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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: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @11:34PM
> that the NBA is plagued by "structural, institutional, personal, universal" racism. Against white people.
Here's the thing about being middle-class in America: you have practically all career options open to you. But when you are a member of the underclass your choices are limited. If you aren't one of the few with the right combination of circumstances and talent you are lucky to get a minimum wage job. Having a good career is basically a lottery. So you end up with a lot of people from the underclass competing for the few high paying careers available to them. And they compete like all out fuck because they don't have anywhere else to go. The middle-class people do have other places to go where the competition is not so fierce so they do what any rational person would — they go where life is easier for them.
The reason you see a lot of minorities dominating pro sports (and music) is not because those fields are biased against white people, its because everything else is biased against minorities. Its the same reason nursing and teaching are dominated by women while doctors and school principals are chiefly men - those fields aren't biased against men, they just aren't biased against women so women end up crowded into the fields where they have a decent chance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @11:48PM
Same thing with jews in hollywood. The reason jews are over represented in hollywood is not a jewish conspiracy - its the result of anti-semitism that kept them out of practically all other industries. Same thing with jewish lawyers - for centuries most lawyers represented landed gentry and jews were excluded from that WASP dominated work. But corporate law was a fresh new field that really took off in the early to mid 1900s and without an established culture to keep them out jews were able to find plenty of work in the field. The average WASP lawyers could stick with the old firms where they had less competition.
FYI I am jewish and I have family that are hollywood lawyers so double whammy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @11:51PM
So the professions you say are not biased against men but have lot more women in them, do I understand right when you say it's because women are better in those fields than men ? One gender better than the other ? No favoritism? And all white men are rich and they would not dream to became a basketball player, because making millions from "panem et circenses" is too humiliating ? Speaking about music, today media is pandering to lower denominator and race has nothing to do with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @12:06AM
> do I understand right when you say it's because women are better in those fields than men ?
You do not.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:07AM
Bullshit. Learn one in-demand skill and you will rarely be out of work that pays well above minimum wage. Learn two and you never will. Or spend three years serving your country and your college is largely paid for. I know, you might also have to *gasp* work to pick up anything the GI Bill doesn't. I despair at the unfairness of it all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:23AM
Ahhh, the warming self-comfort of strident ignorance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:40AM
You know what hurts black people more than anything? You. You told them they could never get ahead in life. And for every single person who believes you, it is absolutely true. And it is absolutely your fault.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @03:35AM
Nah, I'm pretty sure what hurts black people more than anything is the massive overwhelming poverty.
Stuff like red lining and Jim Crow, you know the stuff you would have learned about in history class if you had paid attention.
When the median black household wealth is less than 8% of the median white household [pewresearch.org] and all of that is tied up in a depreciating asset (family car) that's a barrier that takes herculean strength to lift your own bootstraps over.
But you keep right on telling yourself that the real problem isn't racism, its the people who talk about racism. After all, he who smelt it dealt it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @08:58AM
I just hate it that the Mighty Buzz is a racist and will never amount to anything. I mean, it is such a waste! The boy can code, they say, but such issues with people talking him down. He might as well just join the military and suck off the Federal government teat for the rest of his natural days. Not his fault. It is all those anti-racists that have put him in this situation. If only the South had won the Civil War, and liberated Oklahoma from the Five Nations!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 13 2016, @10:28AM
Oh, you mean things that don't exist any more? Yeah, those totally have an effect on everyday life.
No, it does not. It takes a lot of missed sleep, a lot of ramen noodles, and a moderate amount of learning. That's tedious but not herculean. Absolutely anyone with a fully functional body and an IQ over 80 can do it.
I'll grant you it does help if you have at least a tiny bit of wisdom though. Like for example how every last car in front of the local low income housing is much nicer than mine and over half have huge ass aftermarket rims with ultra low profile tires. That's not hyperbole or even slight exaggeration. That, my cowardly friend, is what a toxic culture will do for you, teach you to put what should be savings into trivial bullshit because image maters more than getting to eat this month.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Saturday August 13 2016, @09:59AM
Or they are just better at sports..