Mercedes Lackey Ejected From Nebula Conference For Using Racial Slur

[payn]

No joke, in my hometown of New Orleans, you could find “Wop Salads” on menus all over the city well into the 1980s. And it didn’t really get fully replaced by “Italian salad” until almost 2000.

Here in the twin cities they proudly advertise the "Hot Dagos" around town.

 

[Blue]

I do appreciate the context of the incident. I could be convinced that total removal is a punishment too far. I also respect the Nebula Conference for their choice in how to handle it. To often folks are allowed to use outdated language under the guise of "they are old" and I don't find it to be an acceptable excuse. Also, it doesn't matter if Lackey was up for an award, how many times have folks allowed terrible behavior to go on because of somebody's legacy? That is also an unacceptable excuse. Not sure what the best answer is, but I am glad Nebula Conference has decided to put some standards in place. This isn't about who finds it offensive or who doesn't, its about how an organization chooses to uphold their moderation policies.

This feel like the zero tolerance policies at schools. I remember a story from a decade ago about 2nd graders pretending their pencils were gun and making shooting noises at each other and getting suspended for multiple days. (Link below.)

Mercedes Lackey was in the process of praising Delaney. We have a context. We know as much as it's possible for another person to know the intent of another that it was not being used in a negative way. The term was during the authors life an acceptable term. Your stance seems that we must hard line punish even when there is no intent, no harm to the recipient (Delaney did not take it as a slur), for something that was once acceptable and is now somewhat borderline, to a punitive level of punishment - not just removed from that event but from all panels, ejected from the convention, and publicly shamed via social media.

Sorry, zero tolerance rules aren't good. When you punish the innocent as well as the guilty because your criteria are poor, you are doing a bad job.

"It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer". --Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Vaughn, 1785

2nd Grade Boys Suspended for Pretending Pencils Are Guns

Two Suffolk second graders have been suspended for making shooting noises while pointing pencils at each another.

www.nbclosangeles.com

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here in the twin cities they proudly advertise the "Hot Dagos" around town.

Wow! And what are those? An ethnic hot dog variant?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If ever there was a sci-fi author that I'd trust to understand and navigate the complexities of language, it would be Delany.

The writer she referred to, Samuel Delany, has responded on Facebook. If the forum moderators have an issue with the language feel free to edit or delete it.

""Colored ladies," was what my aunts Bessie and Sadie referred to themselves as, and I favored "black"(with a small B, because because of my experiences in '68, with the activists who changed the country from "Negro" to Dr. Du Bois's preferred term). Among colored or black or Negro folks he had no problem—since scientifically there is no such thing as race, the terms are all social constructs. With all due respect for anyone over 60, there are no "bad words;" it depends alone on the vernacular you were brought up with. (Prescriptive usage and grammar starts out as a lost cause.) I would like to see institutions leave their hands off the spoken language of their elders. At 8 years my junior, and a native of a city I am very fond of, Mercedes Lackey has my permission to speak of me in any way she chooses. "Person of color" is just awkward (so I wouldn't use it myself); my paternal grandfather was born a slave, and there were white mongrels and Native Americans scattered throughout; "colored" has no negative connotations among any speakers black or white in my family and never had.”"

Well, take it up with Samuel Delaney. Words and context are tricky, and there isn't universal agreement on some of them.

As an aside, I stopped reading Mercedes Lackey years ago after I realize just how frequently certain problematic tropes crop up again and again. Not saying she should be censured, and I hope that she uses this as a learning opportunity.

 

[payn]

Wow! And what are those? An ethnic hot dog variant?

Its spicy Italian sausage, in a marinara sauce, served on Italian white bread (sometimes open faced like the picture). Very delicious, but I didnt know it was derogatory until I was well into my adult years. Nobody seems to care.

 

[Parmandur]

I go by “black, as do my parents. While I’m not offended by terms like “African-American” or “PoC”, I know some are. Mom, for one, REALLY hates “African-American”, and you will unleash a lecture if you use it in reference to her.

(OTOH, Mom is a bit weird about terminology. She’ll give a different incensed lecture when someone in media says the phrase, “the N-word”. I always ask her “What would you have them say?”, which usually just gets me the Mom Eye.)

Around here, the norm among African-Americans is "black" informally, "African-American" formally, and "People of Color" when speaking academically or more broadly. I get the logic of "PoC" and use it, but given the shifting history of terminology and it's linguistic clunkiness I don't predict it will have a long shelf-life.

 

[Parmandur]

View attachment 248955

Its spicy Italian sausage, in a marinara sauce, served on Italian white bread (sometimes open faced like the picture). Very delicious, but I didnt know it was derogatory until I was well into my adult years. Nobody seems to care.

In my experience, Italian-Americans actually seem to relish leaning into old slurs as a middle finger to The Man, and hard, to an uncomfortable degree. Hence songs like "Bibbity Bobbitty Boo."

 

[payn]

In my experience, Italian-Americans actually seem to relish leaning into old slurs as a middle finger to The Man, and hard, to an uncomfortable degree. Hence songs like "Bibbity Bobbitty Boo."

From an immigrant perspective, the Irish had it bad, then the Italians, etc.. Thing is they also got glamourized as gun rustlers and mafia dons. They dont have to put up with systemic discrimination and generalization (though it still happens to small degrees). It's easier to laugh at the joke when you are doing it together, unlike when you are always the target of it.

 

[Nikosandros]

One little - and not very relevant - thing that I personally find interesting is that all those "Italian" dishes must be recipes that have been created by immigrants in the US with some form of culinary syncretism, because I've never seen them here in Italy.

 

[Parmandur]

One little - and not very relevant - thing that I personally find interesting is that all those "Italian" dishes must be recipes that have been created by immigrants in the US with some form of culinary syncretism, because I've never seen them here in Italy.

Syncretism, and Italian regional differences. The vast majority of Italian Americans are Siciliano or Napolitano (except around here, actually, we got a lot of Genevesi and Lombard immigrants in Northern California). I have a friend from Bergamo that swears that nobody in Italy uses garlic or tomatoes in cooking and she gets actively angry about Italian-American food, bit other friends from other parts of Italy who say Bergamo is practically part of Germany...

But yeah, a lot of Italian immigrants had to improvise with what ingredients were available locally, hence stuff like cheddar "Macaroni and Cheese."