Will Shetterly's Blog, page 110

Two writers of color on the toxicity of call-out culture, with a reference to Racefail 09

FromA Note on Call-Out Culture – Briarpatch Magazine: What makes call-out culture so toxic is not necessarily its frequency so much as the nature and performance of the call-out itself. Especially in online venues like Twitter and Facebook, calling someone out isn’t just a private interaction between two individuals: it’s a public performance where people can demonstrate their wit or how pure

Eksperimentas VERTIMAS: a beautiful short video about racism in Lithuania

I've never seen a flamewar, or any war, fought by people who were kind

A review that makes me want to see the new Cinderella movie:Domythic Bliss: Have Courage and Be Kind. It has a few comments on the importance of kindness, which made me think how wonderful the internet would be if we could all agree to be kind, especially when we disagreed, and that the heart of acceptance of other people's differences, the one requirement for making a world in which we all live

Excluded by intersectionality: Cecil Clayton

Why Missouri death-row inmate seeks last-minute clemency - CSMonitor.com: "Missouri's oldest death row inmate, scheduled to beexecutedTuesday by injection for the 1996 shooting death of a sheriff's deputy, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court and the state's governor to spare his life. Attorneys for Cecil Clayton, 74, argue in last-minute appeals and a clemency request that Clayton has dementia and

Signing while dancing: Snubbe teckentolkar i melodifestivalen

I Challenge You to Stop Reading Economically Privileged Authors for One Year?

Like most voracious readers, I thought I read diversely when I was young because I didn't care about an author's race or gender. In the 1960s, Andre Norton was one of the first science fiction writers who I loved, and once I had found my favorite genre, I fell in love with writers like Ursula Le Guin and Zenna Henderson. When I was fourteen, my favorite writer in the universe was Samuel R. Delany

Dear internet, please stop confusing the political left with the moralist left

I've been meaning to post something about this for a while, andThe University of Oklahoma's SAE Fraternity and the Limits of Free Speechis my tipping point. The people who want to restrict speech in the belief that it will help marginalized people--brown people, queer people, trans people, etc.-are not leftists, because those are not right or left issues. Log Cabin Republicans and Libertarian

About the female Thor, the black Captain America, and fanboy sexism and racism

The best explanation I've seen yet for why fanboys are cool with a black Captain America and upset with a female Thor:wolfofthewest_ comments on How to calm an Asgardian.

I haven't been following comics closely for 20 years, but I agree with wolfofthewest about the nature of the mythologies. Captain America is a role; anyone can take on the job. Thor is a person--it makes as much sense to

dance for the sake of your brain

One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn't - NYTimes.com:

...eventually the researchers homed in on 10 pairs of male identical twins, one of whom regularly exercised, while the other did not, usually because of work or family pressures, the researchers determined.

The dissimilarities in their exercise routines had mostly begun within the past three years, according to their questionnaires.

The

Asking how to write characters of one sex "right" is asking the wrong question

I just noticed that one of the unkillable questions for fiction-writing essays is being asked and answered twice at Tor.com: Kate Elliott is doingWriting Women Characters as Human Beingsand Ilana C. Myer is doingOh No, She Didn’t: The Strong Female Character, Deconstructed. Now, I haven't read either, so this post isn't to disagree with any of their specific points.

It's to disagree with the