So now I’m gonna talk about puppies…

Way back in 2009, I made the list of Shorty nominations because I jokingly said, “I nominate me for the Shorty’s.” Enough people took me seriously that I made it far enough up the list to bound one spot over Laurell K. Hamilton for two days. It was without a doubt the two most glorious days I had experienced in writing up to that point. Of course I quickly plunged off the list of nominations because it was just a lark, and I don’t have a huge fan-base to appeal to to help me game the Shortys. I have since then never asked to be nominated for the Shorty awards because it’s not that big a deal to me. I’d love to win an award for something I wrote, but only if it was nominated legitimately by someone who liked my book. This makes it a pretty tall order, a nomination from someone who read and liked my book who also has membership standing in a voting body for a qualifying award. I really might have better odds of winning the lottery.

Which brings me to the puppies and the Hugo awards. It’s kind of funny how there’s this group of guys complaining that they’re in the minority while wielding the powers of a majority to screw everyone else over. Apparently to them, it’s unfair that authors who aren’t white, male, and conservative might get a chance winning an award. Because white conservative males are so underrepresented in the award winning world. They’re not voting based on a book that touched them. They’re voting for the candidate who most closely matches their ideals. They’re not even doing this to recognize talent that they feel has been held down for too long. No, they’re doing it to attack the idea of diverse voices infecting their pure white male awards. So they’ve gathered themselves into a little army, and they’re proving that as a voting bloc, they can nominate whoever they want, blocking any of those uppity minorities from getting on the final ballot.

You’d think this sort of thing might make me angry, but I find it to be a rather fascinating look into the mindset of a group of people who, while having the benefits of privilege in virtually every field of media, still want to claim that they’re being held down somehow. I can’t even recall when it wasn’t a topic of contention that awards were reflective of only one culture, race, and gender. The reading audience may be far more diverse, but the voting bodies trend toward white males, and the nominations tend to reflect that reality. I can’t attend Worldcon, so even if I wanted to nominate a book, I’m not part of the voting body. I can’t gather my friends to vote for me or another author because no one I know has or will attend Worldcon either. This means that the only people who can game the system are those people already inside it. And so this group, who already have a dominating presence in the club, are angry that anyone else might have a chance of being nominated, and they’re so angry about this possibility that they would push a few select authors to make sure no one else’s vote counts.

What this does is make the awards increasingly meaningless to the general public. They see these stories of the awards being rigged from the inside, and now they’re thinking how the books aren’t nominated based on the best work of the year. Instead, it’s all about who can rally the most votes for their favorite supposed underdog.

I’ve mentioned very recently how the vast majority of reading selections at my bookstore trend toward straight white characters, and how I have to go online and hunt specifically for any books with characters outside of that dominating culture. Looking at my reading options in the mainstream, I have to wonder who looks at the one or two books that slip through with a different perspective and points to those exceptions as proof that the minorities are taking over and holding their favorite authors down. I’m morbidly fascinated by how much anger these people have at seeing a few exceptions to their majority slip into the nominations and regarding this as an invasion that is holding them down. They’re just so angry that they can’t own the whole block on every award.

I think I’ve mentioned before that if I was looking only to consume media that reflected me personally, I’d have a very short list of works to pick through. It’s rare to find books or films with a trans main character, or even to find a book with any trans characters. The last book I can recall that had a trans character was The Trouble With Fate by Leigh Evans, and that was a secondary character. I give the book kudos and a shout out because the character is presented in a fairly sympathetic light. But if I were basing my reading list on only seeing trans main characters, even that book fails because the main characters are straight cisgendered white people. And okay, the heroine of the story is not of the typical thin model archetype, so again, more kudos for breaking the mold. But what I’m getting at is, if I started demanding that the only media I consume should represent me exclusively, it would be a damn slim pile to pick through. I accept that I can’t get what I want. I read the mainstream stuff, and I know that some of these folks can spin a good tale even if I never find anyone like me within their stories.

So here’s this group of guys who, even looking out at the vast seas of male whiteness in the field, pick out a few dark spots and scream that it’s so unfair how underrepresented they are. It’s just so damned unfair to them that they don’t have total, complete domination. Because if there’s even a hint that anyone else might be climbing the ladder of success, it has to mean their people are being held down.

What this all boils down to is that these guys refuse to see anyone else succeeding. Everyone else is an other. White women? Other. Black men? Other. Gays, trans, or gender-queers? Other. And despite how hard it is for any of these groups to make their voices heard in the sea of white males, when someone does succeed in making a ripple, they feel the need to quash it, lest it lead to more uppity minorities rising above their precious white males.

It should make me mad. It should infuriate me that people who have most of the social advantages scream like babies denied a popsicle because they can’t have all the awards. But mostly, it just reminds me why no one’s struggle for recognition is ever truly over. Hard work is meaningless. Artistic talent is meaningless. What matters to this incensed majority is that the awards reflect their gender and skin color.

I wonder what that must be like, to be so angry in their total domination and victory over everyone else. Here I am, down at the bottom of the artistic pile, with no hopes of gaming the system. Here I am, as a reader, being unable to find more than a few books that offer me a character reflective of my experiences. And yet, I can’t find it in me to be outraged like these guys, who sit at the top of the pile and scream about wanting all the toys. Mostly, I just sigh and keep writing my stuff because that’s just the way it is. The angry majority who has everything will keep stamping their feet about how unfair it is that a few exceptional works made their ballot, and the minorities who have little hope of winning just sigh and walk on by. It should feel good to be on the winning team. So why are these guys always so angry?

I think maybe they’re mad because deep down inside, they know that one day, they won’t be the majority. They’ll have a rank equal to everyone else, with the same chances of being represented as everyone else. And that’s what drives their tempers. They’re mad that one day soon, they won’t own all the toys. They might have to compete on an actual level playing field. And wouldn’t that be a damn shame, having to earn their place in the awards instead of just having everything given to them by default?