{"id":20932,"date":"2010-10-22T17:15:33","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T21:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=20932"},"modified":"2010-10-22T19:08:28","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T23:08:28","slug":"marine-science-fiction-writer-blacklisted-for-comments-on-islamic-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=20932","title":{"rendered":"Marine Science Fiction Writer Blacklisted for Comments On Islamic Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instapundit <\/a>and Ace of Spades<\/a> have already talked about this a little bit, but they’re coming at it from the outside. This has been on my radar for a while, but it’s finally gotten to the point where I think it’s absolutely awful and have to say something.<\/p>\n

In Defense of Elizabeth Moon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Moon is a pretty extraordinary woman. She made the decision to join the Marine Corps as an officer during the Vietnam War, at a time many men were unwilling to. She is the child of a single parent, and an utterly self-made woman with multiple college degrees. She is also the mother of an autistic child and has done some pretty impressive advocating for disabled children. She writes\u00a0 some great Military Science Fiction books, with strong female characters-because she knows from experience that women can be a lot of pretty amazing things. Moon exemplifies in many ways what I think of as feminism-that any woman can and should have the ability to be whatever she wants to be, from serving her country to being a mother-tigress.<\/p>\n

To this end, she was chosen as a Guest of Honor at Wiscon, a feminist science fiction convention. This was an excellent choice-she started writing early on in a field where there were few women writers, and she’s pretty consistently been a supportive voice for them, while declaring that to be a feminist means you believe women are strong.<\/p>\n

All was well…until, on her own personal blog, she made a 9\/11 post<\/a> about the proposed Islamic Center in NYC, and overall, about immigrant assimilation in America.
\n<\/p>\n

Groups that self-isolate, that determinedly distinguish themselves by location, by language, by dress, will not be accepted as readily as those that plunge into the mainstream.\u00a0 This is not just an American problem–this is human nature, the tribalism that underlies all societies and must be constantly curtailed if larger groups are to co-exist.\u00a0 It is natural to want to be around those who talk like you, eat the familiar foods, wear the familiar clothes, have the familiar cultural references.\u00a0\u00a0 But in a multicultural society like ours–and it has been multi-cultural from its inception–citizens need to go beyond nature.\u00a0 That includes those who by their history find it least comfortable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t agree with her on the Islamic center, but on this I have to agree. This applies to everyone. Everyone needs to break out of their comfort zones and enclaves. It’s kind of a key fixture in a lot of science fiction, too-that if we don’t all stop clutching so determinedly to our differences, we’ll never make it to the stars. We don’t all have to be the same, but we do need to stop defining ourselves only by our tribes.<\/p>\n

What appears to have spelled her doom, however, was the following:<\/p>\n

I can easily imagine how Muslims would react to my excusing the Crusades on the basis of Islamic aggression from 600 to 1000 C.E….(for instance, excusing the building of a church on the site of a mosque in Cordoba after the Reconquista by reminding them of the mosque built on the site of an important early Christian church in Antioch.)\u00a0 So I don’t give that lecture to the innocent Muslims I come in contact with.\u00a0 I would appreciate the same courtesy in return (and don’t get it.) \u00a0 The same with other points of Islam that I find appalling (especially as a free woman) and totally against those basic principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution…I feel that I personally (and many others)\u00a0lean over backwards to put up with these things, to let Muslims believe stuff that unfits them for citizenship, on the grounds of their personal freedom.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Immediately an outcry rose up among some. Elizabeth Moon didn’t just disagree<\/em>, she was racist<\/em>. (Never mind the fact that Islam is a religion, not a race). The mere fact that she happened to find portions of Islamic practice objectionable, as a feminist, <\/em>was used as a reason to get the tar and feathers ready<\/a>. And hundreds of posts later from the slavering hordes, the nonprofit responsible for WisCon, SF3, overrode the committee, broke their contract with her, and disinvited her as Guest of Honor<\/a>. Now this isn’t just some trivial thing-appearing as a Guest of Honor is a contract between the author and the convention. The author commits to coming, clearing their schedule and turning down other events they could be doing that weekend, and in return, the convention sometimes pays them, and generally pays for their plane tickets, hotel rooms, etc. So in essence, they’ve screwed her over, because they thought it was easier to let a respected military science fiction writer hang than to get accused of racism. There’s also been talk from other sides of instituting boycotts against her, shunning her, having people stalk her around the convention if she shows up just to tell her how much they hate her<\/em>, and other things.<\/p>\n

Now here’s the thing. I disagree with portions of what Moon wrote, and even think that some is in poor taste and she chose some of her words poorly. I think it’s got a lot of assumptions, and not all of them are correct or well-researched. I think that she didn’t convey what she actually wanted to say very well. But what I also think is absolutely awful is that she has been completely singled out, on the basis of personal political beliefs,<\/strong> because “there are Muslims who will be at the convention”. I’ve been reading a lot of beliefs being thrown around here in the criticism, both in those criticizing Moon and other GoHs. And there are other feminists who will be in lead roles at WisCon who have strong political and personal beliefs against groups who will be represented at WisCon, too. There will be capitalists at WisCon, and Republicans, and Christians, and Orthodox Jews who believe in Israel, Libertarians and members of the Tea Party. And these are groups it’s apparently completely okay to demonize. You don’t see people rising up and stopping those other people for saying all of these objectionable things because those individuals might be offended. Instead you find people saying that the mere presence of Elizabeth Moon would make this “not a safe space” for Muslims to exist at the convention.<\/p>\n

This is absolute bullshit.<\/p>\n

I personally find portions of a lot of religions objectionable, as a feminist, and I know for a fact that many other feminists do too. There’s a lot of inequality written into the past, that many religions have been slow to catch up on. In fact, there’s been an awful lot of feminist<\/a> statements<\/a> about<\/a> organized<\/a> religion<\/a> that amazingly, got them no witchhunts. Why is it okay to malign one conservative religion, but not another one? And why is what she said so astonishingly worse<\/em> than other people talking about different religions? Yes, she said that some of these beliefs made people bad citizens. I personally think Fred Phelps is a bad citizen because of his insane religious beliefs, as well as the polygamist sects still existing in the hills of Utah. Moon and I don’t agree on a lot of things, but I can completely understand why someone who stands for the rights of women might have problems with religions that have historically repressed them. I don’t support people actively discriminating against individuals, but I think that if we’re going to be okay with calling out religions that have contributed to repression, you can’t give Islam a free pass just because Muslims in America are a minority.<\/p>\n

Wiscon claims to be “the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention. WisCon encourages discussion and debate of ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class.”<\/p>\n

Except, you know, if you don’t toe exactly <\/em>the right line.<\/p>\n

There are places open for comment at the Wiscon blog<\/a> and at the SF3 blog<\/a>. I think it would be great to support this woman, who’s been taking the brunt of an internet flamewar with very little defense. Please, if you go over and comment, remember your audience, and be polite. It’s easy to dismiss a lot of rabid rhetoric, much easier than it is to dismiss thoughtful logic.<\/p>\n

Warning: I may be editing this post slightly to tighten it up and add more links. I’d have taken more time, but I didn’t want Jonn to make any more commentary about my slow-as-hell posting.<\/p>\n

Jonn added:<\/strong> I wanted to write about this when I saw it at Ace in the context of the Juan Williams discussion, but luckily, Army Sergeant, a young woman who reads science fiction probably has a better perspective than an old man who could care less about science fiction.<\/p>\n

It appears that Laughing Wolf at Blackfive<\/a> is pretty pissed, too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instapundit and Ace of Spades have already talked about this a little bit, but they’re coming … Marine Science Fiction Writer Blacklisted for Comments On Islamic Center<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":608,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[147,146,148,150,149],"class_list":["post-20932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-elizabeth-moon","tag-islamic-center","tag-racefail","tag-science-fiction","tag-wiscon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/608"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}