The November 8th election this year seems to have become something of a referendum on race in America, proving that W.E.B. Dubois’s old prediction about the “color line” being the preeminent issue of the 20th Century has lingered to bedevil the 21st. The notion that America needs to address and redress its racial problems persists in the collective imagination. Christians continue to await the return of Jesus; black Americans and other non-white or non-majority citizens continue to await the end of stereotypes, economic oppression, and institutionalized bigotry.
The “diversity movement”—this century’s name for a reconfigured civil rights movement—is not truly anything new. Futurists among us—by which I mean we who routinely contemplate and even write about the future of humanity—recognize that political struggles for social equality are struggles for power/agency, and as such will be with us until the last humans have vanished from the earth. Arguably, no literature has so consistently explored and elucidated the ongoing struggle of men and women to free or empower themselves—even from the limitations imposed by nature and gravity—than science fiction.
In the mid-1970s when I began attending Science Fiction conventions and participating in what F&SF publishing calls organized fandom, I was one of very few brown faces in a crowd of mostly friendly, highly literate, whites. Often when I would approach another black person at these events to introduce myself (historically a prudent survival ritual blacks performed to increase their safety in all-white spaces), they would ignore or run away from me. The myth of True Fandom back then as established in the 1950s when the first “world” conventions for F&SF were held, was that fans were somehow above mundane, real world bigotry. True Fandom was thus promoted as a utopian and colorless space, untainted by the primitive squabbles and unsophisticated judgements of mainstream America. Anyone perceived as trying to import those divisive squabbles into True Fandom would sooner or later be shunned as a hopeless throwback to a world happily—If temporarily—abandoned.
“Fans are Slans” was one of many catchphrases lifted from the SF canon and repeated by True Fans to telegraph their identification with all oppressed (yet somehow elite) underdogs. Borrowed from A.E. Van Vogt’s 1940 novel Slan, the term “slan” referred to a minority of vulnerable yet super human telepaths who were being hunted and killed as a mutated threat to normal humanity. A thinly veiled allegory of the Holocaust, Slan, like much SF, saw the future as a potentially dangerous destination if humanity failed to understand our psychological weak points or learn from our sociological mistakes. Scientific progress when pursued without conscience, ethical frameworks, and compassion was rightly seen in SF literature as problematic. Running away from these problems by ignoring them was also seen as unwise. Unfortunately, this cautionary message was somehow lost as the interconnected cabals of SF Fandom consolidated power within tight, mostly white, familial groups or friendships that made running annual SF conventions the equivalent of creating very comfortable and sometimes lucrative pocket universes.
From the 1920s through the 1970s, literary fandoms of all kinds were semi-underground subcultures. The socio-economic networks that read and commented upon each new fantasy, horror, and science fiction novel in mail-ordered fanzines, also started selling old films and used books; made t-shirts, jewelry and bumper stickers; and facilitated the elaborate yearly costume balls that kept the characters and themes of fantastic literature alive for the masses. Often seeing themselves as shy bookish introverts who were unjustly bullied and shunned in public school, readers of F&SF used the haven of True Fandom to attract power and value to themselves without considering that creating their fantasy kingdom might simultaneously create a new group of pariahs.
What does it mean to “fit into” True Fandom? Does one have to give up one’s ethnic identity? (Sometimes.) Were Jewish writers and black writers forced to write protagonists who were not obviously Jewish or black? {Often.) Did fandom create a consensus “slan” identity for its membership as an alt-white personality template to which all potential members had to adhere? (Yes.) As a comfy pocket universe designed to protect geeky Pilgrims from an oppressive mainstream culture, True Fandom never saw itself replicating the mistakes of the historical Pilgrims who established their own freedom only to begin to exclude, repress or oppress other cultures. Nowhere has that oversight exposed itself so clearly as in the #Racefail online debates that began raging within the F & SF community in 2009, and are now preserved on the web for future generations to study. The 21st century saw several parallel diversity movements emerge as non-white academics, computer hackers, comic book writers, genre fiction writers, and political activists converged on pop culture message boards and Afrofuturist listservs to complain about underrepresentation in the field.
With the landmark publication in 2000 of editor Sheree Renee Thomas’s Dark Matter (the first mainstream anthology of past and present speculative fiction by Black authors), more and more people of color started writing and publishing F and SF. Following in the singular footsteps of gifted pioneers like Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler, they’ve also been getting favorably reviewed, leading writers’ workshops, and winning major awards. Significantly, they have also not chosen to populate their books with the same kinds of white characters that have dominated F and SF classics since the 1930s. This turns out to be True Fandom’s major complaint—that old school white characters and themes no longer dominate the field. Straight white male writers sometimes find their novels publicly pilloried if they contain inauthentic non-white characters—and ignored if they contain only cis-gendered, mainstream white protagonists. In retaliation, reactionary activists and their followers have vowed to drive “SJWs” (social justice warriors) out of SF altogether.
To use yet another old fandom slogan, I would say that conservative readers and writers of SF view the rise of multiculturalism in American SF as “the gargoyles taking over the cathedral.” The pocket universe of True Fandom had—as often happens–been invaded by a huge paradigm shift in reality. To some inhabiting that once insular universe, this means the barbarians are at the gates. So, conservatives fight back with online flame wars and by stuffing Hugo Award ballot boxes to preserve the old order in which straight white men and their straight white female mates ruled. After all, it’s good to be the king. Why would anyone willingly abdicate the throne to share power merely for the sake of cultural equality? It never seems to occur to these people that trends in science fiction change naturally. Does space opera still dominate the field? Does cyberpunk? Does romantic science fiction? No, all enjoyed a blaze of necessary popularity before most of what needed to be said was said. If you want a new narrative, all you need do is wait for it. Clearly, without narcissism and bigotry there would be no controversy over the current wave of diversity in science fiction.
This year at the annual World Con, the work of non-whites and women took almost all the top fiction awards for the first time. This was the result of a conscious campaign by writers and fans of conscience not to let the voting process be manipulated by two organized factions who tried—for the second World Con in a row—to keep “diversity nominations” off the award ballot and off the award podium. Calling themselves the “Sad Puppies” (for moderates) and the “Rabid Puppies” (for radical reactionaries) two factions that publicly bemoan the proliferation of gay, non-white, and feminist narratives in science fiction attempted to game the system by voting in strategic blocs for their own slate of candidates representing what they deem are SF’s original themes and values. Long before Donald Trump tried gaming the vote by encouraging bigotry and demagoguery, the Puppies—promoted by author Kate Paulk and most aggressively by writer/publisher Vox Day (a/k/a Theodore Beale)—did the same and almost succeeded.
Major stars of fantastic fiction like George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), and Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Stardust, Coraline, American Gods) have spoken out condemning the Puppies’ agenda. Gaiman called the Puppies “pitiable people” during his acceptance speech for Best Graphic Story at the Hugo Awards this year, while Martin was quoted by The Guardian this April saying: “I felt I had to say something and refute the Puppies’ claims that there was discrimination against conservative fiction.”
But these two men also know what that part of Hollywood now being challenged by creators like Nahnatchka Khan, Paris Barclay, and Eva Longoria knows: this war is not just about fictional representation. It’s about the right of non-majority peoples to tell their own stories (whether those stories are flawed, or universally appreciated, or not) and to reap all the financial benefits that come with controlling the ways in which those stories are told. Minorities want to be writers, directors, producers, actors, publishers, editors and critics of our own histories—as well as of world-history as a whole. Our creative artists demand such input not to erase evidence of how others view us, but so that our input stands alongside that evidence as a corrective amplification of the “other” point of view.
In fact, so much great fantastic fiction is now being produced by writers of diverse ethnic and sexual persuasions it is hard to compile a concise reading list for the curious and uninitiated. I could heartily recommend the supernatural Americana of Andrea Hairston, or the epic world-building of N. K. Jemison. But as it happens, my current favorite is a New York Times bestselling author of Afro-Latino urban fantasy whose young adult and adult fiction does something very different and Pan African with the hoary traditions of the golem and the ghost story. In an upcoming FIRST post, I will extoll the mind-bending work of Daniel José Older.
Major Award Winners of the 2016 “Hugo Award” for Science Fiction and Fantasy:
(Presented August 20th 2016 at the 74th annual World Science Fiction Convention, a/k/a MidAmericon II, held in Kansas City, MO.)
These awards were first instituted by organizers of the World SF Convention in 1953. Both works of science fiction and fantasy have always been eligible. As of 2012, only paid members of the current World Con year, the immediately preceding year, and the imminent year’s World Con (paid membership meaning one can physically attend the convention) can nominate and vote for any particular year’s Hugo Awards.
Best Novel: The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin
Best Novelette: Folding Beijing Hao Jingfang
Best Short Story: “Cat Pictures Please” Naomi Kritzer
Best Novella: Binti Nnedi Okorafor