I apologize for the offense taken in this post. It is clear that it has struck
a nerve in a way that I did not intend. I simply wanted to extend the questions raised
by The Thirteenth Child. I am *not* a troll.
The new visitors to my blog are welcome to stay, but I suspect that you will find, as most do, except for when I put my foot in my mouth, like in this instance, this is one of the most boring blogs in the history of the Internet.
Still, there are photos here, comments on movies, politics, and other things.
One commenter to this post asked a question:
I doubt you and I'll be talking much, but I did want to challenge your
language, as well as note the fact that the only authors you can cite
are white men. Have you even read sf/fantasy by white women or people
of color?
I will answer that question in another post. This one, in fact.
And that post, aside from this apology, will be the last I have to say on the subject.
http://www.skyseastone.net/jvstin/unjvst/007928.html
This is a reaction to the comments on this thread on Tor.com
I intend to respond there as well but I felt my thoughts deserved space of their own.
Some months ago, there was a internet flamewar called "Racefail". It started as a discussion on Livejournal about race and racism in science fiction books, culture, fandom, and criticism. It got ugly, quickly, with a lot of ad hominem attacks and over-the-top stuff thrown about.
Anyway, the thread above on Tor.com, about Patricia Wrede's new novel, The Thirteenth Child, threatens to explode this topic yet again.
Disclaimer: I have not yet read the book.
This is an alternate version of our world which is full of magic, and where America ("Columbia") was discovered empty of people but full of dangerous animals, many of them magical. The novel is a YA pioneer novel set in this world. From what I understand, the high magic level of the Americas simply meant that the Native Americans never emigrated there, and remained in Asia.
The comments in the review quickly have taken a "Racefail" turn and some of the commenters have excoriated Wrede to varying degrees for "erasing" Native Americans from this world.
Should we excoriate Harry Turtledove for his Different Flesh stories/novel fixup, where the Americas are populated by Homo Pithecanthropi (and also have Mammoths and other ice age megafauna)? Under the standards that these commenters have set, the "replacement" of Native Americans by Homo Pithecanthropi is offensive, no?
What about his new Atlantis novels, which concentrates on the fractional continent of Atlantis, which is not populated by Native Americans. Is Turtledove wrong for sidestepping Native American--European interactions in this way?
Should I denounce H Beam Piper's Kalvan of Otherwhen because of the whole "Aryan Transpacific" concept?
What about the late Philip Jose Farmer's Gate of Worlds/Two Hawks from Earth novels, which mostly eliminates the North American continent and so the proto Native American tribes turn and overrun Europe and deform or obliterate the Slavic populations and take their place?
Are all of these immoral?
Posted by Jvstin at May 7, 2009 3:14 PMI've not read Harry Turtledove at all, and only read a few Piper's (fuzzies?), and read Farmer a gazillion years ago. I've been reading sf for nearly fifty years, and while I read all the Big Male Names back in the day, I've spent the last couple of decades reading mostly women authors because their work is better. I like it more. It speaks to me more about the worlds they create. I wish my favorite white women writers would think a bit more critically about race, but even the ones who fail are doing mostly better than white men.
But yes, I would say certainly it would be possible to analyze those texts (like any other text created by human beings) from a critical race and feminist perspectives and from a queer perspective showing how the beliefs, values, and ideologies of the writers and their social-historical periods exist. Saying that a text produced by a member of the dominant culture reflects those values is hardly taking the author out and burning him at the stake, you know.
Authors are free to write what they wish; people are freee to choose to read what they wish; and readers are free to critique what they read.
I don't know if you would consider the analysis I talk about denouncing, or excoriating--fairly hyperbolic language. I don't. It's what I do for fun and for a living (I spent ten years doing feminist sf scholarship).
I also feel it's complete natural for someone whose culture or group is erased, marginalized, wiped out, or enslaved in a text to feel angry, hurt, and to express that anger.
I don't read an awful of of the alternative histories because they're mostly by white men creaming their pants over military battles and who won what when and how.
I've read a few(have you read PK Dick's _Man in the High Castle_ where Japan wins the war and takes over the US? If not, why not, wow, that's a famous alternate history, but on Eurocentric.). And I remember the hoo-hah over whether or not Vonda McIntyre's _The Moon and the Sun_ was declared to be not alternate history for all sorts of reasons that came down to, she's a girl, she's writing about a girl, and nobody's fighting a war.
I doubt you and I'll be talking much, but I did want to challenge your language, as well as note the fact that the only authors you can cite are white men. Have you even read sf/fantasy by white women or people of color?
I think you're doing a disservice to the enormously complicated discussions that went on during "Racefail" by simply calling it a flamewar. The conflict was about white SF/F authors' failures in depicting non-white characters and treating non-white fans as if their opinions weren't valid. Theirs was the fail, not the commenters.
As for your questions about Turtledove et al: Yes, we should hold them to the same standards. Why wouldn't we? When we point out that their books depict a problematically Eurocentric alternate history, we aren't saying that they are horrible people, just that they are also part of a white-centered culture and are unfortunately reproducing that culture's blind spots. I'd want that to be pointed out to me so I could fix it.
Posted by: arch at May 8, 2009 1:08 PM*blink*
did you really just reduce months of dialogue and reflection - and the conflict that wouldn't quit - to a mere "flamewar?"
Really?
Wow.
Posted by: cpolk at May 8, 2009 6:26 PM