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The Guardian reports on a new study which has found that
The world of speculative fiction publishing is plagued by "structural, institutional, personal, universal" racism, according to a new report that found less than 2% of more than 2,000 SF stories published last year were by black writers.
The report, published by the magazine Fireside Fiction, states that just 38 of the 2,039 stories published in 63 magazines in 2015 were by black writers. With the bulk of the industry based in the US, more than half of all speculative fiction publications the report considered did not publish a single original story by a black author. "The probability that it is random chance that only 1.96% of published writers are black in a country where 13.2% of the population is black is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000321%," says the report.
The editor of Fireside Fiction goes on to say...
"Fiction, we have a problem. We all know this. We do. We don't need numbers to see that, like everywhere in our society, marginalisation of black people is still a huge problem in publishing ... The entire system is built to benefit whiteness – and to ignore that is to bury your head in the flaming garbage heap of history."
(Score: 5, Informative) by n1 on Friday August 12 2016, @10:48PM
Throwing the term SJW around at every opportunity is no better than the people who will find racism, sexism or other form of discrimination in anything and everything.
Be constructive, explain why the methodology is flawed, how the results are poorly interpreted or misrepresented. There's lots to talk about, and that can and will include dismissing the summary/article/study outright as a load of crap. But please, show your work and don't just get annoyed, dismissing any potential for constructive commentary when a headline or summary happens to push your buttons.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Friday August 12 2016, @10:52PM
Arguing with the SJW types just gives them credibility. It's kind of like arguing with the climate change deniers or anti-vaxxers, they haven't got a leg to stand on to begin with, so why give them validation by arguing like they have a valid point?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by n1 on Friday August 12 2016, @11:53PM
If they don't have a valid point, explain why. Take the high ground, let your side of the discussion stand in internet history as a reasoned one. Why dive in looking to argue and be confrontational? Discuss and share your perspective to the people who are new to the debate and/or have not formed an opinion on the story or issue yet.
Calling people stupid does nothing to stop them being stupid.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @12:16AM
A trillion flies in the country and none got an original story published? Must be a conspiration! Or as absurd as TFA argument may be none submitted any.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Francis on Saturday August 13 2016, @01:02AM
I take it you're not familiar with the "Gish Gallop." You can argue with those people, but you'll get nowhere and they'll just come up with more insane reasons why they're right.
Calling them stupid doesn't prevent them from being stupid, but calling them out for is more realistic than spending large amounts of time addressing the same tired talking points. And let's be honest, people who believe in things like "rape culture" and the police hunting blacks are too stupid to be reasoned with. The reality is far more nuanced than what those folks are capable of comprehending no matter how small you make the words and how patient you are.
But, really, calling them SJWs is more a matter of labeling for other people so they don't have to get sucked in than a serious attempt at changing their opinions.
The big problem is that since most of them aren't actually trolls, it's not as simple as just ignoring them. They'll keep saying the same nonsense until they get their way because they aren't doing it to piss people off.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @09:04AM
Except the "SJW" label is applied to anyone who disagrees with an irrational and delusional person, so it is useful in identifying somebody you can't debate with because they didn't reach their position rationally, its just that its the person saying "SJW" rather than the person being called that that is the one you shouldn't waste time with.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday August 13 2016, @05:59PM
I see what you did there.
No, generally speaking that's not how the SJW label is used. Perhaps if you've drunk the SJW flavor-aid that might be how it appears. But, most of the time when I've seen it used it's very clear which party has a point and it's rarely, if ever the SJWs. Mostly because they're pushing to kill any debate and bullying people that disagree into submission.
From a more objective point of view, the SJWs are extremely harmful and the sooner we can end the scourge the sooner we can get on to dealing with actual real problems.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:09PM
I see what you did there.
Um, obviously you did not. You are Francis.
No, generally speaking that's not how the SJW label is used
Actually, generally speaking, it is. And specifically, you are, and I will not discuss it with you any more, you SJW-Thrower, you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @07:53PM
This why arguing with SJWs is a waste of time. They're too ignorant to realize when they've been beat.
OTOH, khallow is retarded.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @07:24PM
See? Perfect example. I disagreed with you and you immediately called me an SJW. QED.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @07:50PM
Reread your own post. You got called out with good cause.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @05:13AM
Except, there is no arguing with these kinds of people.
They call you a bigot if you go against the LGBT status quo, even if you're a homosexual.
They call you a misogynist if you dare say a videogame's plot being changed to accommodate female characters and genders (even though the agreed-upon lore told of agendered/funghi-type critters).
They talk about affirmative action in IT but how about affirmative action in maid services?
They condone doxing for 'problematic' people, yet certain protected individuals that the status quo likes are subject to supernorma-protection.
They go as far as to publicly laugh on TV at a guy's penis being cut off and thrown in a garbage disposal, yet if a bunch of guys did that? The show would be immediately canceled.
SJWs can't fathom that they're hypocritical mysandrists. That men are discriminated against and raped just like women are.
They have a twisted world-view that is supported by very loud echo-chambers like Tumblr and similar 'safe-spaces' with chodes of conduct.
To have a discussion with the more extremists ones (which are DRAWN to any discussion) requires you to yell 'ad hominem' louder than they yell at you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @09:42AM
Take just any self-publishing site. There are lots: http://www.smashwords.com/ [smashwords.com] ; http://fictionpress.com [fictionpress.com] ; http://fanfiction.net [fanfiction.net] ; http://archiveofourown.org [archiveofourown.org] ; etc. etc. etc. Gather statistics there; compare to same at wherever you want (magazines, in this case).
If this is NOT done - the "study" is stupidity at best, fraud at worst.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday August 12 2016, @11:20PM
Too many people nuke these arguments, the rebuttals are so obvious. Doesn't matter, these people aren't thinking so reasoning can't influence them.
For example, these are instant argument enders in any rational debate. Watch the hate that flows though.
The most obvious is to ask for the evidence the publication rate varies with the racial mix of submissions. There is of course no such evidence presented. It is impossible to publish that which is not submitted. One could ask why elite NY women (the majority of the editors of mainstream publishers) are being so racist. This is of course simply not done of course. One could ask HOW a race conscious filter could work on submissions sent in text format. Do publishers make prospective authors fill out some sort of questionnaire where race is asked? Why?
One could ask if it is even a problem. Is it evidence of racism if every possible field and subfield of human endeavor isn't populated with a demographic makeup exactly like the United States in 2016? SciFi authors don't just come from the U.S. so why should it? But to directly hammer the real question, why should even U.S. submissions exactly mirror the demographics? Isn't the whole point of diversity that we should be different? That we aren't all exact copies that all think and behave exactly alike?
Finally, it is time for crimethink. Consider what Democrats have done to blacks in America. The shocking miseducation, the illiteracy, the corrosive culture that sees striving for an education as 'acting white.' Consider the hundreds of SAT points of 'affirmative action' required to get any semblance of balance in college admissions. Is it any wonder that few blacks are writing books at all, and especially so in a subgenre that generally requires above average knowledge of fairly exotic subjects?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday August 12 2016, @11:48PM
> Isn't the whole point of diversity that we should be different?
There's a clear racist bias in the fact most electronics sold in the US are now built by Chinese people.
Are manufacturers racists against white, or are whites just incompetent at building electronics?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:07AM
> The most obvious is to ask for the evidence the publication rate varies with the racial mix of submissions.
> There is of course no such evidence presented. It is impossible to publish that which is not submitted.
Your failure to understand statistics is not proof of anything except your own innumeracy. Or perhaps illiteracy? Because that precise point was addressed in the article. In fact, half the article was dedicated to explaining how they were able to compensate by analyzing best case and worst case scenarios. Pretty weak sauce that you got a +4 informative for such an utter math fail on a site with a userbase that likes to think of itself as well informed and analytical.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @10:22AM
To adjust for the methodological flaws, as well as the fact that we don’t have access to submission-rate data concerning race and ethnicity either overall or by individual magazine, we used binomial distributions. The purpose of this was to find the probability that such numbers could be random — the chances that numbers like that could exist without biases in play (which could extend to biases that are literary in nature, such as story structure), systemic problems, and/or structural gaps. In the first binomial distribution we ran the data assuming that submission rates of black authors are equal to the proportion of the black population in the United States, which was 13.2% in 2015 (according to Census projections).
Translation: to adjust for the fact that we don't have facts we made shit up so that we could publish crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:49PM
Your failure to understand that the social sciences barely qualify as science has been noted.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by IndigoFreak on Friday August 12 2016, @11:25PM
The methodology is flawed since they do not know the submission rates of black authors. It could be that magazines are racist, or it could be that no black authors are submitting stories. There could be other causes as well. But since we do not have any other data than how many black authors they found, which they don't even really have good numbers for themselves, they have to speculate. They didn't even use other types of literature as a baseline, as in, how many black authors publish non-fiction.
Also just reading the article it becomes clear that the author is in social justice, with a phrase like, "which is the most charitable to whiteness as possible." The entire study then becomes questionable since the author is biased. They saw a pattern and then went looking to confirm it. They then just looked at white / not white, ignoring any other type of nationality/race. I didn't read anywhere where they defined what makes a person white or black. Is someone who is Arab white? Asian? Mexican? Canadian?
This has agenda and confirmation bias written all over it, and that's once you get past the stench of poor methodology and incomplete data.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by n1 on Friday August 12 2016, @11:45PM
Thank you, that's what I wanted to see. It doesn't take much to explain why this article is a pile of useless shit and has a much better chance of educating and informing someone than reading "SJW blah blah blah".
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday August 13 2016, @01:07AM
It could be, but this is more likely indicative of a combination of the systemic racism in the school system that runs out black folks that are less likely to be able to write coherently than other groups. Or it could be a matter of black folks just not being interested in the genre with the same frequency as other groups.
Either way, until those are controlled for, we can't even begin to consider whether the publishers and or readers are racist. My suspicion is that the readers don't know and the publishers only care about the work.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Reziac on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:24AM
In my experience, it's lack of interest. At LASFS (Los Angeles area SF club open to whomever walks in the door) blacks are a rarity. I can only think of two that were semi-regular when I was attending, and one of those was Steve Barnes. Back when I was going to L.A. area SF cons regularly, I can only think of a handful of black regulars there, too. It's not that anyone cares if you're black, white, green, or plaid. It's that they just don't show up.
But TFA is typical of the SJW mindset: take a demographic that's just how people fall out when left to their own desires, and if the numbers don't reflect your particular crusade, wave the demographic around as evidence of -ism against 'em.
We get the same thing here in the northern tier states: There are hardly any blacks living there, so it must be because we hate them and want to keep them out! (More likely it's that they had better sense than to move to somewhere with so much winter and so few jobs...)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Saturday August 13 2016, @03:42AM
Calling them SJW gives them more attention and that is what they want. People writing articles like this are not some stupid-brigade, they are working systematically and it is a fallacy to think they give 2 hoots about whatever subject they are writing about, instead all they want is attention so that they become part of the social discourse; and over time someone who calls him/herself "progressive" may chose them for funding of progressive politics that runs on division and victimization.
If you see a single SJW, whether writing blog for gawker or trolling on twitter - I challenge you to check their driving force. Advertently all of them report to some kind of authority who is getting funded from some place. I will refrain from taking any names. *cough*clinton*cough*
The reason is simple - it works. It polarizes, it tires people who argue with them and when repeated enough times, it becomes true [youtube.com]. This can also mean faulty statistics (most sociology/psychology research/surveys lack enough data points and deliberately don't control many variables).
The reason progressives find it more attractive than other politicians is because of their belief in equal outcome instead of equal opportunities, the latter being "systematic" oppression/privilege.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:13AM
Oh yes, this whole "study" is really just virtue-signalling and truth-creation, exactly as you say. Sorry I already spent all today's mod points. :)
I can't usually be arsed to argue with these people, being a waste of breath, but as has been pointed out -- you're not going to change their minds, but you might change the minds of the as-yet-undecided.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:53PM
I'll be at Worldcon next weekend, I'll have to see how much of the crowd is black. I'm betting it will be as white as a Trump rally.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 13 2016, @03:28PM
I'll be very surprised if it shows more than odd dots of color, yeah. The awards audience last year was pretty much all old white folks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 24 2016, @03:50PM
Yep, old white nerds. I saw more blacks at my hotel than at the convention, and three times as many Asians (mostly Japanese). I doubt there was a dozen among the two thousand people there.
It isn't that science fiction doesn't like black people, it's that black people don't like science fiction.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 24 2016, @04:10PM
Just as we suspected... LASFS has a significant "over-representation" of Japanese and Chinese regulars as well, probably 10 times the population ratio (tho mostly as fans, relatively few as writers).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:21PM
I was actually surprised that there weren't more Asians, and considering the huge crowd the near nonexistent blacks was equally surprising. I didn't expect it to look like a NWA concert, but I didn't expect it to look like a Trump rally, either.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:47PM
I think that's a matter of age... literary fandom is trending toward retirement age and above. Asian fans tend to be younger, thus probably more likely to go to a ComicCon, DragonCon, or some other large event with lots of contemporary excitement, rather than to an extremely insular little convention that focuses on the written word, even if it does call itself Worldcon... which is big compared to other locally-run SF cons, but microscopic and ancient compared to the commercial conventions.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/04/10/the-graying-of-fandom-sanford-begley/ [accordingtohoyt.com]
http://file770.com/?page_id=6781 [file770.com]
(I have a few comments in the chains there as well)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:39AM
My suspicion is that the readers don't know
And my suspicion is that Francis doesn't know. . . . But again that hasn't stopped the sharing of wild speculations by an Anti-social Injustice Quibbler!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @03:02AM
My suspicion is that Khallow is still butthurt for being called out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:32AM
My suspicion is that Khallow is still butthurt for being called out.
Wow! Totally amazing! My suspicion was that butthurt is khallow! But then, I also suspected that the Might Buzztard was a sockpuppet for jmorris. But I don't now, so now my suspicion is that I am Francis!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:32AM
Uzzard and J-Mo can't be the same person. I suspect Mr. Morris is actually mentally ill, whereas The Shitey Uzzard is just an asshole who peaked in junior high; lots of that kind around. There are enough differences in their diction, sentence length, etc. that if they ARE the same person we're dealing with a well-trained method actor.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:14AM
Same argument as "OMG science fiction publishing is sexist".
Rebuttal from Tor-UK's lead editor (who happens to be a woman):
http://www.torbooks.co.uk/blog/2013/07/10/sexism-in-genre-publishing-a-publishers-perspective [torbooks.co.uk]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:16AM
> The entire study then becomes questionable since the author is biased.
Oh please. Its a basic first pass analysis intended for popular consumption.
How convenient that people you disagree with must meet the highest possible standard of rigorous scientific inquiry. It sure is nice to have the status quo agree with you, isn't it. Don't need to prove anything in that case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @08:59AM
This is not a first analysis that will be followed up, it is a politically motivated piece that states raw numbers with no context or analysis, asserts bias and then wanders off hoping to have left a given impression on its audience.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday August 14 2016, @12:13AM
Extreme claims require extreme evidence. 76 zeros to the immediate right of a decimal point is almost certainly utter bullshit.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:50PM
Exactly what I was going to post. How many black SF writers are there? I'm guessing very few. Plus, how can I tell what race any given author is? Charles Finlay doesn't know I'm white.
Magazines like his (F&SF) get a thousand submissions per month, and publish only half a dozen every two months.
I'd like to know why the hell this got posted in the first place? Submitter is a black SF author who can't get published? I smell sour grapes.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday August 24 2016, @09:55PM
TFA has been getting press all over the place. I'd guess it's not only virtue signalling, but mostly meant to draw attention to a micropress that no one knew existed before they got attention for running this piece.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @05:57AM
> Throwing the term SJW around at every opportunity is no better than the people who will find racism, sexism or other form of discrimination in anything and everything.
Funny how accusations of being an SJW are soooo much more common than cases of the later.
Why is that?
Oh yeah, because "SJW" is a term invented to shut down criticism rather than address it. Just like feminazi, race traitor, self-hating jew, cuck, rino, tree-hugger and virtue signaling.
The entire reason lgw even posted was to tell people to shut up, that he does not want to even see anyone talk about this issue. And his post was the first damn post on the story. Its funny how the people most likely to complain about political correctness being some sort of force for censorship are also the very first to deploy their caricatured version of political correctness for exactly that purpose. I guess funny isn't the right word. Utterly predictable is more like it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @09:12AM
I've never once actually seen an example of the latter. Every time I've been presented with "evidence" that such people exist all I get pointed to is an example of somebody disagreeing with a person who just so happens to be calling them an SJW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:53PM
Oh yeah, because "SJW" is a term invented to shut down criticism rather than address it. Just like feminazi, race traitor, self-hating jew, cuck, rino, tree-hugger and virtue signaling.
Misuses of the terms "racist", "sexist", "misogynist", etc. are much the same. The stupidity is coming from both camps.