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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, 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.