Another One Bites The Dust – Or: The Case of One Who Thought He Was Truly Ineffable

So, another writer acting badly: Neil Gaiman.

Given his usual demeanor and the company he tends to keep, such as public-groping, all-around vicious person Harlan Ellison, the rapey and abusive China Mieville, the glowering racist and acidic person Amanda Palmer, and bra-strap-plucking Isaac Asimov, I’m none too surprised that something like this is out. Even how he handled the Orlando Jones/American Gods racism issue showed that if he doesn’t like a problem that is genuinely a problem, he’ll just disconnect from it, pretend it doesn’t have anything to do with him and do a classic “I’m the issue but I’m also over it so we all have to be over it (and not hold me to it)”. And I’ve had a brief chat with him on twitter, he really does do the “if I’m not winning, I’m leaving” thing. It’s one thing to want to control the narrative of your own career, it’s another to act wantonly and have the attitude of “it’s ok, I don’t need to be held to my behaviors, just hide or ignore the messed up ones.” He looks out for himself, that’s pretty obvious.

Part of this started through women coming forward, all their separate stories of someone who was super enthralled by his fame – until it dawned on them that this fairytale they’re living is actually quite a nightmare. Super unfortunate to say the least but at least someone took on their story finally. I wouldn’t be surprised if more came forward.

Also, another part of this started through what is known as “whisper networks” from booksellers, literary workshop holders, and librarians. I usually don’t take a lot of stock in whisper networks, also more formally known as “rumor mills”. There’s a reason why they’re quiet, in my eyes: either because it isn’t true, or it isn’t a big enough issue to stand up about the problem and thus, it’s easier to enable and cover for a potential bad person than to bring it to the fore. “I heard [so and so] is/does …” is not that captivating to me.

It’s one thing to tip off a friend of bad behavior (and, please, still tell someone important if it is indeed super important), it’s another to just go “Hey this person has [bad behavior that is super bad but it’s from a 5th hand source and we’re all quiet about this for self-sustaining reasons].”

Folks, I came from the music industry. Keeping quiet helps no one, especially once the same name keeps getting floated by different, unconnected people.

I do take note of who gets mentioned but if they’re anon sources or no one seems to really care more than “here’s a tip off” and it’s for egregious behavior, I just keep it in the back of my head unless I see something that goes “that’s not good.” Or sometimes I talk directly with the person talked about.

Also, because I’m me and I live in the real world, I also weigh race, gender, orientation, etc. If they’re Black or simply not one to pass a paper bag test, I factor in anti-Blackness and/or colorism, especially if it comes from White or lighter skinned folks as sources. It’s amazing how fast “difficult to work with”/”moody behavior” is actually “I’m the terrible person and they didn’t put up with that so now I’m on destructo-mode”. And I learn by spending time with the person. I’m pretty hyper-sensitive, thanks to having two trauma disorders stacked on top of each other, so I’m usually pretty on the money a good chunk of the time. Also, if it is centered on someone who is not White & male, I just use the actions of the worst White guy in the field as the yardstick. If the White guy could do something worse and still keep a career in that field, then I factor that in and even bring it up because I’m not a fan of double standards. Plus, it just means to me “you will accept worse if they have privilege so it’s not an actual problem to you, you’re just trying to bleach the field.”

If it is something more egregious than “moody person I dislike”, such as prejudice or sexual harassment/sexual assault/rape, I rather keep stock of that … and tell someone that could potentially do something about it. That’s not “difficult to work with”, that’s a major problem. You genuinely liked Good Omens that much to have someone walk around and be grabby to others you haven’t personally warned?

Trust, I have friends who knew Lost Prophets and R. Kelly personally – just freakin’ report it. It was not fun seeing friends who didn’t know what the ne’er-do-weller was doing, or those who did but thought they could “talk some sense into ’em before they do something really stupid”/”look, nobody’s perfect but someone’s gotta be there for ’em”. Almost all of them had to basically make an apology to the world, answer really unsavory questions, and some even faced investigation – just for the actions of others. Lost Prophets is a case of “some folks are very good at deception – especially if they pick victims others don’t prefer to listen to, such as ‘imperfect’ women”. R. Kelly is a case of “some people are pretty decent at deception … but very good at picking and keeping around people who say they’re upstanding – yet have malleable morals if the paycheck or allure of associated fame is nice enough. Oh, and they pick victims others don’t prefer to listen to, such as Black women and girls, especially the ‘imperfect’ ones”. (Everyone genuinely knew what R. Kelly was doing – even MadTV lampooned it when he was slated to perform at the 1996 Olympics, but it was only after he targeted a White girl did it all come crashing down.) It’s not always “made up nonsense, created by jealous people [usually women] with nothing better to do but tear someone famous [usually a guy] down”.

Yes, people can make stuff up but when it comes to sexual violence, the chances of the person being a liar, statistically, is about 2-8%. That means it’s a solid 90+% chance the person is telling the truth. Especially given all the horrid nonsense an accuser has to go through, it’s no badge of honor to go through that and no one wants to deal with the sexism of “the wicked jezebel that wants to tear down a random guy”. Yes, men really do engage in messed up sexual behavior more often than people think women fabricate about said behaviors. It’s called “rape culture” and “casual sexism”. Actually, most sexual violence is by someone the victim knows, there’s about a 76% likelihood of that. That’s part of why it’s so difficult to report or to even know what happened was sexual violence, it’s not some nefarious guy in a trenchcoat jumping up from out of the bushes. It’s somebody who knows you – and your boundaries (as well as how to twist them) – way better than that. Easier to twist your head up that way and protect themselves. Especially if they are famous.

It’s not easy but being quiet about serious stuff doesn’t help anyone.

In addition, people should probably review their spaces and who they associate with and ask themselves why they would prefer to keep an environment that protects harmful people from their actions but helps creates more victims. While it would be nice to believe Gaiman was this master spinner of tales and deception and beautiful lies that fooled us all – people knew. He asked people to provide him with girls for a trip to Scotland. Palmer knew he was going after women by the payload. Clarion Workshops created rules to keep Gaiman away from women of certain age. Bookseller and publishers knew he was Sir Grab-a-Lot. That’s a lot of people who coddled him. Again, why? Were they that stupefied and dizzied by Mirrormask? It’s just no point in covering for him because the crocodile tears are plentiful when crap hits the fan. There’s just so much “if we knew about this, we would have said something (no, they wouldn’t, they’re just trying to save a different person this time from their own actions: themselves).” Or “We feel so sorry for the victims (usually after dragging the victim names through mud and thorns to hell and back)”. All because it comes from them being willing to ignore bad and toxic behaviors, partly because they’re fine with those behaviors – until it publicly bites them – or because “I’m around someone famous, let me not mess this up”. Yes, pobody nerfect but use your brain, it’s a structure. I bet sexual assault survivor places, such as RAINN and House of Ruth, are going to get some major donations from people in the literary world though. As if that solves the damage Gaiman has done. It doesn’t.

A brief aside, by the way: NDAs are supposed to be for protecting trade secrets, such as Coca Cola’s recipe, to help protect and keep their business running. Why is it such an important “trade secret” to hide a rapist? A racist? An abuser? And why is caping for them more important than making sure they don’t make more victims? Which, by the way, ups the chances of having things crash down even harder. Keep NDAs to actual business only, not to protect the methods of how to get more people thrown into the “broken goods” box. Also, thank R. Kelly, Trump and Weinstein for this new development on NDAs: NDAs meant to hide messed up behaviors are worth less than the paper they’re printed on … unless they’re trying to say the raping, discriminating & abusing are all a necessary part of their trade. A messed up lawyer can make you sign an NDA but it is up to a judge to uphold it. Again, keep NDAs to actual business and not to trick people into signing up for 50 Shades of Pretend Legal Gray Area.

Moving on, this kind of reminds me of the Gabe Hicks issue, where it turned out Hicks was engaging in very manipulative behaviors in his relationships. He was cheating in polyamorous relationships, which, given how poly relationships work, sounds like he just likes hurting people. Seriously, cheating in a poly relationship is like trying to hot-wire steal a free nice car that already has keys in the ignition – freakin’ why?

The part that seemed a bit wacky to me was how his word was taken solely and purely when it came to harming the people he victimized. If he said so-and-so should not be worked with because “unprofessional behavior”, that was basically it. Does no one cross fact check with others or do their own research when it comes to picking people for jobs? One person is enough? And it has to be Hicks to be kingmaker? Because if it were someone the D&D folks didn’t care about (or keep as their favorite on-call token (it isn’t lost on me the major Whiteness of the situation and the D&D community as a whole, as Hicks is a Black man who does cater to Whiteness quite a bit)), then it would have been just another day. The creator side of the D&D community need to take stock in how they handle these issues in the D&D community because it’s more than one person. Way more. Again, these things do not work in a vacuum.

The other part that seemed a bit wacky to me was how Hicks’ actions had a ripple effect on other Black creators in the D&D community, which is already so few as it is. They started losing gigs left and right because of someone they may or may not have known did messed up stuff – and this is the D&D community. White dudes doing problematic stuff there is about as common as snow in the Artic, even things that could have easily dwarfed Hicks behavior (which is part of why I was a bit surprised at the reaction of Hicks’ behavior, they’ve allowed and caped for way worse – then I remembered it was a White community lol). That’s not fair for the other Black creators, that’s just mass punishment for the actions of one. The D&D community needs to also take stock in the fact that it took one person to mess up in a group for them to write off the entire group. At least it also explains how Hicks was allowed to do messed up stuff for as long as he could – he was already in a really messed up environment and he used that to his advantage.

By the by, as full disclosure, I was slating Hicks to be a narrator for a future work but I kept him on the reserve side of my list because I wanted to deep sea dive his info when the book finally came in the saddle. It’s what I do for all narrators when it comes time to select someone for an upcoming work. It’s also because sometimes he was only a tad sus, and because his demo reel was a little weak in terms of what I like to look for in voice actors. I followed him on Tumblr & Instagram for the longest time and would check on his twitter from time to time. I didn’t follow his twitter officially because I already followed him on Tumblr & Instagram, where he’s more active. He always seemed to play it cagey, like he knew he was courting White approval but there are a lot of Black guys in nerd spaces like that, they’re basically adored pets in White nerd communities: great to have around to nullify accusations of racism from other Black fans like little human shields, make the White folks feel like they’re not racist when they actually are, such wonderful pets – until they bite. Hicks would post stuff that, again, seemed sus (to me as a Black woman) but it seemed like standard “I want White people to like me” thirst but he wasn’t Clarence Thomas/Candice Owens level so there’s that. Would I ever work with Hicks again? That depends on Hicks himself and the ocean of Black male vocal talent I can find to match or better him.

Also, since that happens quite a bit to people of color – one person messes up, everyone else pays for it – does this mean Neil Gaiman messing up (and J.K. Rowling messing up, George R.R. Martin messing up, etc etc) mean that we can now mass wipe all White authors off the shelves in bookshelves, on book sites and creator spaces until they somehow magically work their way back into the good graces of the world? And it can’t take less than several years and, oh! the person has to be practically saint level perfect in every way. More perfect than a saint, actually. And every White writer is seen as a walking, talking liability that everyone should avoid like death until a massive slew of people write out dissertation length posts, videos and more to even remotely convince that this is a good person who isn’t a walking pile of filth, and deserves to be published or simply shown to the world? And it takes decades to earn those “good person” cookies back? And those same cookies can be lost in a clean sweep the nanosecond someone else in that group messes up (or is perceived to mess up) and it all has to start back at square one? Because that’s exactly what happens to creatives and creative projects of color. All. The. Time.

Gaiman engaging in behavior super south of “not great” isn’t at all surprising, the writing had been on the walls for a minute. I don’t expect him to get super flogged overall because, again, this is also a case of community and what they allow. It’s amazing how much they’ll let slide if you factor in privilege, especially Whiteness, and make media they like. Gaiman will still get awards for his writing (probably more of them now because other White guys will feel rallied up and make sure [insert messed up, phony, sexist and/or racist theory du jour here] “doesn’t win”), his shows are not likely to be canceled and he’ll probably have to lay low for a bit. Happened to Rowling. If anything, he’ll probably get the lighter version of what she gets. A lot of his core fanbase is comics and is fairly White – race is coming up a lot because, yes, race does matter in instances like these – so they’re just going to be fairly forgiving most likely, if not dismissive of the accusations altogether. They’re the SuperWhoLock crowd, the crowd that usually harasses BIPoC Star Wars actors for simply doing their jobs, the crowd that pretends they’re progressive in thought because delusion is their favorite space to be in. The crowd that thinks they have royal standards in how to treat others but they actually don’t. These are the folks who like Mark Wahlberg (who attempted to murder two Vietnamese people for simply Existing While Asian. Nearly succeeded, too. One is permanently blinded for life. And they’re not the only victims) and Sean Connery (who has an extensive history in sexual violence and physical violence that could make Neil Gaiman look like a saint). So what they allow is a pretty hefty indicator of how they’ll act. And they allow quite a bit.

In Black literary groups I’m part of, people bring up the racist incidents Orlando Jones had to go through in his Anansi role during American Gods, how Gaiman just totally blew that and the fracas that happened. Jones was right, Gaiman was wrong, but Gaiman’s super White fanbase just took Gaiman’s side blindly and flummoxed Jones, a Black actor, about it. Basically, Gaiman had already besmirched his own name among quite a few fans of color, especially Black fans. Even folks who are still major fans of Gaiman there in the reading group are disappointed … but note that he’s replaceable, he can sit in the same bin next to Rowling as far as they’re concerned. If anything, they’re just sad because they thought he was not as trash as the average White male writer but some are not too broken up about it.

For BIPoC folks who are sad and teary: remember, you didn’t know him personally. No need to be so destroyed about his behaviors he personally chose to do and the people who protected & coddled him because they wanted him back in their bookstore or library or writing event more than maintaining the safety of the people they see on the day-to-day. Fame is massive but it shouldn’t be just cause for letting messed up people get away with messed up things. And he’s not the only person who writes fantastical stuff. There are plenty who can write as well as he can and have stories that are just as engaging. And most importantly – you didn’t know him personally. Be sad if you have to but find new media to invest yourself in.

Hopefully all this mess means I’ll see less deep-throating about him in fountain pen communities (he writes with a fountain pen and so do I) and in writing spaces. He wasn’t an insufferable person, but he wasn’t great either. He simply was his own bad omen and people ignored it.