Controversy in the jury for the HWA's Bram Stoker Awards.

ShaunHorton said:

So, it seems to have come out that one of the people on the jury for the HWA's Bram Stoker Awards is a proud white supremacist, David A. Riley. This has caused a lot of discussion among members, many of whom are calling for him to be removed from the jury. So far, the HWA board has refuted that idea.

Today, they posted this to explain their reasoning.



Personally, I don't think a position of white supremacy is a political view, but meh. Still, to believe that someone who holds the view that a specific race is superior to all others, will not vote for works in line with that view is just not realistic in my opinion.

There's a pretty heavy conversation going on, on HWA's Facebook page, with the majority calling for him to be removed. Supposedly, the board is keeping track of the comments, but we'll see.

Also, Brian Keene had a few things to say about the issue.

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We are all biased, and to some degree, our biases always comes through in whatever we do. But I see no reason to think Riley can't control his bias to the same extent we all do. You don't like his views. He almost certainly does not like your. So why should his voting be censored, but not yours. BOTH of you should put aside as much bias as possible when voting on such things as awards, and to say you can do this, but he can't, is simply wrong.

Where do you draw the lone. When you start censoring people because they believe something you do not, something you call evil, but they believe is not evil, where do you stop? What happens when the numbers get reversed, and your view fall into the minority?

Those who try to censor other because of their beliefs scare me a thousand time more than the beliefs of the person they want to censor.

You don't have to agree with Riley, or talk to him, or associate with him in any way. You can think he's a lowlife scum, you can fight against his views, and, if you wish, you can call him bad names. Bit in my opinion, what you cannot do is censor him for his beliefs. If you do, you are something every bit as dangerous as he will ever be.

How is not having him on a judging panel actually censoring him?

Removing someone from a panel of a private writer's club for poor standards isn't censorship in the slightest.

But if Shaun's link is accurate, the HWA seems rather short on standards, so Riley probably doesn't have much to worry about.

Defending having a documented white supremacist active within the leadership of an organized hate group as a judge a multi-racial pool of candidates, to avoid "discrimination" of all frocking things, is a huge steaming pile of twaddle.

HWA have jumped the white shark and I doubt they will come back from it unless they recant.

Yes, have to agree with veinglory here. Removing someone from a panel of judges is far from censorship. That term, censorship, gets tossed around pretty lightly, seems to me. It has a specific denotation.

ETA: Just read the statement from Brian Keene. I recommend that read along with the OP for a full background on this one.

The reasoning of the HWA strikes me as pretty cheesy as in full of holes. Let's wait until a "provable effect" has been noted? And then we will take stern measures, darn tootin'? Meanwhile the entire course of the judging has been skewed because a judge is allowed to participate who does not believe that all contestants are starting from an equal footing.

I have to say too I find the efforts to defend fascism and racism to be pretty absurd. Only a strong emotional prejudice controlling one's thinking could allow something like this to go unquestioned. So this is just one more piece of evidence of what we are dealing with in any attempt to create public platforms that are truly level playing grounds, fair for all.

Jamesaritchie said:

what you cannot do is censor him for his beliefs. If you do, you are something every bit as dangerous as he will ever be.

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He's not been "censored" in any rational definition of that term. He's been "censured", in terms of his continued participation being terminated. But HWA is a private group, and this is no different from a business firing an employee for making a racist comment or holding well-publicized views that damage the reputation of the firm. It's called "free enterprise".

caw

Kylabelle said:

...the entire course of the judging has been skewed because a judge is allowed to participate who does not believe that all contestants are starting from an equal footing.

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This is it in a nutshell.

Perhaps he CAN keep his biases in check without difficulty. Perhaps it's unfair to him to remove him from the panel. Ultimately, though, they only have two options. They can remove him and risk being called"unfair" to one judge, or they can keep him and risk unfairness to all the non-white contenders for the award.

blacbird said:

He's not been "censored" in any rational definition of that term. He's been "censured", in terms of his continued participation being terminated. But HWA is a private group, and this is no different from a business firing an employee for making a racist comment or holding well-publicized views that damage the reputation of the firm. It's called "free enterprise".

caw

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Well, that would be the terminology had HWA taken that action but according to the OP, they have said they will not do so. Which is the problem.

Thanks for the update - is that on their website?

And good for them for seeing the light. If they saw it.

Is it just me or are all other older, established WAs out there starting to crumble and collapse in on themselves?

Holy crap on a cracker, what a comments list. I knew where we were heading as soon as the Puppies made an appearance. I love horror and dark fantasy, and had ideas of joining HWA at one point. Think I'll sit this one out. Too much heat and not enough light.

Gilroy, I'm getting the same impression.

I agree that removing him from the jury isn't censorship. And it seems like the HWA has a lot of problems beyond this one.

That said, I have a problem with the idea that anyone who has misgivings about removing people from a jury (or an organization) for their outside opinions constitutes supporting their views.

It's easy to pick out someone who's apparently a glaring offender (if Nick Mamatas is to be believed, not only is David Riley an unrepentant white supremacist, but he actually tried to convince the HWA that the white supremacist was some other David Riley - wtf?). But I can see (and have seen) this same reasoning applied to less egregious cases. Suppose a jury member is an evangelical Christian or a Roman Catholic or a Mormon, and has admitted in public to believing that homosexuality is a sin. Wouldn't gay writers then be able to claim that such a person is prejudiced against them and can't judge them fairly? Suppose someone has expressed strongly pro-Israel views - is that grounds for a Palestinian writer to ask for their removal from the jury? Would ranting on Facebook about how Donald Trump is Da Man be a disqualifier?

It seems like this would result in an inevitable convergence towards a particular ideological perspective. Which I do not think is good for any writing body.

I'm old enough to remember when people suspected of Communism were ousted from groups. It's come full-circle and now the other side is the enemy. Of course, back then, it was John Birch Society people.

This entire conversation about if he should have been removed or not will be around for a long time. But the damage done to the HWA is sad because of all the good people who put a lot of work into building it and growing it.

Amadan said:

Suppose a jury member is an evangelical Christian or a Roman Catholic or a Mormon, and has admitted in public to believing that homosexuality is a sin. Wouldn't gay writers then be able to claim that such a person is prejudiced against them and can't judge them fairly? Suppose someone has expressed strongly pro-Israel views - is that grounds for a Palestinian writer to ask for their removal from the jury? Would ranting on Facebook about how Donald Trump is Da Man be a disqualifier?

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Having gone through numerous jury selection processes, and serving on a couple of them, I can assure you that any competent defense attorney would excuse potential jurors expressing any such prejudicial views immediately. In fact, in the last trial I served as a juror on, one person during jury selection expressed just such a prejudicial view (against taxi drivers, of all things), and was immediately dismissed.

caw

I don't think juries for criminal trials and juries for literary awards are even comparable.

ShaunHorton said:

Certainly not in any kind of literal sense.

But they should be pretty much the same when you have people sitting on them with very specific and strongly-held biases.

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I don't agree. I think their purpose is entirely different.

If you're sitting in a jury for a criminal trial, you're judging the person, and it's reasonable for an attorney to try to exclude anyone who might theoretically have any bias whatsoever against his client. A defense attorney probably would try to exclude anyone with strong religious beliefs if his client was homosexual. And he'd probably try to exclude atheists if his client was strongly religious and that was a factor in the case. And he'd almost certainly try to exclude a Zionist Jew if his client was Palestinian, or vice versa.

I don't think any of those situations would be good reasons to exclude someone from an awards jury.

ShaunHorton said:

You don't think an organization which claims to be about inclusion, anti-discrimination, and the advancement of their genre shouldn't exclude an individual with strongly biased views about a specific race or races of people from an awards jury which is very likely to be picking from entries written by people of those races?

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I think it should be considered case by case. What about all the other examples I mentioned?

I was really not impressed by the rather elliptical argument presented by Nick Mamatas, whom normally I like despite his politics, for why excluding/no-platforming fascists is necessary, but excluding/no-platforming Marxists would be wrong.