of snapping, you're in for a world of offensive.

Also, her being loud or belligerent would have only made things worse, and not added to the conversation.

The rational approach, the one she took, added to the conversation and lent itself to discourse.

Your point was poorly conceived.

Got that?

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What do you find interesting about it? I think she raises some good points, about the "Tone Argument," in particular. But, a lot of her argument seems to be the very sort of tribalism she decries: "People of color are not monolithic, and they should not be treated as such; "white people" are monolithic however, and anything they do, when it concerns a person of color, is based on an inherently unequal power dynamic, and therefore immoral and wrong." The unequal power dynamic exists, and it's important, but to color the entire situation beneath that one heading does a great disservice: it creates the sort of binary that perpetuates adversarial, agonistic intercultural relationships. It's not the tone of her argument at all, but rather the very clear dichotomy established. Saying that the race of the people who exposed RH as a bigot and a bully makes them terrible people on par with Gamergate is itself a Gamergate-esque tactic: "these people are defined by this one characteristic, and it makes them wrong."

I don't think RH is a victim either. Or rather, any victimhood she might possess is so miniscule compared to her vicious bullying as to be utterly inconsequential.

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Yeah, I read it too. I'm not interested in excuses for her behavior. I am kind of curious about BS as an individual though.



re: the subject of this and the last thread, I can't in any way spin it to see her as a victim. I don't doubt she's felt and had reason to feel that way, though,


.



Why don't you invite her to join the conversation, Larry? Or start another one, not about her in particular, but maybe the experiences that have informed her opinions?




Really.



---



Eponine: You're one of my favorite people. I hate that you've been made to feel that way, and hope in no shape or form that I ever contributed to it.


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Another thing.

It's worthwhile to go back and read this 2 years old passionate defense of RH by Valente: http://catvalente.livejournal.com/675153.html

Where she compares RH to Christopher Priest (!), her point being that we take Priest seriously BECAUSE HE'S A MAN, while we don't take seriously RH because she's a woman.

Yeah, sure. And not because putting Priest next to RH is ludicrous, regardless of genre.

Well at the time ROH flat out stated she had no intention of becoming an author.

The only thing Valente did was defend the right of someone to post things on their personal blog, which was what the original controversy was about.

Additionally, the comparison to Priest is specifically in reference to a post by Priest in which he lays out varied authors nominated for some award.

I don't think that the umbrella of genuine victimhood extends to authors who had a mean article on some random blog written about them, which at the time was all Valente was noting.

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I'm willing to give Valente the benefit of the doubt that two years ago, she didnt know about the aliases or the threats, etc. Was she spending all her time engaging with commenters or was her knowledge of RH as a hyperbolic review? It seems pretty unfair to tar anyone who defended something RH posted years ago as a blogger with those who were involved with her ongoing efforts to tear people down in communities. (When I search for book reviews, I rarely read all the comments and have only once then gotten involved with an entire online community, ahem. Any given review that I've endorsed could be written by any kind of asshole for all I know. I'm not a professional where my endorsement means shit to anyone.)

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People seem to think this is about the blog. It's not, it's about death and rape threats and driving people out of the community.

It is about that, but there's some tendency in this and other discussions on the subject to categorise people who defended her blog back then when they presumably didn't know about the death threats and the rest as someone who's backed her in everything she's ever done.

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It is about that, but there's some tendency in this and other discussions on the subject to categorise people who defended her blog back then when they presumably didn't know about the death threats and the rest as someone who's backed her in everything she's ever done.

Yeah and it's really starting to irk me a tad. I never liked her blog but I assume people who did only knew about the blog. Most people have expressed the proper amount of horror at what else she was up to and I have no reason to not believe them.

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Appropo to the discussion of the difficulties for Asians to get published in sf/f here is this from today's New York Times, on the occasion of a Chinese sf writer's first volume in a trilogy -- The Three-Body Problem -- being published in the U.S. Back in China, his books have 500,000 readers. There's also the Chinese Nebula, which are attended by 2000 writers and other book professionals, at which he's a star.



Of course, he's a scientist by vocation (writing's his hobby), and male, so perhaps that contributes to his large success, which seemingly eludes some women from Asian cultures? particularly if their culture is that of a fairly marginalized nation. I dunno. But it is much more difficult for women of any culture or hue of skin to achieve a publishing deal from an sf publisher, get the reviews, and just generally the R E S P E C T than it is for men of any culture or hue of skin.




The article is titled "In a Topsy-Turvy World, China Warms to Sci-Fi" and can be read here.



And here's a pull from the article:



[ " The first book in the series explores the world of the Trisolarans, an alien civilization on the brink of destruction. When a secret military project in China attempts to make contact with aliens, the Trisolarans capture the signals and decide to invade Earth. Back in China, people split into two camps: those who welcome the aliens and those who want to fight them.


The series is likely to be a change of pace for science-fiction fans in the United States, where many leading contemporary writers in the genre are rejecting classic alien-invasion plots in favor of those that take on real-world issues like climate change or shifting gender roles.


“I don’t think the demand for this kind of classical golden age science fiction has necessarily gone away,” Liz Gorinsky, an editor at Tor Books, said of the decision to introduce the series to American readers. “The ‘Three-Body’ series sort of scratches the same itch that harkens back to the kinds of books people read when they were kids.”


Some experts link the popularity of the “Three-Body” series to a growing confidence among Chinese about their country’s growing role on the world stage.


“There have always been science-fiction stories that contemplated China as a leader in the world,” said Wu Yan, a science-fiction scholar and professor at Beijing Normal University. “People may have liked them, but, in their hearts, they didn’t truly believe them, or they thought it was really far off in the future. Now, with the ‘Three-Body’ series, people think, ‘Wow, it really could be possible that China might be given a say in the fate of humankind.’ ”


In the book, scientists attempt to solve the traditional three-body problem in physics, in which the otherwise stable gravitational interaction between two objects in space becomes random and unpredictable when a third object is introduced.


Mr. Liu’s revered status in the genre was evident this month at a book signing at the fifth annual Chinese Nebula Awards, one of the largest gatherings of science-fiction writers and fans in China. More than 2,000 people attended the events, held in an empty museum space on the western outskirts of Beijing. " ]

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I'm now wracking my brain for a book written on India by a Western author, that I liked!

William Dalrymple, historian, V.S. Naipaul (who also wrote fiction about Africa), Amitav Ghosh (born in India, but British cultured and educated, writes in English), Paul Scott, among many others.

When it comes to British authors at least, very many had / have a great deal of first hand Indian experience, who have written fine books set in India, in both fiction and non-fiction. Among them, however, in my opinion only! we cannot include say, River of Gods by Ian McDonald.

The thing is, an author must recognize his or her limitations as much as s/he needs to understand her / his capabilities. There is nothing per se to bar anybody writing about anywhere or anyone, as long as the author honestly understands what s/he's writing about.

By the way, how do you feel about Rudyard Kipling? :)

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OK, a few things regarding that link I posted late last night:



1) I don't think the post was meant to excuse RH's behavior; it was more to vent about the difference in treatment when someone who does something bad is a woman of color.



2) Linking does not mean full endorsement; I posted it to provide a different perspective than the ones being discussed.



3) Although I've known Tessa for years as a friend of two friends of mine, I'm not going to ask her to visit here.



4) Arguing tone/rhetoric is a valid point to make in discussions like these; it's not whose voice(s) is/are the loudest who necessarily are the "right" (or "wrong") ones.



5) People are funny creatures, but that goes without saying, n'est ce pas? ;)

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Larry,

1) I don't think the post was meant to excuse RH's behavior; it was more to vent about the difference in treatment when someone who does something bad is a woman of color.

Reapectfully, her post clearly refers to RH/BS's behavior and while she says, over and over, that "the victim" did bad things she then goes on to say, repeatedly, "being a bully doesn't mean you aren't a 'victim'". I'm sorry that implies that those currently sharing their stories of RH/BS's antics are somehow victimizing RH/BS.

That is too far.

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