Bigoted Authors are WOE!

[eumelia]

At WorldCon there was massive Race!Fail coming from author L. Jagi Lamplighter which you can read about in a couple of posts by karnythia, such as I'm about to be a jerk on the Internet or RaceFail Goes To WorldCon (open the links... they're just precious) and a thread started by the aforementioned author.

The links from Lamplighter's own journal arhyalon are just willfully ignorant (which contains an apology for some of the ignorance... it has problems, but okay).

It's race fail due to colour blindness and really, people in this day and age should know better than to think that's the way in which racism will be purged.
Ignoring a social facet that is so deeply ingrained you do not even notice it is there will not make it go away.
That is what makes it stick.

But kids, it doesn't end there. No siree it does not.
Another author - John C Wright, who also has an LJ - johncwright, who happens to be married to the one above is also a bigot, only instead of being wilfully ignorant, he posted a screed (ETA: which is now a screen shot because he deleted the entry - because that's integrity for you) titled More Diversity and More Perversity in the Future!

Yeah.

So yesterday there was an influx of legitimately pissed off people which amounted to something like 800+ comments on that post. In a pure act of cowardice he has screened all the comments and disabled that post, meaning even if you wanted to, you cannot comment on that disgusting piece of diatribe.
My comment (and the replies that I got) are saved though, as I have them in my email.
And because I am vain, I will now let you read what I commented to him, because really, I feel it's one of my best nasty comments ever.

I'd suggest you educate yourself and offer links, but why waste both our times when I can just stand aside and watch you be eviscerated by others who also think you're an ass-hole, as your sales take a dip.

In short, fuck you.

You're pretty much the lowest level of humans as you don't even have the decency to keep your prejudice to yourself.
How sad for you.
Though I suppose we're lucky that we now know the truth about you.

And this is much milder than I originally intended.

Bragging now over.

Authors, at least in my mind, should really know better. Words, spoken and written hold a huge amount of power. They have the ability to affect the world no less than a a bullet or a tank. The affects and consequences are different, but no less dramatic or powerful (in the long run).

If you are called out on something you said because it has hurt someone in some way, it is your responsibility to figure out why someone is so worked up about it. The excuse of "thin skin" and "over sensitivity" is derailment and while there are cases of misunderstandings and out-of-context experiences, most of the time... your arse is showing and it would make everyone feel better, including your (my) self if you covered it and said "excuse me".

Just a thought.

Edited to show that an apology from arhyalon was given.

Comments

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

I've deleted my own comment on the matter, because I don't want that troll to get more publicity. And just looking at the couple, I'm thinking they must be from some kind of parallel dimension.

Luckily, you can educate readers about authors' offensive behaviour (I tagged all his books I could on amazon.co.uk) with "adult content" and "homophobia". There /is/ a way to hurt an author back. Over at Goodreads, there's already a discussion on the guys inflammatory homophobia. I'm not sure if it makes me a troll, too, but it sure felt good.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

While it's true that giving him more publicity is a negative. Providing information about his bigotry I think is a public service, so I don't it's neutralised.

Thanks for the tip and I don't think it's trolling if it's not just for your own Schadenfreude :)

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think word should be spread about what a little bastard the guy is (and his wife, apparently). I'm amazed how Christians can be real, heartfelt Christians and STILL be homophobic. If their Jesus lived today, he'd be embracing the GLBT crowd (only of course that for me Jesus was just somebody stirring up the shit in Judaea, two thousand years ago and since then had a global PR department work people up about this guy).

[hemlock-sholes.livejournal.com]

The worst is that he was probably a pretty decent guy who would not have liked the PR department guys at all!

:)

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Lamplighter has since issued a pretty reasonable apology, admitting she was wrong and that she didn't understand why "colourblind" could hurt people of colour.

Her husband - WTF? That's disgusting.

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Tehehe. Maybe. I hold that we know pretty much nothing about the "historical person Jesus" that gives us any indication what he was on about. So, he's a chiffre - basically an empty slot into which people can project whatever they want. The /nature/ of that /projection/ however, is very relevatory.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I had seen the post to The Angry Black Woman and also read the posts that Lamplighter made to her LJ. I didn't know that she was married to a more established writer. That makes it a lot more intelligible how someone who can't write her way out of a paper bag got a novel published. I was baffled. It wasn't that her posts were merely racist--which they were, and there's no getting around that--they were excruciatingly stupid. She couldn't get the details of the things she was criticizing right. She was missing major pieces of data and logic. I know that spelling flames are not done, but geez, her default, unedited writing has a lot of SPAG errors.

But now that I understand that she's married to someone who has a lot of published work under his belt. it's all much more obvious. People care what she has to say because she's married to someone who is established in the field.

This isn't insensitivity, it's right-wing politics in the preservation of personal privilege.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I must have missed the actual apology part, or just didn't realise it was an apology?

Yeah, her husband... yech. I'm very happy I got to comment before he screened and ran and hid.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Stupidity, ignorance and prejudice are often a "holy" trinity of WRONG.

Somehow those two hit them all on the head.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

But there is also some kind of irony in insisting that white people don't have special privileges when you have your position through marriage and also are using a icon of an exoticized S. Asian woman.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

That's just special, imo.

[sabotabby]

The reactions of husband and wife are interesting to observe. To her credit, Lamplighter made an attempt to engage with her critics. She was condescending and her apology was little more than "I'm sorry you interpreted my beliefs as offensive and your feelings were hurt, but I'm still superior," but she did keep talking.

He flounced, hilariously.

I wonder what their marriage is like.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they're basking in the halo of their perceived superiority.
Together.
Or they consider it "suffering" for their beliefs. Or something.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

karnythia linked on her LJ (http://karnythia.livejournal.com/1335827.html) and her blog today.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

That's the apology?

...

Okay, I guess.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

YES. Jesus was the original longhaired hippie peacenik. ♥

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it has major problems, but I really don't want to be the person who stirs up trouble on someone else's behalf when the apology has been accepted.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

*nods*, I've edited the post to show that.

Thanks!