Will Shetterly's Blog, page 51

For Lis Carey, Hampus Eckerman, JJ, or anyone who has said I must have held back relevant information about the Fourth Street Kerfuffle

With two conditions, here's my offer to end part of the whispering:Write me—shetterly at gmail—and I'll forward the raw email discussions that I drew on for Positively Fourth Street, or On being banned for ... vague reasons about nearly indescribable things? That's easy to do in Gmail and it will show what I thought was unnecessary. If there's something you think relevant, you're free to share

Why I prioritize class and identitarians don't

Anyone who knows history knows this: 1. The gender gap is narrowing. 2. The racial gap is narrowing. 3. The wealth gap is widening. Neoliberals support all three of these. And socialists whose beliefs about identity come from liberals like Derrick Bell and Kimberle Crenshaw effectively support all three when they focus on the battles that are being won instead of the one that's being lost.

Writers at File 770 validate my concern about the Fourth Street ban

At Shetterly Banned by 4th Street Fantasy Convention | File 770, Lis Carey says, I’m also not inclined to believe he has engaged in full disclosure about his interactions with Fourth Street over this. Not suggesting anything is faked; just that I wouldnt be surprised if there’s more, stuff that he’s decided is “not relevant,” but which Fourth Street might consider very relevant. Hampus Eckerman

Potential Fourth Street fallout—on mobbing, emotional abuse, depression, and suicide

So far as I know, no one in science fiction fandom has chosen suicide as a consequence of being mobbed. But if nothing changes, someone will. At least two of the targets in the #MeToo movement have killed themselves—Jill Messick and Jo Min-ki. That's no surprise to anyone who has read about mobbing—see The very real link between workplace bullying and suicide: Twice as likely to contemplate

Positively Fourth Street, or On being banned for ... vague reasons about nearly indescribable things?

If you only want to know about the ban, skim to the third section. Introduction: Why this, why now? I despise few things more than whisper campaigns, so I'm going public with something that's gone on for over a year in science fiction fandom, a community that may gossip more than any other because all fans love a wild tale. Even if it could be proved that fans gossip less than other people,

A handy list of "believe the victim" cases where "the victim" was wrong

If you believe we are all equal, you believe anyone can make a mistake or lie. A better slogan than "believe the victim" is "take every accusation seriously". Here's a short list of times when "the victim" should not have been believed. 1931 Scottsboro Boys: The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenagers, ages 13 to 19, accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a

Lincoln's useful observation about capitalism and labor

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital

"Fads"—a new comic about the Legion of Super-Heroes

By identity logic, poor whites are people of color, and Jews and Asians are the whitest people of all

When left identitarians speak of white privilege, they point to the likelihood of living in bad homes or being homeless, going to bad schools, getting bad health care, having bad job opportunities, and being killed by the police. By this logic, poor white people are not white, and Jews and Asians are whiter than Christian white people. 1. The racial statistics for poverty and police killings

On Basic Income and the game of Monopoly

I said on Facebook, Crusaders against things that people do when they're desperate--theft, sex work, abortion--should support #BasicIncome. Alex Ugur commented, Even the archetypical model of capitalism, the game of Monopoly, has basic income (when you pass Go) as the main driver. It's like the fuel in the car that makes the engine go! Unfortunately, even that isn't enough: invariably the game