Mark Oshiro had an extremely unpleasant experience at a Kansas City science fiction convention last year: shabby treatment, sexism, racism, the whole works. It’s a sordid read.
But something useful emerges: Rachel Caine has posted some guidelines to individual responsibility for panelists. This is the time of year many of us are planning our summer con schedule — I’m going to Convergence, as always — but I’ll take these suggestions to heart. Except the ones about YA panels. I’m no authority on YA fiction. On the other hand, if I’m asked again to sit on a panel with someone proposing evolutionary absurdities, I’ll be quick to snarl.
Oh, wait. I’m always quick about that.
Holy shit, what an awful experience. I hope Mark has only positive con experiences from now on.
Wow! I am horrified at what happened to Oshiro and his partner. I was at Capricon a few weeks ago. There was a panel about Non-binary genders where all the panelists were either homosexual, transexual, or asexual. There were at least two other panels along those lines and one about depression in fandom (and even one about BDSM and consent at 10pm Saturday). I went to several of them and found them all informative. So don’t worry, these things CAN be done right.
This is truly bizarre behavior. Who are these crazy people? A Con organizer who doesn’t have the right number of dinner seats reserved for GoHs? And sends late arrivals to sit with the staff? A panelist who make a practice of taking her pants off, a panelist who casually dismisses anyone with an opposing view as “human garbage”, a panelist who will tell a person of color to his face that “race is a social construct”? Someone who thinks its funny to say to a gay person, of his partner, not to “let this sweet piece of chocolate go”?
It has been decades since I attended any kind of con. It sounds like I haven’t missed much.
It sounds like someone did reserve the right number of seats, just that the Con Organizer decided that her sitting at the table with George R R Martin at it was more important than giving another Guest of Honor his seat at the Guest of Honor table. (And, if it was a mixup and they were two chairs short, it seems like the Con Organizer should have been the one to go to the staff table OR they rearrange things so that it’s a mix of guests and staff.)
A Con organizer who doesn’t have the right number of dinner seats reserved for GoHs? And sends late arrivals to sit with the staff? A panelist who make a practice of taking her pants off, a panelist who casually dismisses anyone with an opposing view as “human garbage”, a panelist who will tell a person of color to his face that “race is a social construct”? Someone who thinks its funny to say to a gay person, of his partner, not to “let this sweet piece of chocolate go”?
I admit for a second I thought he was describing the republican presidential debates.
with that description I am so exited to go to my first conference! (not)
uncle frogy
Comments quickly appeared in response to Mark’s statement along the lines of “Oshiro doesn’t get proper permission from authors nor properly pay them for reading their works online, which makes him little better than a thief; why is he even a GoH in the first place?”. SF author Jim C. Hines and others correctly responded that while permission and compensation might be issues that Mark should address, raising those issues in this context is pretty much equivalent to the “The victim isn’t a saint and has no right to complain” and “Nothing would have happened if the victim hadn’t been somewhere they didn’t belong” derails that can almost always be expected to follow claims of harassment.
I want to respond to this as someone who has helped to run science fiction conventions for 27 years and counting. While it is true that people can and do still have bad experiences at cons (and I’ve certainly heard my share of other horror stories), I’m reasonably certain that what happened to Mark is not typical; what I’ve experienced far more often is people who have been excluded or hurt elsewhere in society coming to science fiction conventions and finding a place where they can feel safe, welcomed, and appreciated. Our small local convention does have an anti-harassment policy and I believe that our committee would not hesitate to enforce it, even if a committee member were the offender. We also have the Dorsai Irregulars (fannish but highly experienced semi-professional security) onsite to help make sure that attendees are protected and that their concerns are heard and acted on. I would recommend to anyone that, if you’re wondering about whether you’ll be comfortable at (and enjoy!) your first convention, look into long-running smallish cons (<1000 attendees) that you don't have to buy a plane ticket to get to and from (rather than new, large, or distant cons); read each prospective con's policies and make sure that it does have robust policies against harassment and other bad behaviors; investigate each convention's committee and see what you can find out about how experienced, diverse, harmonious, and committed to attendee safety it is; talk to previous attendees, particularly those who might belong to any of the same minority groups that you do, and hear what they have to say about their experiences at each con; and, if and when you do choose a convention to attend, go with friends (if possible) who can and will watch out for you and will help you get the most out of the event.
Reminds me of the time I was a last minute addition to a panel with a Famous SF Author who has had an on and off drinking problem. He came to the panel fairly well lit and seemed to think that if not everyone agreed with a point he was trying to make, it meant that he hadn’t spoken loud enough.
I got a lot of sympathy the audience simply by not raising my voice any more than needed to be heard in the room.
As regards harassment policies…not only does the (gaming) con I’m involved with have one, but it was invoked and used–successfully, if one considers the need to toss someone out of a con a “success”–at our con over this past President’s Day weekend.
Alverant@2: That depression panel was excellent, albeit a little crowded–there are a lot of us, aren’t there? I didn’t have the heart to go to the Puppies retrospective, plus it was on top of another one I wanted to get to.
There are reports coming out on usenet that Arisia (Boston, Pres. Day weekend) required an individually filled out, registered and bar coded executed agreement to their code of conduct. The result was that at the door registration took three hours.
Umm, Arisia is traditionally MLK weekend, and it was this year. Are you sure you don’t mean Boskone (which was actually last weekend)?
I’m very interested in how anyone gets from “race is a social construct” (arguably true) to “therefore racism is not real.” As others have pointed out, money is also a social construct — presumably that means you wouldn’t have any problem if I took all of yours, right?
brucegee1962: by not understanding what “[X] is a social construct” means.
johnwoodford @10
I know there were room limitations but I wish they didn’t put the depression panel next to the Dr.Who script reading panel. All the panelists were bravely talking about their illness and history while next door a bunch of people are laughing.
The Puppies panel was interesting. The panel were made up of the Hugo judges. They explained the problem. Fortunately they did say that anyone trying to do what the SP did would get caught (something like that is impossible to hide). One woman did complain about the “SJW” but the panel kept reminding her that there was no organized opposition to the SP, just a bunch of people making their individual voices heard (which is what the Hugo awards are all about). They said it wasn’t so much what the SP did but how they did it was the problem.
I wasn’t sure about going either, but I’m glad I did. At least at Cap there’s often enough going on to keep you busy.
I think Oshiro would be much happier going to Cap next year. What he experienced isn’t typical AFAIK.
Wait… Please tell me she thought “SJW” is an organization and not a silly attempt at a slur that nobody on the receiving end takes seriously.
@Dunc #14
brucegee1962:
Remember the times when these same people used to completely deny anything being socially constructed at all? It’s like educating creationists: you keep trying over the years to explain to them a slightly complicated term that however gives insight into the problem, and eventually they will poke their heads up and beamingly express how they’re all fine with that term now because it confirms their original point despite them using it in a terribly simplistic, ignorant manner.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Husband, who was on staff at Arisia, confirms that the long check-in lines and signed copy of the code of conduct were at Arisia. No, he doesn’t know why; seems to have been a directive from the board.
The form problem was from Arisia, but Boskone also had long reg line problems. There’s a thread about it on rec.arts.sf.fandom.
In reading through the issues, I’ve been ticking off the mistakes that I *don’t* make in the way ConReg is run at DunDraCon.