Now what’s needed is the followup “In regards to an incident that has been revealed to be a perfect storm of unfortunate events leading to profound misunderstandings…” message from the SFWA.
I would bet money that ain't gonna happen until Lackey sues the crap out of them.
It seems from earlier posts that Lackey has Wordlexia, what I call word slip-ups. Verbal Dyspraxia it was really called. Happens to me to.
Somebody was offended. We got that. It's a word best avoided, even if it wasn't used derisively.
Were they hurt by it? Did the level of racism in the world increase because Lackey said it? Did more people become extremist? Did they feel like Lackey was trying to make them cry?
Was Lackey hurt by this?
Seriously, nobody talks about that. I bet she cried. She was embarrassed. Shamed. Her husband got hit by it, too. What' he'd do wrong?
Her entire weekend was ruined and likely it seemed her reputation.
And she's not even one of those actual racist trolls like the ones jacking the voting against NK Jemisin.
Wow. Circular firing squad works again.
I smell a defamation lawsuit. If the person who was offended thought they had a case, they had jack taco compared to what was done to Lackey.
"She used a word not directed at me that though it had a past racist context was not used in a hateful speech" doesn't hold as much water to the actual harm done to the Lackeys by the response.
All somebody had to do was speak to her. Offended party to con staff. Con staff to her. Lackey wouldn have posted the same apology.
Here's the extra harm. The racism level in the world did not increase because of what Lackey said. The hurt the offended party felt is much smaller than the racism increase that will happen because of the response of "what happened to Lackey" being used to radicalize more people.
Again, congrats to that person. Their response to being offended will increase the level of racism they are likely to encounter.
Good plan.