Mely (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} coffeeandink) wrote,@ 2009-03-04 05:54:00 |
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| Entry tags: | fandom, gcadod09, race, sf/f |
Guess who managed to escalate the situation again!
This is Will Shetterly's latest post:
This keeps coming up, so I’m interrupting my internet holiday:
Micole says here that she briefly outed two fans, then took the information off the public web. I outed her briefly, then took the information off my sites entirely. It’s not in a “friends only” area. It’s gone. She is as safe from me now as those two fans are from her. I will not out her or anyone again. As I realized after I briefly outed her, everyone’s shit is theirs to live with.
ETA: I’ve been informed that Micole hadn’t known her brief outing was an outing. Apologies for making it seem like that was my point: my point is that she is just as safe as those two fans are now. She will not be outed. Nor will anyone else.
No, Will. I am not as safe. And the situations are not analogous.
You seem to have difficulty with reading comprehension. Perhaps if you try reading people's posts and comments aloud, you will be able to hear what they are saying rather than what you believe they are going to say.
I am going to skip the link gathering because I am very, very tired and also because, as usual, you have deleted half the evidence. Since you have complained about the irrelevance and painfulness of having to document the statements you make--I believe you suggested that people who asked for evidence of your statements were trolls?--I am sure you will not mind.
When you posted my full name, I assumed you had done it in ignorance, or I would not have bothered to write you. I did not bother to write you about your many, many misrepresentations about my personal life because of previous history. I asked you to take down my last name and to refer to me by my first name, my nickname, or my LJ handle, as that is how I prefer to be called, and I thanked you for your time.
You did take down my last name. You replaced it with [LASTNAME REDACTED] and a complaint about my unreasonability in expecting you to respect my privacy preference. You encouraged your commenters to seek out my name, to post it in your comments on LJ and on your blog, and in their own LJs. You insulted me for not thanking you, in public and in email. You posted my full name again and took it down again several times. You complained in your comments about how your chivalry caused you to protect me. You replaced my last name with "ATTACKSANONYMOUSLY" and other insults I have now forgotten. You claimed I had suggested a boycott of Tor, even though I have never done so, and encouraged many of your commenters to believe I had suggested or encouraged that you be forced to leave Shadow Unit, even though I had never commented on it. You once again encouraged your commenters to post my full name. You tried to out me once again on the feministsf wiki, based on the argument that no one on the antiracist "side" was "forced" to reveal their full name, apparently having neglected to read the page you were editing, which linked to Mary Dell, Yoon Ha Lee, N.K. Jemisin, K. Tempest Bradford, and Kate Nepveu, and having forgotten that you yourself had several conversations with Mary Dell during the course of the arguments.
When I went public, you called me a hypocrite and a coward and told me to "own my shit". As I had in fact linked to Kathryn's outing of me, which by this point has been seen by several hundred people at minimum, I am confused as to what more "shit" I am supposed to own.
Your response to my outing was: "P.S. Micole? Take a break. It ain’t near as big a thang as you think it is. Or, if you want enemies, aim for more powerful ones than Kathyrn or me. Always dream big!"
Yes. Actually, Will, it is that big.
You outed me after people told you and told you and told you this was wrong and dangerous. You outed me knowing nothing of my circumstances. You outed me having been warned it could expose me to physical violence, sexual abuse, personal harassment, and professional and personal hardship. You outed me, you kept re-outing me, you encouraged others to out me.
You have offered several different explanations for why you felt justified in outing me. Sometimes it is because I criticized Teresa in a post whose criticisms you have never attempted to discuss or address in any way. Sometimes it is because Emma and Patrick got hurt in RaceFail09, even though I said nothing about Emma and only spoke about Patrick in that post you haven't ever actually bothered to discuss. Sometimes it is because I "attacked" Kathryn by linking to her own words and, in fact, allowing her the opportunity to publicize the information about me she apparently desired to publicize up until the time anyone actually tried to read it. However, the present and most consistent explanation appears to be that you felt I criticized you unfairly. Allegedly, I criticized you unfairly by linking to YOUR OWN WORDS, with as much context as it was possible to provide after YOU DELETED THE ORIGINAL CONTEXT, and by linking to YOUR OWN REBUTTAL in both the ORIGINAL POST and A SEPARATE UPDATE.
Man, I wish I had enemies that malicious and unreasonable, instead of nice guys like you.
You have not apologized for any of this. You have not attempted to make amends for any of it.
Your apology, frankly, would be worthless to me. Your "assurance" that I am safe is worthless to me, not to mention inaccurate, as it cannot retract the information already out, widely disseminated and re-disseminated. Your word is worthless.
You outed me either for criticizing your behavior in discussions of race, or for criticizing the behavior of your friends in a discussion of race. You have proven quite conclusively that it really is unsafe to discuss race in sf fandom. You have proven quite conclusively that sf fandom is pretty much unsafe for anyone who has trusted you or someone you might talk to with information they do not want to reveal. You have done me profound damage. You have done sf fandom profound damage. You do not appear to recognize any of this.
This is what I would like:
- I would like you to consider yourself under a restraining order against me. You may not email me. You may not speak to me. You may not write me letters. You may not attend conventions I attend (for the record, Vividcon, Wiscon, Readercon).
- You may not write or speak about me, either by name, nickname, LJ handle, epithet, or allusion. You will delete every single post you have ever made about me and every single comment. You will delete the comments in your space that out me. You will not encourage others to out me or to insult me.
- As an exception, since I do not intend to take down "Will Shetterly: DO NOT ENGAGE", you may keep up your rebuttal. In this rebuttal you are to refer to me only as "coffeeandink".
- I would also like, frankly, for you to be shunned by sf fandom and to be banned from congoing until you have established by honest contrition and consistent and long-term improvements in behavior that you can be trusted not to out fans, to abuse women who disagree with you, or to make conventions unsafe for people of color and their allies. Like Rachel/the Something Awful Poster who harassed Wiscon attendees last year, you have betrayed the common standards of fannish and human civility. You cannot be trusted. You should not be permitted to harm more people.
I do not, frankly, think any of this will happen. I do not think you have the maturity or grace to realize what you have done or to effect change. I would like to be surprised.
I do not think sf cons will ban you. I have received a lot of backup from media fans, from POC, from individuals in the feminist sf community and some individuals in the sf literary community. I have witnessed a few of your friends call you on your behavior, and although I think they did it out of their own senses of honor, rather than any personal attachment to me, I nevertheless appreciate their actions.
However, and in general, the silence from sf fandom has been pretty fucking resounding. Apparently, it's a very, very, very big deal when a woman of color criticizes someone's book, or when a white editor's feelings get hurt, but outing someone's legal name on the Internet? That's not worth a mention.
Thanks, sf fandom. I hadn't quite understood my place. It's a lot clearer to me now.
