82 Responses so far

1. 1. Steve Buchheit on May 8th, 2007 at 7:40 am

   “(Kilgore Trout’s) books are all bad. All the spacemen in the future are Americans. Hardly anybody in the world is American.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five (Quoted from memory so I might be a bit off).

   I guess it would be a matter of self-selection or discrimination. My guess would be more of the former with a spicing of the later. I also think it has a lot to do with whom the stories are about (which leads to the former). As I remember, that’s an issue close to your heart, Tobias.

2. 2. Edward Willett on May 8th, 2007 at 8:24 am

   Interestingly enough, I’m currently mentoring three teenaged writers here in Saskatchewan through a program of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild. Two are focused on science fiction and fantasy. Of those two, one is a black Haitian adopted by a Canadian couple; he’s attempting to write a sprawling military space opera a la David Weber.

   His writing has a long way to go, but he’s very focused and dedicated.

   This says nothing about the present or future diversity of the field, of course, except, I guess, there’s always hope…

3. 3. Jeff Beeler on May 8th, 2007 at 8:53 am

   Funny but I usually site those same names as proof SF is not diverse in that only a few writers of colour write SF. We can add Canadian Minister Faust to the list now.

4. 4. Jay Lake on May 8th, 2007 at 9:08 am

   I’ve been meaning to speak to this topic. I’m the transparent case of the middle aged white, male, Anglo-Saxon, middle class, etc. etc., and the diversity issue bothers the hell out of me. Thank you for raising it intelligently in combination with Temp’s efforts, and I hope you guys will be ok with a 40something honky weighing in soon.

5. 5. Jaime on May 8th, 2007 at 9:12 am

   Serious question here, Toby, because I want to understand this.

   Why isn’t the field more diverse, specifically in terms of people of color?

   When I pick up a book off the shelf, or get a story/poem in slush, I have no idea what color the author’s skin is. It never even crosses my mind. And in the very best sense of the word, I don’t care, because a good story is a good story in my world and the ethnic background of the author doesn’t change that for me.

   In other words, when it comes to reading and editing, I’m color blind.

   I know back in the day that seeing a woman’s name on a submission was enough to keep it from being published, but this is a different time and a different dynamic.

   So what is keeping people of color out of the field?

6. 6. Tony on May 8th, 2007 at 9:51 am

   I’ve been reading SF/F (tolkien, clarke, asimov, weis & hickman) since I was about 10 and it never really bothered me much that practically none of them had people of colour in them.

   Of course when a novel like CR comes along which is both a good read and has characters that I can relate to very well it’s great. Haven’t had the opportunity to check out some of the other writers that Tobias mentions in this post, but I mean to.

   Jaime: If I read the posts/comments correctly I think what she’s saying is that because there aren’t any people of colour in the books, then coloured kids growing up can’t relate to and have no interest in the books, so none of them grow up aspiring to become F/SF writers.

7. 7. Stephen Granade on May 8th, 2007 at 9:56 am

   Jaime, The Angry Black Woman addresses why “we’re colorblind in our [editing/reading]” isn’t a reasonable answer: you’re assuming that what comes in the slush or what gets submitted to publishing houses is truly representative. It isn’t. And I agree with her that saying “Oh, well, people of color can submit if they want to” isn’t really enough.

8. 8. will shetterly on May 8th, 2007 at 10:47 am

   There are at least two ways the “Delany, Butler, etc.” list gets used. On the sfwa lj, one writer was wishing that SFWA did more to promote diversity. Anyone who has read Dogland knows that diversity has always been a concern of mine, but that doesn’t mean I think every organization should be devoted to diversity. I don’t see it as part of sfwa’s mandate, and I think the “Delany, Butler, etc.” list is evidence that sfwa itself is not a racist organization. Specifically, if it was, it seems to me that Delany or Butler or any of the very fine et ceteras would’ve spoken up. To suggest that they were afraid to speak up or too blind to see the racism around them seems awfully insulting.

   Secondly, too often, race is used as a way to avoid talking about class. Factor in class, and you’ll find that most writers are middle-class and upper-class, regardless of race. Delany certainly came from a background of privilege. But just as there’s a shortage of poor innercity writers, there’s a shorter of poor rural writers, too. Poverty cuts across race; there are twice as many whites living below the poverty line as blacks or Hispanics. By focusing on race, the problem seems much smaller than it actually is.

9. 9. Scott Janssens on May 8th, 2007 at 11:31 am

   Do we know the percentage or African American authors in other genres and/or literature? If sf has a significantly lower percentage then it’s an sf problem and issue. If not, it’s not an sf problem but a societal problem.

   (I think your numbers for SFWA might be high, Toby. If you throw out Delaney for not writing sf [as you should] then you should throw out SFWA members who haven’t published in the recent past. This is neither here nor there, just a nitpick. I’m sure the numbers are still skewed.)

10. 10. Joe Sherry on May 8th, 2007 at 11:34 am

    Tobias: I agree with you that dropping the four names is a weak effort to show diversity. With all of the published authors we can find on the bookshelf we can only come up with four in our genre? And two of them aren’t publishing anymore? And throwing David Durham’s Acacia into the mix does not replace Butler.

    I do use Octavia Butler as an example of a black SFF writer, but not as proof of diversity.

    And if you really want to mess this up:

    We have one working black WOMAN working in the genre? Really? That’s sad.

    I had never heard of the wife of Steven Barnes and I imagine there are many others who have not as well, and this might explain why there are only 4 on the list.

11. 11. Steve Buchheit on May 8th, 2007 at 11:43 am

    Joe Sherry, Octavia passed from us last year, so at this point, to carry your metaphore mess-up farther, we have one dead black woman who wrote in the genre.

12. 12. Rick Novy on May 8th, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    Look around, though. It’s not an issue of not having diversified authors in fiction. There are plenty of fiction writers of all kinds in the bookstores. I think sometimes the genres tend to be self-selecting. The readers of SF are predominantly white males, that’s what the readers will buy, and that’s who will end up writing most of the material because it all comes down to what sells. it isn’t fair and it isn’t right, but it’s the way the world works.

    And SF isn’t the only genre with unbalanced participation. Some subgenres construct fences specifically to keep people out. There is a slew of minority fiction subgenres of popular and literary fiction. Imagine the lack of diversity in Latino fiction.

    In SF, I don’t believe there are artificial exclusionary constructs. As far as I know, there aren’t any SF writers or editors actively trying to be racially selective or exclusive. I think it’s just market forces that formed the white male majority. It is changing, but just like in other parts of life, it takes time to overcome the past. We’ll all be better off when we finally do.

13. 13. David Chunn on May 8th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Well, I’m not sure you’re going to get much diversity as long as marketing departments have power. You don’t make money playing to 12% of the market, and in the SF readership, that’s even less. Notice how much trouble LeGuin has had trying to get Ged from Earthsea to be portrayed as brown on the book covers. (To my knowledge, on the SFBC edition did this right, over all the years.)

    Also, it’s not like authors decide who gets published. What’s the diversity range of editors? It makes a difference. “We buy on merit” is utter crap.

14. 14. Steve Buchheit on May 8th, 2007 at 2:09 pm

    Rick Novy, self-selection is the “soft” discrimination. It’s the one we do to ourselves instead of having over-arching constructs and plays to our “kin and other” brains.

    While some of these terms have become politically charged, ABW really is arguing for afirmative action (community outreach, etc, although because of conservative wordsmithing connotatively “afirmative action” has come to equate to “quotas”). She is also asking for white-male writers (of which I am a card carrying member, being just this shy of bunt cake) to realize that the whole world isn’t white males and maybe consider that when writing. I embrace that theory very much.

    Market forces can also be read as “club.” As the SF genre keeps to it borders of a “majority,” like musk-oxen on the tundra, circling to preotect their young, we can fend off all that which is “not one of us.” And just like those musk-ox, we will die off and have to be imported from Siberia, or something like that. So, yes, market forces drive acceptance, drive what we write, drive whose interested in writing in the genre, drive the sales, drive what’s accepted, until it drives us into a hole.

    There’s a big world out there, we should be inclusive of it. At first that means forcing issues, which is what she’s doing.

15. 15. Jaime on May 8th, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    Tony: That was certainly true in the past, but I think it is changing, slowly but surely, just as the inclusion of women as characters got better over time. More and more genre books are being written with people of color as the main characters. It’s not perfect, but it is getting better. Pick up the SF books written by Elizabeth Bear and Karin Lowachee as examples of what I mean. I’m sure there are other books out there, but these are two authors I can be certain of and have on my shelf right now.

    And I do have to wonder a bit about the argument that because kids don’t see Black, Hispanic, Asian or other ethnic characters in genre books they won’t want to be a genre writer when they grow up. I’m a lot older than Toby and Tempest. When I was growing up there were almost no girls or women in the SF&F books I was reading. The few that were there were either helpless and needing to be rescued, or consigned to the role of sidekick. They certainly weren’t main characters or heroes.

    This didn’t turn me off of ever wanting to write SF&F. It made me determined to grow-up and write books with the kind of characters I couldn’t find. Not saying this idea is totally wrong, but that this is why I wonder about this.

    Stephan G.: No, I’m not assuming anything. I really wanted to know, which is why I asked. If you go back and look, I never said “Oh they can submit if they want.” What I said is that when I read and edit, I don’t know what ethnic background the author comes from. It doesn’t factor into my decision to buy a book or buy a poem/story.

    And I still don’t have an answer to my question, which is Why?

    I was a dirt poor white girl who grew up in a predominately Black area in South Central L.A. I can think of a dozen answers on my own, all related to poverty, lack of education, literacy levels and the culture of despair that hangs like a cloud over those neighborhoods. All of which are societal issues and a much bigger problem than just a lack of diversity in SF&F.

    But those would be my answers. I’d like to hear a few reasons from other people.

    Then I’d like to hear a few ideas for how to change this.

16. 16. tobias s buckell on May 8th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    Rick Novy:There is a slew of minority fiction subgenres of popular and literary fiction. Imagine the lack of diversity in Latino fiction.

    With all due respect, that’s like saying there’s a lack of diversity in African American Science Fiction.

    Of course our genre is self selecting, that’s why there is no diversity. I’m a bit croggled that your response to ‘we don’t have a diverse field’ is basically ‘a) we have a self selecting field and b) it’s okay.’

    All I did was point out that the field is not diverse, I’m not making a value judgement (in this post) or a call for action (in this post) but asking people to reflect on the lack of diversity. You also then point out another genre that doesn’t have diversity to make it okay that SF/F doesn’t. That doesn’t really work for me anymore than saying it’s okay there are no black people in X town, but hey, there are no white people in X town in Ghana, so there. It’s a non-pertinent defensive mechanism.

    Please separate out these reactions, they’re no pertinent to the fact that we’re not a diverse field.

    The fact that people start to get defensive when someone just points it out, not asks for anything, or accuses of anything, is interesting.

    Jaime, for discussions on why, follow the Angry Black Woman link.

17. 17. tobias s buckell on May 8th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

    Then I’d like to hear a few ideas for how to change this.

    Step one, acknowledge there’s a lack of diversity in the field. This is something that people still aren’t doing. Anytime the discussion begins defensive people go out of their way to justify why this is so or why it isn’t bad or why SF isn’t anti-inclusive. Yet the issue remains. To first fix a problem the fact that a problem exists has to be acknowledged. SF/F doesn’t think there is a problem as a whole, a lot of intelligent and nice people in the field think that if we just do nothing the problem will fix itself, and are also prone to getting edgy and think they’re being accused of being racist if the question persists.

    Until we can get past acknowledging the math and have a problem, the other questions aren’t ready for me to put on the table because they cloud the atmosphere and in many cases poison it due to the fact that people involved in the discussion haven’t gotten past agreeing on point number one: that the field suffers from a drastic lack of diversity.

    All you have to do is post a single comment saying “SF suffers from a lack of diversity” and people will try and argue you out of that simple statement.

    Until we tackle that forward momentum on ‘why’ and ‘what to do’ is something as individuals you can discuss amongst yourselves, or as an author/editor try and fix with indivudual resolve and action, but as a group, will fall into heated arguments because the parties involved haven’t gotten past an initial reality consensus: which is that many people in SF don’t think there is a problem at all.

    Hence my statement that the magic phrase of “Hopkinson, Butler, Delany, Barnes” needs to become widely known as the wrong answer to “is our field diverse?”

18. 18. Stephen Granade on May 8th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    Jamie, you are making an assumption when you say, “In other words, when it comes to reading and editing, I’m color blind.” Color blindness is an assumption that color doesn’t matter.

    Like Tobias I’ll again point you to the post on Angry Black Woman. She has answers to your questions of “why?” and “how can we change this?” that are far better than mine.

19. 19. Scott Janssens on May 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm

    I’m still formulating a response to ABW in my mind, but the developing thoughts are: most of ABW’s suggestions put the onus on the editors. Being a submission editor I certainly have thoughts on her suggestions. Some I think are good, others I think pass the buck.

    I can’t imagine anyone keeping stats on race. I don’t even know how they’d do it. We’d have to ask, and we can’t even count on authors to put in a word count! (I do keep stats on gender. 30% of submissions are by women, 33% of purchases are from women authors.) I can’t speak for stories from well known authors as those get immediately passed up to the editor. Of the other stories submitted, I’d estimate less than 1% (probably along the lines of 0.1%) featured a clearly defined character of color. This is why I have my doubts that editors can do much on their own to help fix the problem.

    ABW, rightly, calls out editors for not doing enough to promote diversity. I’ve not read her blog before, so I don’t know if she’s called out authors and readers already. In the end, I think it will take the efforts of established writers to make a dent.

    Aside: We are seeing a fair number of submissions from India in recent months (maybe about 1.5%).

20. 20. tobias s buckell on May 8th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    I don’t see it as part of sfwa’s mandate, and I think the “Delany, Butler, etc.” list is evidence that sfwa itself is not a racist organization. Specifically, if it was, it seems to me that Delany or Butler or any of the very fine et ceteras would’ve spoken up. To suggest that they were afraid to speak up or too blind to see the racism around them seems awfully insulting.

    I don’t see it as part of SFWA’s mandate, but it hardly means SFWA is not a racist organization. Delany/Butler doesn’t grant SFWA immunity, since the 1960s organizations kind of have to take anyone qualified, so I’m not impressed with this argument. Black people can get into country clubs in the south that have a similar size as SFWA, but the fact that a few members are black doesn’t mean it’s no longer anything.

    Do I think SFWA is racist? I don’t know. My instinct? I pretty much doubt it. The first SFWA member I met was Mike Resnick, who I certainly wouldn’t call racist. He and I may disagree, but he’s a writer who casts his net far and wide for interesting material and who I respect a great deal for the Kirinyaga series. But then there was a past officer when I joined who in his personal newsgroups maintained that no NY publisher would accept a minority protaganist and that readers wouldn’t either, and was warning newer writers not to do it. So SFWA is pretty irrelevant to me in that it reflects its field and I don’t see it as a change agent. Nor would I even for a second want it as one, it hardly works for writers as writers, let alone as an agent of social change.

    But again, not relevant to the real question. Does SFWA have a racially diverse make up?

    No.

    That’s all this question is. White people keep trying to take the question “Is X a racially diverse community” and turning that around into a defense of “We’re not racist” and other counter-arguments.

    Using the magic phrase doesn’t make SFWA anti-racist, it just underscores the lack of diversity.

    Again, no claims against SFWA one way or another, no aspersions. But it ain’t diverse.

21. 21. Mary Kay on May 8th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    Diversity is an issue which interests Clarion West a great deal. It’s a 6 week writers workshop held in Seattle every summer. They strive for both gender and racial diversity in both students and faculty. I can’t speak to the choice processes of the other 2 Clarions, but I do know Clarion West takes these things into account consciously. So perhaps our future will be a little less lily-white.

    MKK

22. 22. will shetterly on May 8th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

    Sure, I’ll say it: SFWA and publishing don’t represent the racial or the economic realities in the US. This wasn’t news in the mid ’80s when I joined with a novel about a dark-skinned woman, and it isn’t news today. Has anyone claimed otherwise?

    I pointed out on the SFWA LJ that any SFWAn who wanted to start a SFWA diversity committee could–I really can’t imagine the Board vetoing it. Committees within SFWA seem to be free to do anything that fits vaguely within SFWA’s agenda. If you (meaning any SFWAn reading this) want to do something about this within SFWA, go to the Board. If there was the slightest resistance, you’d be able to get an enormous petition of support in an instant.

    But what do you do? Start having quotas for stories and covers and authors? How many points for a woman? How many for someone with brown skin? Do Asians count the same, or are they worth less ’cause they’re not as dark? Do you get any points for poor white males, or are all white males the same?

    Sure, acknowledging the problem is the first step. It’s been acknowledged for most of the twentieth century. What’s step two?

23. 23. Wyman Cooke on May 8th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. F&SF fandom is pretty much self-selecting. It takes a strong individual in the minority community to chose F&SF over, say, Gangsta Rap. Most writers were readers before turning to writing. A subset of a subset.

    And you’ve got to have a breakthrough. That’s what is asked of every writer if they want to become published.

    So the question is not why isn’t there more diversity in F&SF? The question is how can we increase market share amongst minorities? I don’t have that answer. If I did, i’d be in marketing at Tor or Baen or Firebird.

24. 24. will shetterly on May 8th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

    Also, when was the last story with a nonwhite protagonist given a white person on the cover? I know the last time it happened to me: 1986. Witch Blood, an Asian-influenced fantasy, got a cover with a couple of white guys fighting on the parapets of a Europeanish castle.

    Ace Books was not terribly enlightened in those days.

25. 25. Jaime on May 8th, 2007 at 6:38 pm

    Toby:

    Thanks for your thoughts. I’d be the last one to argue that there isn’t a lack of diversity in SF&F. As I said earlier, I still remember the days when finding a woman character who wasn’t window dressing was beyond rare. There are still markets where every woman writer I know feels it’s futile to even submit. Saying there isn’t a problem would be really disingenuous considering some of the discussions I’ve had on gender bias in SF&F.

    I did read the post at ABW and I read most of the comments before I couldn’t take the name calling anymore. Heated is one word for it.

    I’m not sure about a lot of her solutions. They lean heavily toward putting the entire burden on the editors, which is not entirely fair. For smaller zines and even some of the larger ones…wow, how would you do that kind of out reach with no staff and no money? She never answers the question of where these venues are that non-white, non-male writers will see any editor’s attempts to reach them.

    I tend to think the solution lies far beyond the slush pile and the problem goes much, much deeper, rooted in poverty, literacy and the other issues I mentioned earlier. But that is another discussion, one that most people don’t seem interested in.

    Stephen G.: You are making some mighty big assumptions about me and my world view. Hard as it is to believe, there are some of us who see people as people, who judge them by their words and actions and not the color of their skin. Kind of an idealist viewpoint, not often in fashion or even popular, but I cling to it anyway.

    And before I become even more sorry that I ventured an opinion on this subject, I’ll bow out.

26. 26. Stephen Granade on May 8th, 2007 at 7:01 pm

    Jamie,

    You are making some mighty big assumptions about me and my world view.

    I stated the single assumption you are making when you say that your reading and editing is color-blind: that in this arena color doesn’t matter. Do you disagree with that assumption? What other “mighty big assumptions” am I making?

27. 27. Rick Novy on May 8th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    Tobias: You turned my point inside-out. I’m not defending the status quo, I’m offering my theory on why it is the way it is. It is exactly like saying african-american literature is not diverse. Why does that category exist? Why is it not just plain literature? Somebody constructed marketing fences and placed these books inside. Now, that sub-genre attracts that kind of writer, and that work doesn’t get read by the rest of us.

    SF doesn’t have that fence, but it certainly has fences that we inherited. I don’t think the problem is that SF won’t accept non-white writers, the problem is that the writers just aren’t there. Where are they going? That comes back to your observation and your original post, and it’s something that I wondered about for many years and never really understood.

    Also, I take issue with your point B. Read my post again. Nowhere did I say it’s okay, because it isn’t.

    Steve Buchheit: Of course it’s descrimination, there’s nothing soft about it. It goes back to “but we’ve always done it that way.”

    Wymann Cooke: That is exactly the right question. How do we increase market share, and increase it everywhere? You get diversified writers by generating diversified readers. I think you do that by taking risks.

28. 28. Kathryn Allen on May 8th, 2007 at 11:24 pm

    I’ve been shying away from pointing out weird assumptions, WAG stats, and logic flaws in obviously sincere posts on this issue. Especially as I support many of the principles involved.

    So I’ll just say — doesn’t the existance of the Delany, Butler etc list and the current lack of diversity prove that positive discrimination of the kind being proposed won’t work? History would indicate that it’ll simply result in a new diversity list. Which might be nice for those writers picked to be on it, but won’t produce actual diversity any more than the previous list has resulted in diversity — that certain women get published by certain magazines hasn’t discouraged the belief that those magazines are not generally welcoming to women, after all.

    [The identification argument clearly is about readers who’re not me… because if the strongest identification with a character comes through having a character who resembles you — I must be a rabbit.]

    My greatest frustration in many of these discussions is not having enough of the right statistics, or actually knowing how wide the gap is between how I think the world should be (including ‘what I like’) and what sells. Because, ultimately, what sells is the major limiting factor on what anyone can do — and that includes professional editors.

    [People regularly talk about cover art not representing the racial origin of the characters inside… and I find that interesting because clearly the publishers aren’t as worried about their being non-white characters inside, as they are concerned that the initial response to the cover art will be negative. And when I’ve heard people discuss having women/black/gay characters there’s often the argument that they should be there for a reason —

    Which makes me wonder if readers haven’t been primed to assume that the presence of minority characters in a book means the book will involve some kind of message about feminism/race/sexuality. Can’t help wondering if there’s not a link between marketing gurus not wanting people to know beforehand that there’s colour inside and people associating characters of certain types with *messages* rather than damn good stories. Also can’t help comparing that to a couple of recent books with plain and unashamedly homosexual characters ‘Melusine’ and ‘Carnival’ where the cover copy elides that fact — despite it being a key plot point in ‘Carnival’ (’starring team’ doesn’t eqactly equate to lovers). Seems to me that publishers believe the reader needs to see the story first and not hit any triggers about race or sexuality because they won’t read past that to see there’s a great story on offer.]

    In the absence of any other evidence, my own theory on why SFF’s professional writers aren’t a more diverse set is — artificial selection and breeding to type — the close community and the culture within that community.

29. 29. tobias s buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:04 am

    Scott wrote

    I’m still formulating a response to ABW in my mind, but the developing thoughts are: most of ABW’s suggestions put the onus on the editors. Being a submission editor I certainly have thoughts on her suggestions. Some I think are good, others I think pass the buck.

    I would agree. I personally think a successful fix would need to be more comprehensive, it involves greater societal issues in the US, fandom demographics, and SF/F publicity issues. I don’t think there are any simple/easy fixes, but general awareness is a helping first step.

    I can’t imagine anyone keeping stats on race. I don’t even know how they’d do it. We’d have to ask, and we can’t even count on authors to put in a word count! (I do keep stats on gender. 30% of submissions are by women, 33% of purchases are from women authors.) I can’t speak for stories from well known authors as those get immediately passed up to the editor. Of the other stories submitted, I’d estimate less than 1% (probably along the lines of 0.1%) featured a clearly defined character of color. This is why I have my doubts that editors can do much on their own to help fix the problem.

    Right, but ABW actually talked about letting writers of color know they were welcome. For example, I see SF/F editors in fandom and nightshade forums, but I don’t see any of them in, say, SciFiNoir being accessible, a large Yahoogroup all about diverse SF. These sorts of things can be done by editors interested in outreach or in keeping up with these issues. I’m not saying editors have to, but the fact that none of them do, but invest lots of internet time in other venues, is something to ponder.

    Aside: We are seeing a fair number of submissions from India in recent months (maybe about 1.5%).

    That’s cool, Scott. I was wondering about South African, Kenyan, and Indian SF of late, as they’re all strong English speaking and India in particular I would love to see more fiction from. I hope we can find ways to encourage writers like that.

30. 30. tobias s buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:16 am

    will shetterly

    Sure, I’ll say it: SFWA and publishing don’t represent the racial or the economic realities in the US. This wasn’t news in the mid ’80s when I joined with a novel about a dark-skinned woman, and it isn’t news today. Has anyone claimed otherwise?

    TB: Some people seem to think so. The fact that I’ve never been able to just post or say outloud that SF has a diversity problem without a huge amount of offended mail and hurt people who then argue about what caused it and who’s fault it is indicates there’s a lot of awareness to go.

    I pointed out on the SFWA LJ that any SFWAn who wanted to start a SFWA diversity committee could–I really can’t imagine the Board vetoing it. Committees within SFWA seem to be free to do anything that fits vaguely within SFWA’s agenda. If you (meaning any SFWAn reading this) want to do something about this within SFWA, go to the Board. If there was the slightest resistance, you’d be able to get an enormous petition of support in an instant.

    TB: Where am I recommending that SFWA do anything? All I did was point out that the diversity of authors was lacking.

    But what do you do? Start having quotas for stories and covers and authors? How many points for a woman? How many for someone with brown skin? Do Asians count the same, or are they worth less ’cause they’re not as dark? Do you get any points for poor white males, or are all white males the same?

    TB: With all due respect, Will, WHAT THE FUCK? Who said anything about quotas, are you intentionally trying to derail this conversation. What gives? I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but it’s not appreciated. You’re putting words that were never in my mouth.

    I think it’s remarkably illuminating that all I’ve done was point out that SF has a diversity problem, and everyone is throwing arguments at me and throwing their hands up saying ‘but what can we do’ and running off down paths.

    Sure, acknowledging the problem is the first step. It’s been acknowledged for most of the twentieth century. What’s step two?

    TB: Really, because I’m seeing a lot of resistance and defensiveness the moment I point it out, and I still see and hear authors taking discussions of diversity and derailing them with all sorts of other issues.

    Again, had it not been a problem, responses to my post would have run more like this:

    “Yeah, you’re right, that’s embarrasing. Do you have any thoughts on how we might be able to fix that issue?”

    Instead I have a lot of defensive white people getting offended, leaving the discussion, or changing the topic away from the initial comment.

    Now, as someone who likes having friendly discussions about race, I feel slapped down, because this is usually the exact pattern I get whenever I say ‘SF isn’t diverse.’ First the usual names get invoked like a charm. When I point out the ridiculousness of that I get defensive ‘I don’t see race’ and ‘how dare you try and make quotas’ response.

    It’s almost stereotypical, although we’ve avoided a good amount of here, I’m still croggled that all I have to do is point out a simple fact and watch people work themselves up into a bunch of assumptions about what I’m saying, proposing, and accusing them of.

    Why is that, do you wonder?

    Thanks to most if not all of you for remaining calm

31. 31. tobias s buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:51 am

    24. will shetterly on May 8th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

    Also, when was the last story with a nonwhite protagonist given a white person on the cover? I know the last time it happened to me: 1986. Witch Blood, an Asian-influenced fantasy, got a cover with a couple of white guys fighting on the parapets of a Europeanish castle.

    Ace Books was not terribly enlightened in those days.

    And the point of this in regard to my post was? What, that the diversity problem is fixed? I”m not sure what your point is.

32. 32. tobias s buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:57 am

    Jaime wrote:

    Stephen G.: You are making some mighty big assumptions about me and my world view. Hard as it is to believe, there are some of us who see people as people, who judge them by their words and actions and not the color of their skin. Kind of an idealist viewpoint, not often in fashion or even popular, but I cling to it anyway.

    And before I become even more sorry that I ventured an opinion on this subject, I’ll bow out.

    Jaime, you may not know, but the ‘I don’t see color’ is a particularly vexing phrase in these debates and a marker for certain patronizing actions by white people that deflect any conversation.

    I would truly, truly encourage you to follow this link and start reading and clicking around.

    The best scrib I’ve seen on this is http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2007/05/color_theory.php from which I’ll excerpt, but you all should really read the entire thing:

    In my mind, saying you don’t see my color is actually just as bad as making a big deal about my color. Saying you don’t see my color is a clear indication that you do see my color—and for whatever reason, you’re not completely comfortable. With it or with yourself or with the state of the world. I don’t know. But it’s a tell-tale sign that something ain’t right. I mean, do Latinos go around saying to each other, “Hey, I really don’t see your color”? Do African-Americans go around saying to each other, “I want you to know that I don’t see your color.” Do Caucasians go around saying to each other, “Listen, I don’t see your color.” Of course not. So why do some people feel it necessary to say it to someone of a race opposite theirs?

    I have yet in my life to see a white person walk up to another white person and say “I don’t see your color.”

    Jaime, I would encourage to retain this belief, but not verbalize it. It comes off as overly defensive and is an action and piece of language overly frequently used by people who mean the exact opposite.

    I’m not saying this accuse you of anything, but to point out that you are using a piece of lingo that probably marks you with a group of people.

    It would be like me saying “I don’t see women or men” everytime I talked to women, but never men.

33. 33. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 2:17 am

    Which makes me wonder if readers haven’t been primed to assume that the presence of minority characters in a book means the book will involve some kind of message about feminism/race/sexuality. Can’t help wondering if there’s not a link between marketing gurus not wanting people to know beforehand that there’s colour inside and people associating characters of certain types with *messages* rather than damn good stories. Also can’t help comparing that to a couple of recent books with plain and unashamedly homosexual characters ‘Melusine’ and ‘Carnival’ where the cover copy elides that fact — despite it being a key plot point in ‘Carnival’ (’starring team’ doesn’t eqactly equate to lovers). Seems to me that publishers believe the reader needs to see the story first and not hit any triggers about race or sexuality because they won’t read past that to see there’s a great story on offer.]

    That’s a good point, yeah. Hell, I avoid books with abstract covers and literary looking covers for that same reason It’s certainly one I’m trying to break (the covers for Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin are exactly the sort of thing that helps break that momentum).

34. 34. Jaime on May 9th, 2007 at 10:45 am

    “Jaime, I would encourage to retain this belief, but not verbalize it.”

    Toby, if someone hadn’t pointed me at this I wouldn’t have come back. When I said I was bowing out, I meant it.

    If not for the prodding from Stephen G. I never would have verbalized this. It is the way I live my life, not some oh look at me flag I wave around to prove that I’m ‘enlightened’ or ‘not one of those people’. It’s not even something I think about. It just is.

    And the truth is that it wouldn’t matter what I said in a discussion like this, or how carefully I phrased it or if it was an honest belief on my part or not. Unless I accept everything ABW says as the gospel truth, which I don’t, I was doomed before I started. I’m white, so every thought and opinion is suspect. At best I’d come off as rather dim but well meaning. At the worst I’d have people openly screaming racist as they are on ABW’s post whether that was true or not.

    But I stepped onto the mine field with my eyes open so I can’t complain about getting my leg blown off. I might as well go for the full package.

    From the time I started writing and editing its been drilled into my head that the writing and the story are what mattered, that you judge the writing and not the writer. It has also been drilled into my head that the burden was on the writer to find the best place for their work. Editors and publishers don’t go hunting for you, you have to track them down yourself.

    None of this excludes stories with POC or gay characters or women or anything else you can name. But the burden is still on the writer to write stories with those characters and then send them out. The burden will always be on the writer.

    Did editors come looking for women writers and books/stories with strong women characters back when such things were rare? Was there a big outreach program by editors to encourage women to write and read SF&F? No. Women beat on the door, kept beating on the door, and raised a ruckus until they started to be let in. They encouraged and supported each other and the trickle became a flood. Women are still beating on certain doors.

    I know it’s not at all a popular opinion, but if you want to change the face of SF&F so that there is more diversity, writers with Black, Hispanic and other ethnic backgrounds will have to do the same thing. The writers need to seek out beginners to nurture and mentor and encourage. The writers need to address the root causes of why POC don’t write and submit SF&F, why POC don’t read genre books and do what they can to change it.

    The burden is on the writers. No one else.

    And for the love of Jack and Jill, stop pushing the rest of us away. I came into this with an honest desire to understand why more POC weren’t writing SF&F and the root causes. The only answers I get are pats on the head and pointing me at blogs where the name calling repels me. Why would any of us willingly put ourselves through the kind of treatment I see on ABW, no matter what our sincere desire to change things? I feel very pushed away right now and not inclined to even think about this issue again.

    More honesty. All the focus on the differences pushes us further apart, as writers and as people. It does more harm than good.

    And now I am gone and not coming back.

35. 35. David Moles on May 9th, 2007 at 10:45 am

    Scott wrote: Do we know the percentage or African American authors in other genres and/or literature? If sf has a significantly lower percentage then it’s an sf problem and issue. If not, it’s not an sf problem but a societal problem.

    Do we have to set the bar that low?

36. 36. Scott Janssens on May 9th, 2007 at 11:52 am

    From Toby:

    Right, but ABW actually talked about letting writers of color know they were welcome.

    I considered that one of her excellent suggestions. Of course Escape Pod welcomes all authors, but it wouldn’t hurt to say so explicitly. I’ve been meaning to revise the guidelines for a while now, and this will be just the thing to get me off my ass.

    I’m also considering putting message saying we’d like to see more stories featuring minority characters in the rejections.

37. 37. will shetterly on May 9th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    Tobias, no offense meant, but I think you’re reading too fast. For example, you say:

    >>Again, had it not been a problem, responses to my post would have run more like this:

    >>“Yeah, you’re right, that’s embarrasing. Do you have any thoughts on how we might be able to fix that issue?”

    And that’s exactly what I meant to do when I asked, “What’s step two?” We’ve acknowledged it. We’re all frustrated because we don’t know what the next step is. So, very sincerely, what is the next step after acknowledging the problem exists?

    As for the cover issue, that’s a constant complaint in these discussions. I would love to know if it’s still relevant. If it’s not, no, it doesn’t mean the problem is solved, but it does mean it’s time to quit talking as if it still happened.

38. 38. Lenora Rose on May 9th, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    Toby: You’re right, it is a problem, what can I, as a white aspiring writer, do?

    So far as i know, the things I can do are: buy books with people of other races in them. Buy books with people of other races on the cover. State explicitly that I want and like the diversity I’m seeing in the characters and would also like to see it in the authors. (Interesting that Carnival was thrown out as an example of “hiding gayness” on the cover blurb, which may be true, though i knew too much going in to notice - when it is also an example of a positive step here: the cover is one of the most honestly African faces out there, even through the mask.)

    And write books/stories with other races. Which sometimes I do, though with an imaginary fantasy world, it’s harder to say they’re representative of a culture. (I also write so many gay or bi or kinky characters that I have one book I actually describe as The heterosexual one.)

    Kathryn Allen: [The identification argument clearly is about readers who’re not me… because if the strongest identification with a character comes through having a character who resembles you — I must be a rabbit.]

    I don’t think it’s a one-to-one ratio, per se. “I identified with X, who is Asian/white/black/First Nations/hobbit/alien/etc. when i’m not, so how is this relevant to identifying?” Like you, I identify with problems and personalities first.

    But I’ve read books and watched movies where I realised afterwards that there was nobody female (Who was a character). And I’ve read older works where the same character I was cheering on would say something about women that was positively something weird and alienating. I understand the ’slap’ that can be, to notice, even as you adore and identify with some characters, that really, you aren’t there after all, int his world with this person you like - or worse, you wouldn’t even be welcome in their world. And I came into fantasy and SF through more female writers (McKinley and Yolen, for instance) than otherwise. (Yolen also has some great commentary on reading older children’s literature where she belatedly realised the characters she identified with were denigrating Jewish people - Ie, Her. Which sounds a lot like people who’ve talked about noticing the lack of their race in f/sf.)

39. 39. will shetterly on May 9th, 2007 at 1:06 pm

    Oh, another example of where you’re reading quickly. I said: “If you (meaning any SFWAn reading this) want to do something about this–”

    And you responded, “Where am I recommending that SFWA do anything?”

    That was why I put the bit in quotes. There is at least one person who believes SFWA should be addressing diversity.

    Part of the problem with these public discussions over issues that have been discussed before is that people tend to address things that were brought up elsewhere. Sometimes it’s to dismiss an issue, and sometimes it’s to address one. Generalizations get tossed around, like “everyone is throwing arguments at me and throwing their hands up saying ‘but what can we do’ and running off down paths.”

    People have several choices when you raise an issue. They can ignore you, or they can attempt to deal with it. If all you want is acknowledgment that the f&sf community does not reflect the world, say so up front, and people will happily say, “You’re right.”

    But if you want to figure out what to do about it, be patient with the people who would like to figure that out also.

40. 40. will shetterly on May 9th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    Oh, regarding the cover issue, one last point of fact. When Ace asked Emma and me to create a shared world, we made Liavek vaguely North African because we were so tired of Aryan fantasy. The cover artists generally did a good job of conveying that, but the third book (1988) has a prominant blond guy in Europeanish clothes on the cover. So I think I would say that was the last time a book I was involved with got whitefaced.

41. 41. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:24 pm

    Jaime: And the truth is that it wouldn’t matter what I said in a discussion like this, or how carefully I phrased it or if it was an honest belief on my part or not. Unless I accept everything ABW says as the gospel truth, which I don’t, I was doomed before I started. I’m white, so every thought and opinion is suspect. At best I’d come off as rather dim but well meaning. At the worst I’d have people openly screaming racist as they are on ABW’s post whether that was true or not.

    Did you come into this discussion believing that? If so, we were all prejudged by you and the end of this discussion was predetermined by you, and is one of the best examples of why black people are discouraged from talking about race and diversity today.

    No one demands that you accept everything ABW said (I don’t agree with her on 50% of her solutions), but you’ve made a number of assumptions, gotten yourself offended, and stormed off in a huff.

    That’s your privilege.

    But I would encourage you to think harder about this if all your discussions about race seem to end this way with non-white people, that you may need to not assume the problem lies with them.

    And no, I’m not accusing you of being racist, but of learning some of the basics of how to have this kind of conversation, because right now, it’s all about how YOU want it to work.

42. 42. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

    #

    36. Scott Janssens on May 9th, 2007 at 11:52 am

    From Toby:

    Right, but ABW actually talked about letting writers of color know they were welcome.

    I considered that one of her excellent suggestions. Of course Escape Pod welcomes all authors, but it wouldn’t hurt to say so explicitly. I’ve been meaning to revise the guidelines for a while now, and this will be just the thing to get me off my ass.

    I’m also considering putting message saying we’d like to see more stories featuring minority characters in the rejections.

    That would be awesome! I think advertising this is important. Look at Strange Horizons lit guidelines:

    We want good speculative fiction. If your story doesn’t have a clear fantasy or science fiction element, or at least strong speculative-fiction sensibilities, it’s probably not for us.

    We’d like to help make the field of speculative fiction more inclusive, more welcoming to both authors and readers from traditionally underrepresented groups, so we’re interested in seeing stories from diverse perspectives and backgrounds.

    It’s no surprise that more writers of color and women and other diversity as a result submit there with that sort of masthead.

43. 43. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Jaime: I know it’s not at all a popular opinion, but if you want to change the face of SF&F so that there is more diversity, writers with Black, Hispanic and other ethnic backgrounds will have to do the same thing. The writers need to seek out beginners to nurture and mentor and encourage. The writers need to address the root causes of why POC don’t write and submit SF&F, why POC don’t read genre books and do what they can to change it.

    If you think that’s not a popular opinion you’re not reading writers of color’s blogs or listening to us very closely. We push a complete wide variety of all those things, why do you think I’m writing books and encouraging other writers of color and working hard to make sure my voice is heard, or speaking to libraries about SF and diversity?

44. 44. Steve Buchheit on May 9th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

    There has been some talk about “what can we do about it.” Here’s what you can do about it.

    If a character comes to you and is African, Hispanic, Asian, Canadian, etc, don’t change that character’s race because you think it’ll make the story “sale-able.” Keep the character, bump the rest of the story up so it’ll sell. If you’re a writer who plans everything out and you haven’t been including characters that aren’t white, ask yourself why you aren’t including a greater diversity. “I can’t write (ethnicity) characters because I don’t know about them” isn’t an excuse. You do research for other parts of the story, don’t you? If the editors “buy the best story” then it really shouldn’t be an issue what “race” your characters are as to the sale-ability of the story.

    In my stories (which, admittedly haven’t been published, yet) I’ve had main characters that are African (Kenyan, raised in England), American Indian, Mexican, and Afghani along with a good smattering of white-males. Not one of them did I say, “I’ll make this character this.” All these characters came out of my imagination this way. There was no “forcing” them, or dressing up a white-male in drag or “native dress” to get this diversity. This is just the way I think.

    Examining my characters I’m surprised I don’t have any Jewish or Asian main characters (I certainly know enough people that fall into those catagories) and I haven’t written from the female viewpoint (and I know a few of those as well). I’m not going to change one of my old characters, but I’m sure, because I’m now thinking about it, that some main characters in the future will be those.

45. 45. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

    # 37. will shetterly on May 9th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    And that’s exactly what I meant to do when I asked, “What’s step two?” We’ve acknowledged it. We’re all frustrated because we don’t know what the next step is. So, very sincerely, what is the next step after acknowledging the problem exists?

    Well, that wasn’t the point of my little post, I was trying to point out that a reflexive action of trying to use 4 names to deny the first point had been eating away at me enough after being in this genre for 10 years that I wanted to write a message asking for it to stop.

    This wasn’t the ‘how do we solve diversity’ post, but a big plea to beg my fellow readers that doing that is damaging to the field and denies the reality.

    How do we solve it? Gosh, if I were omnipotent and omniscient I could answer that I’m not. My statement is that just getting everyone to agree first off that there is a problem is the first step, you seem to think that’s been done, and yet whenever I’m on a diversity panel or in a post, I can’t get people to just nod and chorus ‘yes, the field lacks racial diversity.’ Instead I immediately have people explaining why it is so, or pointing out other non-diverse fields, or putting their non-racist credentials forward. I think we still have hangups on step one, because I still can’t state the obvious without hurt feelings, arguments, and people defending the field.

    Just as I can’t talk an alcoholic into going any further until they admit there’s a problem (but I’ll get better, I can quit anytime, no I’m not drinking that much), it’s just as hard to find fixes.

    Nor am I going to give out edicts on What Must Be Done in order to fix the problem. If I can’t get a number of people to just say ‘yes, you’re right, I’m going to go read and wonder how I might help or ask you and a bunch of other writers of color how they think I might help and listen to all what they say and then think it over’ then there is no real point in giving out edicts.

    No one likes being told what to do.

    As for what I’m doing is I’m writing stories with massive casts of minorities with a strong pulp and adventure sensibility which core readers in the field seem to often twig to. I’m playing to two demographics here, one I want to write SF/F that people of color can see themselves in, and two, I’m trying to disassociate the fear people have of ‘Message’ that comes with seeing or encountering minority characters.

    Part of that is due to some writers who try to compensate by inserting characters of color who’re basically mouthpieces for a people. An honest mistake, and it’s a step on the path to writers trying to diversify their cast, but now we need one more step, which I think a number of authors are striving for.

    That isn’t to say I won’t engage big issues or don’t, but the goal is to provide a sense of sheer fun: here is what I love about the genre, and here is how I’m fixing it’s vision of the future, isn’t this cool and fun?

    As for the cover issue, that’s a constant complaint in these discussions. I would love to know if it’s still relevant. If it’s not, no, it doesn’t mean the problem is solved, but it does mean it’s time to quit talking as if it still happened.

    The cover issue, the late 80s seem to be your datapoint, and the data point of a couple other writers. I’ve never blamed authors for their covers.

    Nalo, Steve Barnes, and my latest novels seem to have good covers. I see some novels that feature characters of color that have abstract art for the cover, but that can be well argued to be a marketing decision as an attempt to aim a book at mainstream.

    And yet, the only character of color on a novel cover I’ve seen was in Kathleen Ann Goonan’s Crescent City Raphsody. Conincidentally, all the other white author/character of color books I seem to encounter feature abstract art.

    I’m not calling conspiracy b/c I haven’t done much of a survey, I wouldn’t mind counter-examples that prove me wrong here. I do think there’s more wiggle room, but I’m not 100% convinced the problem is all gone.

46. 46. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 2:36 pm

    #38. Lenora Rose on May 9th, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    Toby: You’re right, it is a problem, what can I, as a white aspiring writer, do?

    So far as i know, the things I can do are: buy books with people of other races in them. Buy books with people of other races on the cover. State explicitly that I want and like the diversity I’m seeing in the characters and would also like to see it in the authors. (Interesting that Carnival was thrown out as an example of “hiding gayness” on the cover blurb, which may be true, though i knew too much going in to notice - when it is also an example of a positive step here: the cover is one of the most honestly African faces out there, even through the mask.)

    And write books/stories with other races. Which sometimes I do, though with an imaginary fantasy world, it’s harder to say they’re representative of a culture. (I also write so many gay or bi or kinky characters that I have one book I actually describe as The heterosexual one.)

    That sounds like a fantastic list, Lenora, of things you can do. I won’t add anything to it, it sounds like you’re actively thinking about how you want to participate.

    Yeah, Fantasy can be tricky there, but thinking about it like you are is half the game.

    The only other thing I recommend if you have the money is Nisi Shawl’s “Writing The Other.” It’s $9 + $3 s/h, it’s a great crib sheet to handling these issues in fiction.

    But I’ve read books and watched movies where I realised afterwards that there was nobody female (Who was a character). And I’ve read older works where the same character I was cheering on would say something about women that was positively something weird and alienating. I understand the ’slap’ that can be, to notice, even as you adore and identify with some characters, that really, you aren’t there after all, int his world with this person you like - or worse, you wouldn’t even be welcome in their world. And I came into fantasy and SF through more female writers (McKinley and Yolen, for instance) than otherwise. (Yolen also has some great commentary on reading older children’s literature where she belatedly realised the characters she identified with were denigrating Jewish people - Ie, Her. Which sounds a lot like people who’ve talked about noticing the lack of their race in f/sf.)

    My guess is that it’s a very similar feeling, yes.

47. 47. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    People have several choices when you raise an issue. They can ignore you, or they can attempt to deal with it. If all you want is acknowledgment that the f&sf community does not reflect the world, say so up front, and people will happily say, “You’re right.”

    But if you want to figure out what to do about it, be patient with the people who would like to figure that out also.

    I did say so up front, and the reactions were not affirming of the point, but moved away into why it was, or what could be done, if anything, and so on, which is distressingly past the prime point.

    May there aren’t enough places online to discuss race in SF, so every nearby topic becomes the place where everyone then pours themselves into it…

48. 48. Kathryn Allen on May 9th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

    Will, about the covers… it’s not blatant, but one reason reason Jenny is cropped at the neck on Elizabeth Bear’s ‘Hammered’ might be that the light tan skin visible masks the character’s ethnicity somewhat. (And yes, I’m qualifying that because I’m not sure how dark a skin tone she should have, just that the covers seem a little paler than I think she would be in real life… umm fictional life?)

    And as Lenora Rose said, the skin tone beneath the mask on ‘Carnival’ is definitely dark. But IIRC there are only darker skinned people left because the nanotech ate all the white people.

49. 49. Rick Novy on May 9th, 2007 at 3:21 pm

    #38. Lenora Rose on May 9th, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    >> And write books/stories with other races.

    Easier said than done for many writers. My own work tends to be multi-cultural because I spent enough time in California that seeing a variety of people is situation normal to me. (That, and I have a multi-racial family, both nuclear and extended.) There are still many places in the US that are monochromatic, and writers coming from those areas will find it hard to include.

50. 50. Tobias Buckell on May 9th, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    >> And write books/stories with other races.

    Easier said than done for many writers.

    Well no one said it would be easy Using ‘Writing the Other’ is a great way to get over it. Reading lots of books and autobiographies is another amazing way to do this.

    My feelings about this are pretty well documented over at:

    http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2006/01/13/douglas-blaine-on-shame/

51. 51. Benjamin Rosenbaum on May 9th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

    Some quick thoughts:

    1) What Toby says is obviously the case. Full stop. People of color underrepresented in “SF”.

    2) I’d argue this means “SF” — the genre/category/community lump of it — has failed to appeal (proportionately) to people of color. SF is, historically, a white, male, dorky, community. Gradually diversifying on the gender front. Ethnically, not so much.

    3) This is more of a problem for SF, I think, than it is for people of color.

    4) Note also that if you are a person of color writing fantastic stuff — like, if you’re Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Haruki Murakami, etc. — is there a compelling reason to associate yourself with “SF”? Will it a) welcome you with open arms, b) improve your sales?

    5) Delany is a gentleman, and Butler was a gentlewoman; two people of enormous resources and profound gracefulness; and they were, back in the day, loyal to what was then an embattled little genre. But I don’t think they ever characterized Our Beloved Genre as particularly non-racist, and I seem to recall that Delany has published on the subject of racism in SF — ah yes, here it is: “Racism and Science Fiction”, published in the August 1998 New York Review of Science Fiction.

    6) In a sense there are two separate issues — explicit racism and institutional barriers to people of color in SF, and written/fannish/community SF’s simply failing to appeal to people of color en masse as a specific case of SF’s margnialization in general. In a sense they are not two issues at all; at least, they interact. While there is something unequivocally wrong with real racist barriers in SF, on some level there is not necessarily anything morally WRONG with part two of the equation — SF being a marginal white art form with limited appeal, like polka. But it does seem regrettable.

    Step one: acknowledge the problem. Step two: turn our attention from our comfortable old patterns, customs, in-jokes, tropes and rituals, and create an inclusive community and great art of lasting appeal reflecting the world as it is and could be.

    Step two’s sub-steps are left as an exercise to the reader.

52. 52. Rick Novy on May 9th, 2007 at 4:22 pm

    I’m afraid that for some people the “not easy” part is convoluted with the “not motivated” part. This is going to be like steering a battleship. They have a lot of momentum don’t turn well or fast.

53. 53. Lenora Rose on May 10th, 2007 at 12:01 am

    Rick Novy: “Easier said than done… There are still many places in the US that are monochromatic, and writers coming from those areas will find it hard to include.”

    True: while I’ve been surprised here in the Canadian Prairie by how towns, originally Mennonite or Francophone, have grown startling diversities, there are still many that are almost exclusively that subculture, never mind simply European.

    It’s also true that every writer everywhere does not have to automatically fill their books with diversity. A fantasy novel set in 12th Century Scotland will not, generally, include people from a widely diverse background. Likewise, a novel about a small town in a non-diverse area doesn’t have to include a character of some other race just for the sake of it. But those fall into the category where the writer who asks him or herself “Is there a reason so-and-so is white?” can sincerely answer “yes” without being racist.

    To change genres to TV, I don’t expect Corner Gas, a sitcom about a tiny town in Saskatchewan, to include a wide range of ethnic diversity. The majority of the cast and extras in every episode are white, but that doesn’t faze me; that’s the area and it’s an honest reflection of it. (As ffor the twons or surprising and fairly new diversity, there’s another similar sitcom set in an only slightly larger town called Little Mosque on the Prairie….)

    But consider the cast of Buffy versus the cast of Veronica Mars. Both are stories focusing on a blonde teenaged girl — in part to make a clear feminist statement, but the choice of the main character being white is not entirely gratuitous. Both are set in Southern California, in middle-sized towns, large enough for their own college, but not much larger than that. But Buffy is surrounded by white, white, white whiteness. Veronica is surrounded by whites, but also by non-token blacks and latinos. (There’s also a visible class-war element, and the white trash has its say as well.) Based on the area both shows are set in, and the similarity of setting, they should both look like Veronica Mars. Nor did it *damage* the spirit and attitude depicted in Buffy on the rare occasions they included a black character or hinted at the possible existance of class divisions — except possibly in how it emphasized its lack elsewhere. It could have been there. There was no in story reason not to add it. Sure, Buffy can get a pass for her whiteness, but there’s No reason Xander couldn’t have been Latino, or Oz African, or Anya Japanese.

    Corner Gas doesn’t hurt the cause of racial equality on television.

    Buffy did.

    The resemblance to Our Beloved Genre should be clear.

54. 54. Nick Mamatas on May 10th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    I amazed that people leave Due out of the chant. The chant is bad enough as it is, but here on Earth 1, Due is far more prominent than her husband. I can walk into any drugstore right now and walk out with a Due book, and she’s also well-known as a biographer and memoirist. I’ve even seen her featured in an airline magazine (albeit about The Black Rose).

    I’d say I was shocked, but at this late date, there is no expression of Skiffyland insularity that could shock me.

55. 55. Tobias Buckell on May 10th, 2007 at 2:36 pm

    L.A. Banks (http://www.leslieesdailebanks.com/) is another author who’s known outside the field more than inside it, she writes vampire fic, as well as romance and a variety of other things.

56. 56. Benjamin Rosenbaum on May 10th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    Walter Mosley is an interesting example of a black writer, well regarded in another genre (mystery) who made clear overtures to SF — not just writing futuristic stuff, but seeming to make a point of reaching out to skiffy-as-such. (Story in F&SF, and was he interviewed in Locus?)

    Any info on how that went?

    (I thought the story in question was intriguing but not anywhere near as powerful as, say, his anti-mystery Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, which is brilliant).

    Minister Faust’s book on the space age bachelor pad would be another recent example of a high-profile African-American SF book. I didn’t read it. Got plenty of attention from Locus, though. Any sense, other than that, of how it was and how it did?

57. 57. Rick Novy on May 10th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

    Lenora Rose:

    But there are people out there doing it properly, both in print and on the screen. Firefly was a good example of how it should be done. We had a black woman as a major character, and in an interracial relationship to boot. Nobody on the good ship Serenity gave a rats ass about that.

    For another example of how it should be done, with sexual orientation rather than race, see the Tuesday, May 8th entry on David Gerrold’s blog regarding the “Blood and Fire.” http://www.gerrold.com/soup/page.htm. Since the original Star Trek broke all kinds of new ground, he’s worth listening to.

58. 58. Lenora Rose on May 10th, 2007 at 9:48 pm

    Rick: There are people out there doing it properly - per Veronica Mars. (I can cite several people, starting with Our Host, doing it in print.)

    Firefly, though, is a bad example of showing racial equality. Yes, there’s the interracial marriage that is not a plot point of a big deal . But it’s set in a culture with a lot of Chinese influence, and show me one Asian. (The first episode I thought Kaylee was biracial — **before** she wore the cutesy chinese outfit — but that impression seemed to vanish through the series.) Race isn’t a Black-White issue. I like Joss Whedon’s writing in many ways, but on race and cultural diversity, he keeps on writing near misses that end up bothering people.

59. 59. Steve Buchheit on May 11th, 2007 at 8:50 am

    To be fair, for Firefly, on the “Major Worlds” the majority of people in the background are Asian. But I agree, it would have been nice to have some of the characters they interacted with be Asian. Niska for instance, could have been Chinese with very little rewrite, or the guy “Our Mrs. Reynolds” was orginally married to (the one with the laser gun) could also have been Asian. And now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t remember any Alliance Officers being Asian. I think there was only one time that they were selling to Asian looking people.

60. 60. Nora on May 11th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    TB:

    Thank you. I’ve become so frustrated trying to talk to SF people about this in the past few weeks that I’ve been reduced to near-apoplexy and finally, silence. I was beginning to contemplate giving up on the genre and submitting only to mainstream/literary markets from here on, because it had started to feel like I was the only person in SF who gave a damn about this. Seeing posts like ABW’s, yours, Nick Mamatas’, etc., helps to pull me out of that funk.

    I don’t have the strength to participate in another of these discussions right now, but I just wanted to say I was here, projecting silent support-vibes.

61. 61. Rick Novy on May 11th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    Lenora: Point taken, though I confess I’ve only watched about the first 6 episodes of Firefly on DVD, and never saw it when the series ran, so I don’t know if 6 shows is enough for me to have recognized that trend.

    You’re right about one thing for sure, it’s not just a black-white thing. My Filipina wife gets enough grief in lily-white Scottsdale–some blatant, some not so blatant, and I get it from the other direction.

62. 62. Hal O'Brien on May 22nd, 2007 at 11:19 pm

    “[Firefly is] set in a culture with a lot of Chinese influence, and show me one Asian.”

    I’m always intrigued by this response to Firefly, because it shows just how ingrained some reactions are to power.

    My own reaction and interpretation is, you don’t see any Chinese characters because the Firefly crew don’t rise to that social level. Just as it would be wholly plausible to set a series in Macao, but not see anyone Portuguese, or in Hong Kong without anyone British, or Johannesburg without anyone Afrikaans.

    The fly in the ointment in this interpretation would be Simon and River Tam, who really should be played by Asians. But I’m also not sure if those pieces of casting are Whedon’s fault, or the studio’s, or the network’s — all of which are plausible, given the patterns of Hollywood.

    Still… I think the premise that the gwailo of Firefly are just too low-caste to be seen among Han Chinese holds.

63. 63. Jed Hartman on May 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 am

    Coming to this very belatedly, I wanted to add a couple of links to things that were mentioned earlier, for the potential benefit of anyone arriving at this entry who’s interested in taking a second step but unsure how to begin. In addition to the other suggestions that’ve been posted:

    1. Go join the Carl Brandon Society. You can join even if you’re white. You can join the Society’s mailing list even if you’re white. You can support the Society’s goals even if you’re white.

    2. Nominate works for the Carl Brandon Society Awards. They give two awards: one for a work created by a person of color, one to a work dealing with issues of race and ethnicity. Cash prizes. Have you read anything that fits either of those categories lately? Go nominate!

    3. Writing the Other was mentioned, but I wanted to provide a direct link to the main page about it for ease of finding it. If you’re a writer and you have any interest in this stuff, I very strongly recommend buying and reading this slim volume. Extremely worthwhile.

64. 64. Monica Jackson on May 23rd, 2007 at 11:50 pm

    I was hesitant to comment here, but I think I will. Let me relate the experience of diversity in another commercial fiction genre, romance.

    Race is an across the board difficulty in genre fiction. In romance, authors of color are published in great numbers. It is the best selling genre, over fifty percent of all fiction sold. Asian and Hispanic authors have been assimilated into romance, provided they write at least some white characters. Those authors seem to have no problems in doing so.

    Black authors specifically have been segregated totally from the greater romance genre, no matter how many white characters we write. We are not marketed to romance readers. We aren’t distributed where they buy their books. They aren’t even aware of us. We are only marketed and distributed to black readers. I’m not exaggerating even a little bit. This limits our writing career potentials severely.

    The romance segregation is totally based on the race of the author–not the content of the book. A white romance author such as Suzanne Brockmann can write all black main characters in her romance and she won’t be segregatedm distributed and marketed as a black romance author. Conversely, a black romance author can write white characters and have her book still marketed as a black book. A black author is suing Penguin for this now.

    The RWA has never spoken out condemning this racial segregation. Nor have any prominent romance authors, even ones who write in SFF and romance such as Laura Resnick. The romance community accepts this situation and even supports it.

    Worse and more profound, so do black romance authors as a whole. No black romance authors will stand up and speak out as a group against the segregation although some might complain quietly. A few black romance authors spoke up very carefully and tactfully on black, British romance reader, Karen Scott’s blog in a series of posts about racism in romance. There was little notice or response from whites, blacks or the romance or literary communities other than irritation, even though this was the first time so many black romance authors had gotten together in a public forum and spoken openly against racism and segregation in romance.

    I have mentioned it consistently over ten years and just have consistently been attacked for even bringing up topics such as asking, for instance, why the largest romance review site on the Internet excludes black authors when it’s supposed to be All About Romance? Now we get a token review or two every month out of the dozens of black romances released.

    So SFF needs to be very, very careful when you’re looking at solutions to include diversity in your genre. The roots of racism, particularly against blacks, run very deep.

    Don’t ignore the romance genre and its dealings with diversity. There’s lessons there. There is huge diversity in romance. But it is administered under a form of racist segregation for black authors and nobody seems to give a damn, not even ourselves. Everybody seems to be willing to sell their souls, or figurative civil rights, for that publishing contract.

65. 65. Arun Jiwa on Jul 9th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    I’ve posted my thoughts on this at my blog: http://arunkey.journalspace.com/

    Thanks for bringing up the topic of diversity in SF Toby.

66. 66. Paula L. Fleming on Jul 12th, 2007 at 1:48 am

    Wow, what a great conversation. Thanks, Toby, for raising this. I just stumbled across it via a Google search on “science fiction” diversity.

    I believe that everyone should have access to reading and writing speculative fiction if it would interest/inspire them. Access can be denied and/or self-denied in many institutionalized, historically based, self-perpetuating ways — “innocent” ways, in the sense that no one is being evil, no one is being stupid.

    Mythology and fantasy have power. The ability to re-create our pasts, our cultures, and our deities and to inject magic of our present circumstances is power to create ourselves, individually and as members of our communities (and most of us, of any color, are part of at least several communities).

    Science and technology, hard and soft, offer visions of futures in which we create ourselves and our communities as we wish to be or fear to be. Again, this is power.

    The amazing author, playwright, director, and professor Andrea Hairston writes compellingly about this and its meaning to her as an African-American in her Profile in the Diversicon 15 Media Guide (p. 7). (Andrea will be Guest of Honor at Diversicon next month.)

    Which brings me to why I was Googling this topic in the first place. I’ve been involved with Diversicon for some time, and this year I’ve taken over publicity, and I was wondering what folks “out there” were saying about diversity and SF. And clearly, it’s not a “non-issue” or “old news” or something we should “just get over” (feedback I sometimes get). It’s still a living challenge.

    Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due (who is an *amazing* writer — read Between!) have been Guests, as have Sheree Thomas, Minister Faust, Nalo Hopkinson, S. P. Somtow, Bryan Thao Worra, Mark Rich, and Sybil Smith. However, we’re not a “ghetto” for writers of color. We strive to honor diversity of all kinds. It’s harder to establish a brand identity, but we don’t risk as much marginalization as if we were “that black con” or “that gay con” or whatever.

    I believe there’s a need for *both* organizations that focus on writers of color, like the Carl Brandon Society, and for organizations with broad focus (perhaps SFWA, perhaps WorldCon, perhaps the local Star Trek or anime con . . .) to reach out, embrace, and include. Action needs to happen on all fronts.

    And it’s not about smug but guilty do-gooders benefitting “those poor victimized minorities.” Honestly, for me, it’s about benefitting me. I’m simply better off when my community, my literature, my reference points, my friends, and my possibilities include more . . . of everything. That’s power.

67. 67. Paula L. Fleming on Jul 12th, 2007 at 4:58 pm

    Yikes, I forgot to close the hyperlink. Is there a way to edit this? Sorry!

68. 68. David Anthony Durham on Aug 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Tobias,

    I see this was written back in May. I’m hoping that now that it’s August - and now that you’re reading my novel, ACACIA - you might add my name to that all to list.

    It’s still too short a list, but let’s work on that.

    By the way, I’m also glad to have been turned on to your work by several people. I’ll be reading you soon.

    Best,

    David.

69. 69. athena on Oct 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm

    i have read t. due’s books they are great!! i am glad to see more black sf female writers. i have been reading sf/fantasy for more than 20 years and i always try to find stories with people of color or women. i was surprised to really like tobias’s books, i am reading ragamuffin now. it is also very suprising to see people of color on a cover! when i do i get the book. athena

70. 70. Rona on Oct 28th, 2007 at 8:28 pm

    Thank you for telling the truth. Unfortunately or not, it will only be when white people (and I think men in particular) start calling out the inequities in our society and the SF publishing industry that things will change. When it’s just us brown and black folks doing it, all people can do it seems is roll their eyes and talk about how whiny we are. Thanks for the solidarity, intentional or not.

71. 71. Eugene Allen Wilson on Nov 22nd, 2007 at 9:50 am

    Step two involves taking action. Began by writing a compelling science fiction short story and publishing it to the Internet, much like beginning music artist publish their debut songs. This is one way to introduce yourself to the reading public and get noticed.

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