Romance Writers of America implodes over handling of criticism of racism

[CWatkinsNash]

And now they've canceled the Ritas. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/b...cel-ritas.html

“The contest will not reflect the breadth and diversity of 2019 romance novels/novellas and thus will not be able to fulfill its purpose of recognizing excellence in the genre,” it said in the statement, adding that it planned to recognize 2019 and 2020 books next year. The organization declined to comment further.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You mentioned lynch mobs. In a discussion about racism. In a forum with many members from the USA, where lynch mobs have murdered black people within living memory.

Yes, exactly. Emmet Till would have been 69 this year if he'd lived, that's younger than my parents.
Words have meaning, and since Orwell's 1984 and newspeak has already been invoked in this thread, I'll point out that seeing "lynching" used as if it has no more meaning than "doubleplusungood behaviour" is really jarring.

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

As a white woman, I'll admit those scenes just "go past" my radar - yes another stereotype, "how lazy", but not objectionable (to me). So I can only try to really understand by finding another situation or stereotype that I do see and experience and remember how annoyed and/or hurt those make me feel.

Same here. I saw this in myself pretty starkly some years ago: A textbook on ethics which one of my children brought home from school had a chapter on altruism, with four people as examples of admirable people who had dedicated their lives to helping others. I noticed right away that all of them were Christians, and was annoyed about that -- surely they could have picked a few people of other beliefs! It was only later, when rereading, that I also noticed that all of them were white Europeans. As a white European, that had been completely invisible to me at first.

I also remember being surprised when someone mentioned that one of my favourite Heyer books contained antisemitism. When rereading, I found that it was really, really blatant, so much that I'm embarrassed and surprised that I didn't notice it the first time I read it. ("The Grand Sophy", where a minor villain is a Jew and matches pretty much every nasty stereotype you can imagine.)

@ hitch: I agree that internet harassment and the chilling effect of that is real. Are you aware that marginalized groups, like women of color, are far more likely to be victims of such harassment, and that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are far less likely to take action in those cases?

But "critiscism" is still not the same as "censorship", and conflating the two or using hyperbole like "storming with pitchforks" just serve to make the discussion more stupid.

Some posts ago you were really indignant about the possibility that people could be banned from RWA because of their opinions. Do you still think that's horrible, [...-ed]

[hildea]

Reviews are good, readers can read reviews and make their own desicions on whether they want to read books.
So how do some of you get from that to applauding the people who try to silence those reviews? Why do you support the thin skinned opponents of criticism and free speech, the ones who use underhanded methods to try to remove people with unpleasant views from their trade organization?

I mean, I get that the criticism of the publishing house may be more complicated (I support Milan there as well, but I haven't taken the time to go into that aspect of the situation yet). But the part of the conflict which is about Davis and the reviews of her book should be easy, a no-brainer.

I wish the people who fight against racism were as powerful as some of you seem to think they are. If you were right -- if credible accusations of racism actually were career killers -- the world would look very different.

It's possible that Davis has hurt her career, but if so, it's because of her immature handling of criticism, not because of racism in an old book. After all, the author who published that anti-semitic romance between a nazi concentration camp commander (!) and a jewish concentration camp prisoner (!!) still has a career. (That romance was on the shortlist for two awards from the RWA, by the way. And this was as recent as 2015.)

Imagine if Davis' response had been something like:
"Huh, that book is twenty years old, we just republished it. I'll ask the publisher to pay for an editor to help me go through it with fresh eyes."
and then either:
"Ok, there are some parts I'm not satisfied with, we'll republish an updated version. Thanks for letting me know about the problems."
or:
"After looking at it, I'm satisfied with how it is." and then taking the resulting bad reviews like a grown up author, without filing ethics complaints as if a bad review of a book is a personal attack.
I'm pretty sure that any possible damage to her career (which she admitted in a recent interview was nowhere near as clearcut as she pretended in the ethics complaint) would have been negligible if she'd chosen that kind of approach.
Writing a racist book isn't a career killer. Having racism in a book pointed out isn't a career killer. Reacting extremely badly to criticism may hurt your career.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by hildea

@ hitch: I agree that internet harassment and the chilling effect of that is real. Are you aware that marginalized groups, like women of color, are far more likely to be victims of such harassment, and that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are far less likely to take action in those cases?

What I know is that there's a difference between being harassed or "bullied," and being driven out of business or your profession. As my opinions seem not to survive, here, that's all I will say, but having been on the receiving end of the latter, I'm obviously acutely aware of it.

As far as the RWA, yes, as I've already said 2-3x, I feel that they erred BOTH times. They should have stayed out of it, firstly, but then they made mistakes in everything that they did.

As far as Davis handling it "differently," I daresay you might feel very, very differently if you'd been publicly accused and harangued. Nobody--no matter who it is--wants to be publicly harrassed and humiliated or have someone come after their job. You say that Davis should have handled it differently, but what about Milan?

Hitch

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by hildea

After all, the author who published that anti-semitic romance between a nazi concentration camp commander (!) and a jewish concentration camp prisoner (!!) still has a career. (That romance was on the shortlist for two awards from the RWA, by the way. And this was as recent as 2015.)

Are you accusing the commander of being anti-semitic? He cannot be all that racist if his chosen lover is a jewish prisoner. Unless you forgot to mention the anti-semitic aspect in the book.

In your mindset it could have never happened, because every nazi party member or soldier that fought on the German side is automatically racists. If that is your belief, then you are doing some really weird stereotyping.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by hildea

It's possible that Davis has hurt her career, but if so, it's because of her immature handling of criticism, not because of racism in an old book. After all, the author who published that anti-semitic romance between a nazi concentration camp commander (!) and a jewish concentration camp prisoner (!!) still has a career.

You meant this?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DWA695U...ng=UTF8&btkr=1

Anti-semitism is mostly a conspiracy theory about Jews being, in a malign way, more powerful than we are. I'm committing Milan's sin of commenting on a book I haven't read much of (just the Amazon free sample), but what I found from the above link doesn't look anti-semitic to me.

This raises, in my mind, the question of whether Davis's book is racist. Is is wrong to say (not everywhere, not every century) that women were oppressed in traditional Chinese society? Describing this less beautifully than Pearl Buck did doesn't make you a racist. Bronze skin? Yellow skin? Doesn't sound like great writing to me. Racist? Not so much.

The members of the RWA should be free to have a trade organization promoting romance novels, or a standards enforcement agency, or a bit of both, as they wish.

I do wonder what their readers would think. The small sample of heavy/exclusive romance novel readers I know aren't exactly what you might call woke. But there must be millions of exceptions to that generalization.

P.S. I've hesitated to participate in this thread because it concerns a subject tough to talk about both candidly and without offending. I hope it will be taken in an Avenue Q spirit and apologize in advance if I've not quite gotten there (or if you can't stand Avenue Q).

[Kindleing]

Originally Posted by leebase

We Americans use lynch mob where the "lynching" isn't murder by hanging, but some other form of "mob punishment".

Carry on.

Yes - in the US (at least the parts I am familiar with) the term "lynch", or "lynch mob" has only very recently been redefined to exclusively apply to racist hangings. As Leebase said, it has routinely been used as a slang term for "mob punishment" of anybody for anything and seldom refers to actual hanging - which would be illegal. It is still a little jarring to me that "hanging" now automatically carries a racial connotation since hanging horse thieves, among others, was once considered proper.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Kindleing

Yes - in the US (at least the parts I am familiar with) the term "lynch", or "lynch mob" has only very recently been redefined to exclusively apply to racist hangings. As Leebase said, it has routinely been used as a slang term for "mob punishment" of anybody for anything and seldom refers to actual hanging - which would be illegal. It is still a little jarring to me that "hanging" now automatically carries a racial connotation since hanging horse thieves, among others, was once considered proper.

As far as I recall and this is going back quite a ways, the punishments handed out by "Judge Lynch" included whippings, branding, conscription and property seizure in the 1780's but no mention of hangings or other deaths. Perhaps Judge Lynch was still affected by his Quaker upbringing?

This research was triggered by a line in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, "Oh, different today, but was 2075 and touching a fem without her consent—plenty of lonely men to come to rescue and airlock never far away. As kids say, Judge Lynch never sleeps."

A quick check on Wikipedia came up with Lynching in the United States. To quote the first sentence: "Lynching is the practice of murder by a group of people by extrajudicial action." So hanging is not the only method.

Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan did not exclusively murder black men, they were quite willing to lynch others -- Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians and in their early history Catholics. Check the La Paloma raid in 1937 for an example. I would suggest that only those with strong stomachs read some of the descriptions of the KKK in action.

[Quoth]

KKK also attacked families of non-natives marrying Native Americans.
Also they have never gone away.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

As far as I recall and this is going back quite a ways, the punishments handed out by "Judge Lynch" included whippings, branding, conscription and property seizure in the 1780's but no mention of hangings or other deaths. Perhaps Judge Lynch was still affected by his Quaker upbringing?

This research was triggered by a line in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, "Oh, different today, but was 2075 and touching a fem without her consent—plenty of lonely men to come to rescue and airlock never far away. As kids say, Judge Lynch never sleeps."

A quick check on Wikipedia came up with Lynching in the United States. To quote the first sentence: "Lynching is the practice of murder by a group of people by extrajudicial action." So hanging is not the only method.

Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan did not exclusively murder black men, they were quite willing to lynch others -- Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians and in their early history Catholics. Check the La Paloma raid in 1937 for an example. I would suggest that only those with strong stomachs read some of the descriptions of the KKK in action.

I do find it odd that somehow the idea of a lynch mob has been recently redefined as something racial. Lynch mobs were a standard in westerns when I was growing up and there wasn't anything racial about them. It was purely a mob targeting someone they thought guilty of a crime. Did the KKK murder blacks? Sure, but then again blacks breath, however it doesn't follow that breathing is a racial thing. I suspect that racists is the new nazi, i.e. a tag designed to shut down discussion.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Lynch mobs were a standard in westerns when I was growing up and there wasn't anything racial about them.

I suggest you look at the Wikipedia page listing victims of lynching in the USA, especially the 20th century section, and then consider that your knowledge of lynchings derived from fiction may not match reality.

[Quoth]

Hollywood Westerns are totally sanitised. Zane Grey's westerns are fictional and far more accurate. Most US made Westerns were also quite racial. Maybe more obvious to people who are not White Americans.
Don't use fiction as a guide to anything, least of all Fiction on the Screen.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DWA695U...ng=UTF8&btkr=1

Evangelical holocaust porn. Now I've seen it all.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I suggest you look at the Wikipedia page listing victims of lynching in the USA, especially the 20th century section, and then consider that your knowledge of lynchings derived from fiction may not match reality.

Well Said.
Apache

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Kindleing

Yes - in the US (at least the parts I am familiar with) the term "lynch", or "lynch mob" has only very recently been redefined to exclusively apply to racist hangings. As Leebase said, it has routinely been used as a slang term for "mob punishment" of anybody for anything and seldom refers to actual hanging - which would be illegal. It is still a little jarring to me that "hanging" now automatically carries a racial connotation since hanging horse thieves, among others, was once considered proper.

I'm not suggesting that in America, lynch mob isn't primarily about historical racial injustice. Because it is.

I'm saying that the phrase "lynch mob" is used to borrow from that tragedy and apply it to current mob action. Same with calling someone a Nazi or a White Supremecist...or a racist.

It's all emotionally laden rhetoric....on purpose.