Another Reminder: They Hate Us

Following both my recent article on how fairness is not what they want, and on the heels of the Schlichter article pointing out they hate us, making the rounds of the puppy-friendly SF community has been the story of yet another SF Writer Jon Del Arroz - kicked out of their circles, threatened by publishers, etc., for wrongthink.

The posting got picked up, and ended up being a top of discussion at the Supreme Dark Lord's "darkstream" on Periscope, as well as a recent posting at his blog.

From his original post:

But the convention, despite their namesake, has changed so it’s no longer about Bay Area authors. It’s not about Science Fiction either. One only has to go back to their last few years of programming to see what matters to the powers that be who have taken it over: it’s a place where politics transcend everything. You’re just as wont to find panels about “Combating Creationism”, “Climate Change Scenarios”, or “Diversity and Women”, and even on the appropriately themed programming, you’ll see guests like David Gerrold ranting about evil conservatives and hijacking innocuous topics. Looking at the Twitter feed of this year’s guest of honor, 95% of his posts are political attacks, so we can expect more of the same. What’s lacking is energetic talks about fun of Science Fiction. Ironically, when I first came to the scene, organizers saw my name as Hispanic and knowing little about me, placed me on programming that amounted to an hour and a half of complaining about how hard it is for minorities in fiction.

Believe me, I know how hard it is as the target of soft-blackballing like this.

The reason I was disinvited was because it is well known that I support the President of the United States, duly elected and all, and that I’m happy about the way the country is being run. You know, like most normal people are. That’s the only thing that’s changed between then and now.

As Vox noted - we think the SJW's in our lives can't possibly be that nasty, exclusionary, etc., even if they're family, etc. - and we need to disabuse ourselves of this.

Jon followed up with more details. Go read the whole post but this paragraph caught my eye and gave me a laugh

The next year, I’d gained prominence as the writer of a web comic which had garnered some praise and a lot of web traffic. This time, they invited me to the convention and placed me on a program. Because of my Hispanic last name, they made me speak about how difficult it is for minorities in Science Fiction. I’ve never met any resistance to my being Hispanic in the SF publishing field, and I found it more of a challenge to survive that hour and a half in the company of the whining panelists

Frankly, I'm not much of one to cheerlead about fighting back in public, instead of under a pseudonym. One day I will have to, and my job is moderately antifragile and I'm working to make it more so, in preparation for that day. In the meantime, I just leave politics out of it at work. "Guys, we're at work, etc."

I also count myself fortunate that while most of my family is liberal, most of them are sensible left, and not the melting down in tears, "how dare you defend anything Trump does" SJW's. 

These posts are a sobering reminder that sooner or later those will have to be dealt with, without the chickenshit deflection.

Also - go look up his book. The title is Star Realms: Rescue Run. The cover is cool, people who's taste I trust like it, and I plan on buying it to add to my growing collection of books to be read.

Update 2: Brian weighs in.