Sarah, Please Keep Doing Special Needs in Strange Worlds

I don’t normally comment on controversial issues in SFF, but sometimes you can’t stay silent.

SF Signal posted a Special Needs in Strange Worlds entry titled, “We are all disabled” that has caused a lot of hurt. (The post has been removed from the site but @eilatan took this screenshot of the post and asked that it only be shared with a TRIGGER WARNING)  While I was not personally affected by it (I found it more confusing than anything, and didn’t agree with the premise), I understand that many in our community were.  

I have learned a lot from the Special Needs in Strange Worlds column.  I have also learned a lot from the responses I’ve read about this particular post - responses that explained why it was insensitive to post, offensive, how it fed into stereotypes associated with autism.  How it hurt to read on such a well respected site as SF Signal.

SF Signal messed up.  Sarah messed up.  

I was taught that three things are necessary when you make a mistake:

1. Apologize 

This has been done.   

2. Make restitution 

You have to somehow make up for what you’ve done.  First, they removed the post.  Good start.  Some other possibilities to help in this instance could be to post on SF Signal one or two responses to the original post, explaining why it was offensive and different ways negative stereotypes hurt.  Several posts by autistic people, showing different viewpoints, would be wonderful - to get more voices out there and counteract the inaccuracies of the offending piece.

3. Try to do better / Don’t make the same mistake again

I’m sure Sarah will be more careful going ahead - assuming she decides to go ahead with the column.  Maybe a panel would be more appropriate for screening responses for this column than one individual, and some people will volunteer to help her with it.  Maybe more people will send her their experiences to post in the column so it’s more representational.

Or maybe she’ll decide it’s not worth the fear of making another mistake and close the column down as she deals with the fall out of her mistake.

Criticism is good.  We need to be able to point it out when people do things wrong.  But if we go too far and push people out of the genre for making mistakes, we’ll soon be in a very small, very empty room.  Because we all make mistakes.  All of us.  We can all do better.

And education is one way of doing better.  Education that this column usually provides.

I NEED this column.  I want to learn more about others, about what makes us different, and similar.  I want to know more about people’s experiences with disabilities so I can better understand my fellow man.  But like most people, I’m lazy.  I’ve stumbled across the occasional other post on this topic, but I don’t go out of my way looking for them.  We need posts about representation, about difference, about disability on sites like SF Signal that get a lot of genre traffic.  Because I’m not the only one who needs to learn about these things who won’t go looking for them.  

They need to be front and centre in genre if we want change, they need to be on the sites that get traffic, views, discussion.  

Mistakes hurt.  Sometimes they hurt a lot.  But if we don’t pick ourselves up and try again, if we give up, then we learn nothing from the mistakes.  And the mistakes simply repeat themselves in different venues at different times, with different people.  

Sarah, you made a mistake.  But I respect you.  I respect your work on the Special Needs in Strange Worlds column.  I’ve learned so much from you and that column.  This genre needs you.  Please, please keep doing it.  Don’t let this mistake be the end of this wonderful work you’ve done.

----------------------------------
ETA: I've just read this enlightening post on Flat Out which explains more of what was offensive about the original SF Signal post.  It's worth checking out.

And here's a response by Foz Meadows, which dissects the post, again pointing out some of the problematic language.

-----------------

2nd ETA: Sarah has decided to close down the Special Needs in Strange Worlds column on SF Signal but she's teaming up with Shana DuBois to create a website, tentatively named Own Voice, which will expand the ideas of SN in SW to include more content, interviews, essays, etc. with a panel of people okaying content to avoid another mistake like the one that prompted the above post.  I think this is an excellent idea, and am excited to see how it expands.

Book Review: Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski

Pros: diverse characters and creatures, storytelling magic, author's note

Cons: (*historical inaccuracies), characters bad at hiding their identities, uses common fantasy tropes

When Balthasar Infante is picked up by the Malleus Maleficarum he discovers that his uncle is correct and stories have power.  Turns out he's a Storyteller, a sorcerer able to pull items and creatures out of stories.  He quickly learns that his parentage isn't that of a converso Jew as he's always believed, but Muslim.  

Armed with a prophecy he wants to stop, and still running from the Malleus Maleficarum he joins the crew of the Santa Maria as Cristobal Colon's new translator, heading west to the Indies.

I loved the diversity of the characters.  Spain at this time was multiracial and though everyone either had to convert to Christianity or leave, the whole point of the Inquisition was to root out false converts, meaning there assuredly were some.

Balthasar's experiences being bullied for his heritage and his hero are realistic, making him a very sympathetic protagonist.  It's great watching him learn more about the world, questioning his beliefs as he must interpret the different stories to call on his magic.

I also appreciated that the stories came from different backgrounds: Jewish mythology, Arabic mythology, Greek mythology and fairy tales.  Storytelling itself was an awesome form of magic that I know I'd love to have.

* The difficulty in talking about this book is that several of the things that annoyed me in the story were either explained later in such a way that they became accurate (like Catalina's feminist reading of Sleeping Beauty), or were mentioned in the author's note (like her depiction of the Malleus Maleficarum).  I loved her author's note.  Having a detailed overview of what she manufactured vs what was historically accurate was awesome.  I'd love to see more authors do this at the ends of their books.

The biggest hurdle the book must face is the reader's knowledge (regardless of how accurate) of Columbas' journey.  I don't know much of what happened (which made her author's note all the more fascinating as I'd assumed she'd fabricated more than she had), but I do know that things don't end well for the natives.  There were times when it was hard not to get annoyed by Balthasar's naivete in the face of my knowledge of what's to come.

The biggest irritant in the book itself was that despite the fact that Balthasar and Jinni board the Santa Maria under assumed names, they continually scream each others real names out whenever something happens, in front of other people.  Yet no one questions this.

The book uses several common fantasy tropes.  On a few occasions they're subverted, making them feel fresh, but often they're not.  

But despite the book's problematic elements I appreciated that the author didn't shy away from the horrors of the real world.  And her use of characters and creatures outside the fantasy norm is much needed to revitalize the genre.

Inclusive HIstory and SFF + a New Series Idea

I have a BA in Medieval Studies.  That 3 year degree taught me a lot about several hundred years of European history.  But over the past year or so I've started to realize just how little I know about history, even a period of history I studied in some depth.

I'm also discovering how biased my studies were, through some fault of my own, but also due to how history is taught and the heavily western centred system we have.

For example, I recently read a book about how regular Egyptians lived in ancient times.  One of the things that came out in the book was that the word 'Pharaoh' is Greek.  When you think about it, it makes sense that we don't use an Egyptian word, since ancient Egyptian wasn't understood until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone (rediscovered in 1799), by which point historians had already appropriated language from the only primary sources they could find, primarily that of the Greeks.  But why am I only discovering this now?  Why haven't some of the native words replaced the Greek words?  Why did I discover that ancient Egypt was called Kemet (or, as Wikipedia corrects it: kem.t) from the history book I'm currently reading?  (Here I'll acknowledge that while it's possible I was taught this at some point, the fact that it's not in common use - the book on ancient Egypt didn't mention it once, for example - is surprising.)

I've been following Medieval POC (people of colour) on tumbler, and the author's made me question so many things I thought I knew.  Easy things, that once you think about them for 2 minutes are so clear.  Like the fact that the Roman army, which conquered parts of Africa, would have had black soldiers.  Then consider that Rome also conquered most of England.  What's the likelihood that no black soldiers made up the conquering army?  How did I get through university believing England was a land of white people?  And that ignores trade, travel and other factors that mixed societies and races.

Look at a map, Africa and the Middle East are right there.  Right across the sea from Europe.  They're so close it's ridiculous to believe they had no contact or intermixing.  I've also discovered that Asian invaded and occupied Eastern Europe for decades.  More to research, more to learn!

So I'm trying to learn more about history - accurate, inclusive history.  Going outside the Eurocentric education I got.  I'm questioning the things I've never thought to question before about the past. 

The more I learn about history, the more I want multicultural fantasy and science fiction.  I've been keeping my eyes out for translations and different points of view.  It's why I read and reviewed The World of the End so quickly.  Science fiction translated from Yiddish?  Yes, please!

Of course, that doesn't make every story of interest.  Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria had a nice cover, so I put it on display at the store, but the synopsis doesn't interest me at this time (I'm still burned out on fantasy, and have been pushing myself to read the fantastic Throne of the Crescent Moon.  I'm almost done and should have a review up soon).  I've been focusing more on science fiction lately, but maybe when I'm more interested in fantasy again I'll pick this one up.

Whenever things like race fail and diversity in SFF come up the question is always, "What can I do about it?  I'm just one person after all."  What we forget is that change starts with us.  With each individual that makes up the whole.  If we educate ourselves, if we share stories with more diverse characters and storylines, if we are the change we want to see in the world, then over time the world will change.  We educate the generation coming behind us.  Do we want them to have the same issues with SFF that we have?  Do we want them to have the same lack of diversity when it comes to race, sexuality, etc.?  

A few months ago I started asking publishing professionals, predominantly authors, for book recommendations for a column on SF Signal.  The first people on my list were ones I know / have had contact with in the past.  Now that the series is going, I'm hoping to branch out more, to find authors who are lesser known.  Authors largely neglected by the SFF community.  (Is it just me or do N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler seem to be the only women of colour (WOC) most people know?  They're great writers and deserve to be on those lists, but there are quite a number of other WOC writing SFF who never seem to get mentioned.)

One of the things I do at the store is note down books by people from different backgrounds.  These notes help with recommending books and doing my displays (which become reading lists on my blog).  I've developed a decent list of POC SFF authors.  A few minutes spent googling them - and reading some of their blog posts - has increased those lists.  The internet is such an amazing tool and so woefully underused.  One of my new goals has become to actively look for novels by people different from me - even ones I'm not sure I'll like, for whatever reason, and review them.  Publishers won't publish books they don't think there's a market for, so let's give these books a market!

I'll be starting a new series called Reading Unbound, where I go over some of these authors on my blog.  I'd love to hear author suggestions and what information you'd like to get out of the series.