Allyship Sunday: We Need To Talk About Bob

This week, Allyship Sunday returns with a topic that's difficult for me to write about. Let's get into it.

Last weekend, a tremendous thing happened in the world of science fiction and fantasy: Author N.K. Jemisin won the Best Novel Hugo Award for the third year in a row. Every novel in her breathtaking, groundbreaking - literally, in the latter case - Broken Earth trilogy has won the award. I'm a Hugo voter, and I ranked all three novels first or second in their respective years. This is an unprecedented, and also an entirely deserved accolade.

Some, however, disagree. Rabid puppies leader Theodore Beale was booted from SFF author organization SFWA for using an official SFWA account to call Jemisin a "savage" a few years ago, and the animosity persists.

When Jemisin won this third consecutive award, she gave a speech. She wasn't able to attend the previous two Hugo award ceremonies, so this speech was really for all three wins. It was a fiery speech, one that acknowledges the hardships in our lives, which is directly connected to the content of the books. Here it is:

In a private email list, venerated sff author Robert Silverberg wrote the following, which was leaked to Beale:

I have not read the Jemison books. Perhaps they are wonderful works of science fiction deserving of Hugos every year from now on. But in her graceless and vulgar acceptance speech last night, she insisted that she had not won because of ‘identity politics,’ and proceeded to disprove her own point by rehearsing the grievances of her people and describing her latest Hugo as a middle finger aimed at all those who had created those grievances.

Nora Jemisin is a black woman. Robert Silverberg is a Jewish white man.

When his words leaked, Silverberg apparently responded with this:

I wish someone would let the multitudes hear my statement that I wasn’t being racist, I simply feel that a Hugo acceptance speech should express gratitude, not anger.

Silverberg is a multi-time Hugo winner, and a many, many times Hugo nominee. He is also a fixture of the Hugo awards, usually giving a long, amusing speech, explicitly intended to draw out the fiction nominee's suffering as they wait for the results. No, really, that is the entire point - and usually the main content - of these speeches.

I am absolutely certain Silverberg does not view himself as a racist. Sadly, living in a racist society makes you racist. Often in ways you aren't aware of. Living in a misogynistic society makes you misogynistic. Often in ways you aren't aware of. It doesn't make you a monster, but it means you have built-in biases about people who suffer from systemic oppression, both gender based and race based.

Many people have pointed out Silverberg's long term friendship with, and praise of, the late Harlan Ellison, a man who was intensely proud of his vulgarity. But when a black woman - and I am not wise enough to discern which of these, or what combination of them, triggered his response - speaks out, she's "vulgar," which somehow makes ungrateful.

Ally, as I have learned and written here in the past, is a verb. It's not about who you are, it's about what you say and do. Likewise, "being racist," isn't a passive state, despite the way it was stated. Not having racist intent does not negate the racism in one's words and actions. Considering the content of Jemisin's speech, Silverberg's comment was racist. The fact that he doesn't see it doesn't make it less true. It is, in fact, a root cause. Awareness would have stayed his hand.

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