Mercedes Lackey Ejected From Nebula Conference For Using Racial Slur

[Hussar]

There is some awful precedent you are trying to set up here. This sounds like you have to have measurable example of offense before you even dare raise the issue or people will sue the hell out of you. Also, they will blame you for causing the thing you are offended by in the first place. What role do we know the offended person took in all this? Did they simply raise an objection and the SFWA took it from there? If thats the case, its on SWFA not the person for reporting the objection.

There is another route though that should have been taken.

Follow the practices established by the policies of the group that you agreed to follow before taking it to public airing. Note I mean general you here.

The SWFA like any organization has complaint procedures in place. Had those actually been followed likely none of this would have happened.

It’s when people compleyetly ignore what they we’re supposed to do in the first place that all these kinds of overreactions could be avoided.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

You are making a lot of assumptions.

That Twitter will be Twitter?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree that a bigot is a bigot. I think you missed the point here, though. People who see such encounters but have not engaged yet have a much higher chance of a negative emotional response and can easily serve to push them to harden their opinions.

Ask yourself what the average person’s reaction would be to this story now that enough details are out.

"Man that sucks."?

"Man those book nerds sure got egg on their face, now."?

No one is going to go from ally to enemy of inclusion, over it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

and that's how it works. Youtube can make you a flat-earther in 3 weeks. Tucker Carlson can make you racist in 2.

No, they can't.

So anytime the circular firing squad comes out, we are playing into their hands. Make dang sure your target is worthy of taking down.

No, we are not.

This entire mindset is ridiculous, and feeds into the "don't rock the boat" narrative that makes it harder to actually effectively advocate for social justice and positive change.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To de-escalate just means that they are brushing off the crimes of an old white woman who made a much less powerful younger black woman feel poorly. Just because of a few extra words said which obviously are just because that old woman was caught saying out loud what she believes in her heart. No no no.

Based on what I’m reading, I don’t believe that she’s a racist, beyond this isolated incident, I don’t see a pattern that would indicate such. Indeed, when she misspoke, she was in the process of praising the person to whom she referred as “colored.”

Is that dispositive? Of course not. For all I know, she could have a B&B she only rents to the KKK. But I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Hussar]

I’m pretty willing to fling the poop pretty widely here. This is a textbook example of how not to deal with this issue pretty much front to back.

 

[Guest 7034872]

You are making a lot of assumptions.

I'm pretty sure that post was parody.

 

[Umbran]

You are making a lot of assumptions.

Not just making assumptions. Ignoring the evidence. It isn't like she's an unknown - she was being given the grandmaster for a reason.

Mercedes Lackey has been one of the most prolific writers in the sci-fi and fantasy genres since she began in the mid-1980s. She writes more than 5 books a year on average, and has over 140 titles under her belt.

It would be extremely strange, stretching credulity, to have those 140 works published, and then be suddenly revealed as a bigot by one slipped word while speaking in praise of a black author. As if... after decades and millions of words expressed, this one word is what shows her true colors?

That doesn't really survive a sniff test.

I'm pretty sure that post was parody.

Poe's Law in action - parody fails when it is indistinguishable from the real thing.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Poe's Law in action - parody fails when it is indistinguishable from the real thing.

Fair enough. It surely is one of the curses of the internet that the lines between simple humor, sincere speech, and trolling are too often awfully hard to discern. Facial expressions, body posture, verbal timing, and all that.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Based on what I’m reading, I don’t believe that she’s a racist, beyond this isolated incident, I don’t see a pattern that would indicate such. Indeed, when she misspoke, she was in the process of praising the person to whom she referred as “colored.”

Is that dispositive? Of course not. For all I know, she could have a B&B she only rents to the KKK. But I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I do not believe that she is a racist as well. Even if it was not a mess up, a verbal stutter that she said happened, but instead she did use the word, that is not evidence of racism to me if there is nothing that backs that up. At worst insentitive.

My comment was both sarcasm/parody and deeply held cynicism. I wish I was only making fun, but I actually believe that the SFWA will not apologize and that any sign of them backing down (which as an institution they have not on these types of things for a long time) would be reacted to exactly as I said on Twitter. Because I have seen that over and over.

They should not have issued the statement that they did - directly saying said a racial slur and they should not have kicked her husband out as well.

As to why I think they acted in the way they did, I would certainly trod over the clear lines here while responding to one moderator while another is commenting. I hope I am smart enough to avoid that. But this is an organization that has applauded similar actions over the last decade and I don’t think the public shaming was not on purpose.