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Lessons from an SJW Mob (or, Horror in Romancelandia)
Isolate the target. That’s the first rule of mobbing. But who knew it would result in so many targets?
My sister and I are writers. She’s romance, I’m mystery. We’re both members of Romance Writers of America (RWA). So, when a fairly big-name romance writer, Courtney Milan, was censured by RWA for cyberbullying, we got curious about what was going on. We got even more curious when Milan’s gang turned on the RWA board and got most to resign, ruined the reputation of the gay man who became president, and seems on the verge of taking down the 9,000+ member organization.
Curiosity killed the cat, they say.
(And you can skip down to the learnings at the bottom, if you want to bypass the whole, sordid story.)
Our tale beings with an editor named Sue Grimshaw, who once worked as a romance buyer for Borders Books. During the time she worked there, Borders had the awful policy of segregating black romance writers into the African American section of books, which severely limited their market reach. Because of this segregation, a separate buyer bought romances from African American authors (i.e., Grimshaw never had a chance to discriminate against African American authors, even if she’d wanted to). There’s no public evidence I could find that Sue Grimshaw had any influence over the policy. But it was there and she was there, so clearly, she’s a racist (says the mob).
Borders is gone, and Sue went on with her life. Recently, she got a job with a small press, Marie Force Publishing, and the mob descended, baying for her firing. Marie Force complied.
Sue also was working with another small press owned by Suzan Tisdale. The mob, led by Courtney Milan, descended on Tisdale via Twitter, demanding Grimshaw’s firing. They pointed to tweets Grimshaw had liked “proving” her racism. These were tweets by people like Charlie Kirk, and of a picture of Trump posing with ICE border guards, and (the horror), she actually liked some Bible passages. Courtney assured Tisdale there were hundreds more just like them, but Grimshaw had deleted them. Tisdale looked at the “evidence,” and said they were just political tweets, proving nothing more than that Grimshaw was a conservative. She refused to fire Grimshaw.
Big mistake. Tisdale was declared racist. After all, her new company hadn’t published any authors of color. Nevermind it was a start-up and hadn’t published any authors at all. Those are facts and the mob relies on emotion. So, the mob turned to look at who else was working for or associating with Tisdale. (Tisdale claims several authors she’d lined up for her new company have since fled.)
Enter Kathryn Lynn Davis, one of Tisdale’s other editors and a romance writer herself. One of Courtney’s acolytes dug up a paragraph from a historical romance by Davis set in the 19th century, where the half-Chinese heroine was portrayed as “submissive” and Chinese culture as “patriarchal.” Worse – she was blue-eyed.
Racist!!!
Davis claimed the paragraph was taken out of context, and over the course of the novel, the heroine becomes more independent, but no matter. She’s a racist. Deplatformed. Davis claims she lost a three-book deal due to the online smears.
Davis and Tisdale filed ethics complaints with RWA, where they were also members, along with Milan. Since the ethics board was run by Courtney Milan, she was asked to step down and a new board that wasn’t filled with her friends appointed. She was censured.
Here things get tricky because it isn’t clear proper procedure was followed. Milan may well be innocent per RWA’s policies, rules, and regs. But Romancelandia went nuts. Milan successfully spun the affair as Asian-American author criticizes racist book and is then censured by racist RWA. Most of the board resigned, claiming they’d been unaware of anything. If true, that definitely means something was wrong with procedures, though the remaining board members claimed they’d all voted not just on accepting the ethics committee report, but also on the censure.
Anyway.
Per the by-laws, Damon Suede suddenly became the president. And here’s where we see an example of why intersectionality fails. He went from being a gay ally to just another white male oppressor in the blink of an eye. The mob descended. He was called a liar. A fraud. Possibly criminal. Definitely racist (duh).
The RWA private message boards fired up, the SJW squad bringing out all sorts of examples of RWA’s racism. And … I have to say they had some good points. There is real evidence that some racist stuff’s gone down there, which I won’t bore you with. Just look up #RitasSoWhite if you want more.
Another author, Cherry Adair, stuck her head out and said these women weren’t racist. She’s now been declared a “known racist” on blogs and social media and has had to take down all her social media sites. I think she’s big enough to weather the storm, but … it’s horrible.
The RWA board backed down and un-censured Milan, pending legal review. But that wasn’t enough. It’s never enough.
My sister reviewed the evidence, pondered, and in a late-night fit of insanity, asked on the message board if there was any other evidence of Target Zero, Sue Grimshaw’s, racism.
So my sister’s a racist now. You don’t ask the mob questions (and there was nothing more). The SJWs referred her to writings on “white fragility” because, clearly, my sister needed to correct her thinking.
Digging the hole deeper, my sister replied that she was familiar with Critical Race Theory and thought White Fragility was the Kobayashi Maru of theories – there’s no way to win and no way out. If you don’t agree with white fragility, it’s proof of your fragility and racism, but if you agree with white fragility, you’re a racist, because under CRT, all white people are racist and will forever be racist – their only hope is to become slightly less racist if they have the emotional stamina to undertake the work.
The effect was akin to telling a bunch of jihadis that she didn’t believe in Allah. Now she’s not just racist, she’s racist “trash.”
Although this was a private board, it’s already gone out on Twitter that her books are not to be purchased, because … racist. So far, it’s only been a couple of posts, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed it stays that way. We’ve developed a game plan if it gets bigger, but hope we don’t have to use it, because you just can’t win. But it’s astonishing how quickly this has spiraled outward.
In the end, my sister was really writing her posts for the people in RWA who still believe facts have value but were too scared to speak out. And a few have started. But things aren’t looking good.
Learnings:
- There are two types of SJW mobsters. The first is easily identifiable, behaving like mindless cult members. They can only insult you and parrot the catchphrases, “gaslighting, white privilege, white fragility,” etc., etc., ad nauseam. The second type appears reasonable. They’re “genuinely curious” about your point of view. Don’t be fooled. They only want you to talk more so they can leap on your dog whistles – or get the cultist-types to do it for them.
- Facts and logic makes no impression on SJW mobsters (monsters?). They only respond with rhetoric, insults, and pre-set talking points, and those points all basically boil down to you being a racist.
- If you do insist on arguing, keep your arguments short and to one point. SJW mobsters will ignore any facts you may have gathered and target what they imagine is happening in your racist little head based on a close reading of your text. You can’t convince them, but you may be able to convince some silent onlookers. It’s the rare bird who will publicly help you out, but it may do some good down the road.
Who woulda thought that the romance novel world was such a cesspit of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc, etc… Oh, and BTW, Welcome Aboard KWeiss!
If your sister’s racist, I think that makes you racist, too. No point in trying to deny it.
In fact, doesn’t denying you’re a racist just proof that you are one?
I wonder why we have not reached a collective understanding that Twitter mobs are rarely if ever the customers of the enterprises that they attack nor representative of any large segment of America. If you were not on Twitter would you know that a hate fest was underway in the losersphere?
Our customers are a diverse, discerning group of Americans. In contrast, the great majority of Twitter comments brought to our attention were produced by emotionally disturbed individuals who are ignorant of our company, our history and our people. We nevertheless wish them well but we see no point in accepting guidance from such persons as to our policies and practices.
Just say No.
Oh dear. And I thought the knitters had written the book on this sort of thing. An excellent run-down of the insanity that hit the knitting group Ravelry and the knitting “community” at large over the last year can be found in these Quillette articles. Some very similar dynamics in play:
https://quillette.com/2019/02/17/a-witch-hunt-on-instagram/
https://quillette.com/2019/06/07/instagrams-diversity-wars-revisited/
https://quillette.com/2019/07/28/knittings-infinity-war-part-iii-showdown-at-yarningham/
Most troubling of all is your paragraph:
The same thing happened with Nathan Taylor, a gay man who’d been a beloved part of the knitting scene for years, but who, because he made a plea for tolerance and respect of all points of view, was suddenly savaged with almost tragic consequences. Other small business owners (spinners, knitters, yarn shop owners) have been bullied into taking the “I support Ravelry” pledge, those who haven’t have been the victim of vicious boycott campaigns, businesses have been bullied into disowning customers who support Trump (the whole thing started when Ravelry banned any and all discussion supporting Trump or the Trump administration on its website). It’s a hugely influential website in the knitting world, so this quickly became a very divisive flashpoint. It still is.
It’s still an incredibly ugly situation which has rent the knitting world, which I (who have been part of it for decades) have always known has hewed distinctly Left. But we used to be able to share our love of knitting without bowing to the forces of intersectionality and political correctness. And now we can’t.
I’m really sorry to hear about this sad situation as well. I suggest, if you haven’t already, that you take up knitting. We’re always armed with between two and six very sharp wooden or metal sticks, or in the case of a circular needle, something very like a garrotte, so at least we have a means to defend ourselves, if the need arises. En garde!
Honestly, I think the world has gone mad.
Life in the fully politicized society
(I wrote the linked post in 2014. The politicization has gotten much worse in the intervening years)
Incredible.
Just because I happen to have it handy, a quote from, sadly, the late Gertrude Himmelfarb:
Yeah. I think that follows.
Good article. When I went to the link turned out I’d bookmarked it back in 2014!
And if you don’t deny it, you’re a racist but on the first step of redemption as long as you shut up during the “national conversation” about to be inflicted upon you.
I agree, but sadly, there are a lot of publishers, editors, and agents who are running scared. Fortunately, there’s always indie publishing (my sister and I are both “hybrid” authors who are published both traditionally and indie). But this stuff has an impact on careers.
LOL! I took up knitting, dropped it, tried taking it up again this winter, and got stuck on a confusing knitting pattern. But I’ll try, try, again!
Indeed – there’s no winning. All I can hope for is to be a “good” racist.
JK Rowlings has stood her ground, at least so far. The problem is how easily the woke crowd seems to induce panic in most of its targets which just encourages more Twitter mobs.
The new inquisition will eventually touch all of us, if we don’t stand up to it soon.
Push back, politely but firmly.
Tell ’em all, “Get woke, go broke.”
Then go full on conservative warrior. You’ll get more sales than ever before.
“The new inquisition will eventually touch all of us”
People who blithely justify these attacks don’t realize how harmful they can be to people’s lives and what they are doing to society.
These attacks are an attack on us all to scare the bejesus of us all into submitting to the most absurd of politically correct thought. Free Speech and free thought is the target. Total submission is the goal. Only those who fall in line are safe- for now – for sooner or later all will of us come under the gaze of this new version of the French Revolution and be ground to dust unless “we don’t stand up to it” as Henry says.
I fear that short of armed civil warfare or a rigorous defense of our Free Speech Rights by our Justice System that is to date terribly lacking, little will turn this situation around. It is very difficult and at time dangerous in these troubled times for most individuals to stand up alone to the new Inquisition by Leftist Mob.
That is in the seventh paragraph.
She’s being hounded not for something she said but for nodding her head at the wrong moment.
No one is safe from these frightening mobs.
Even scarier is how easy it is for people to jump to accusation = evidence. Someone writes on a blog that a writer’s racist, without providing any evidence. That’s then produced as evidence of racism. There’s no critical thinking, just blind parroting by the mob: racist, racist, racist.
We’re all racists now.
Even the racists are racist now. Well, they might be. Soon.
I too marvel at the power we’ve given to a few people with keyboards who snark in 240 characters or less. We can just turn off our devices and voila!
I’ve decided to cancel them by not reading any news articles that are based on tweets.
I forgot about that. I left Ravelry after your posts and have been happily knitting in complete ignorance of the culture wars. Don’t need them; don’t want them.
I wrote about my own family’s recent experience here.
Crib note: My winning soccer coach of a brother was accused of racism (actually Islamaphobia). Investigation ensued. His direct boss, the Assistant Athletic Director (Black female, FWIW) noted when interviewed that she was “shocked by the lack of people of color” at my 87-year old, Scottish mother’s funeral.
And while @henryracette‘s advice is probably better, when accused of racism (or homophobia, or Islamaphobia; had experiences with all), I politely but firmly tell the person to “go (redacted) yourself”. And don’t I wish I had the opportunity to say that to my brother’s then Assistant Athletic Director.
I don’t defend myself with friends or experiences, past roommates or weddings or funerals attended. That said, there’s no one depending on my income (mainly as it’s so miniscule …).
But I’ll repeat what happened when one of my husband’s employees was accused of racism for firing a guy. He showed up at the hearing and said, “Dude. You were Black when I hired you.”
Okay, could I get a list of your books?
I’ve never bought romance novels but I will make an exception in your case because SJWs need to die in atomic fire. I’m a sci-fi fan and a gamer, I’ve seen these damned mosquitoes before.
I’ll also mention them in the Buycott for Freedom group to publicize this. The woke mob is small but noisy, like a toddler with with a well-soiled diaper. The rest of us actually have money and have numbers on our side.
Excellent analogy. When their world is wet, the whole world is wet.
Rush Limbaugh is largely right when he says that we have moved beyond a world in which evidence is required, and to one in which the only thing that matters is “the seriousness of the charge.” Thus, the Kavanaugh debacle, in which, as far as I’m aware, there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that BK was anything other than a sometimes immature college boy, and that his post-graduate life has been unexceptional and morally upstanding. But, “the seriousness of the charge.”
I wrote a post on this theme a little over a year ago, based on a quote which got some (laudatory) press coverage, which was taken as a guidepost by a lot of people, and which was made by a woman called Ana Marie Cox. It went like this (emphasis added):
What claptrap.
I didn’t know there was a genre called “Racist Romance” . . .
Occurs on Southern plantations between the white owners and the slaves.
Of course, when you mention that the most famous knitter/needlepointer of the last half-century was a very large black man, they have no idea who you’re talking about…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosey_Grier