(no subject)

[seekingferret]

An NYC community venue I've gone to a number of times for the New York Review of Science Fiction book reading series, the Brooklyn Commons, hosted a 9/11 Truther for a lecture last night. That's bad enough- Trutherism is completely untethered from truth and spreading lies about an event as personally painful as 9/11 is pretty morally awful in my book. But the particular Truther they hosted is of the sort who blames a Zionist Jewish conspiracy for causing 9/11. And who may also dabble in a little Holocaust denial on the side. When confronted about this, the Commons doubled down, issuing a letter defending their decision on the grounds that they don't vet speakers, and arguing that giving a space to racists is important because it teaches people the valuable lesson that racists exist- all the while continuing to claim the Commons was a 'progressive' space.

I was planning to go to a NYRSF event there tonight, with an awesome guest list including Keith DeCandido, Steven Barnes, and Emily Perrin-Asher to talk about Star Trek on the 50th anniversary of the first episode airing. I'm torn, but I've decided not to go. On the one hand, the organization that runs the NYRSF readings is not anti-semitic, not at all affiliated with the Truthers, and has condemned Brooklyn Commons for hosting this speaker. And I've been going to NYRSF events for more than a decade, they were one of my first entrypoints into organized SF fandom and I don't want that to be ruined because of decisions made by people they don't have direct control of. On the other hand, they rent the space from the Brooklyn Commons and so my money if I attended would be going ultimately to the group that has condoned and welcomed this vile anti-semite, given him this platform within my own community.

A friend of mine organized a protest at the venue last night. I wish I could have joined, but I already had plans- the whole situation came up suddenly. And the whole situation makes me sick. It's bad enough to combat anti-semitism in the general world, but when it creeps into your own communities, that's a whole additional level of difficult.

Tonight, freeradical42 and I are just going to watch Star Trek TOS episodes on our own instead.

Comments

[grrlpup]

Beyond disappointing. :(

Glad you get some TOS viewing tonight.

[seekingferret]

We watched The Man Trap and Balance of Terror. The Man Trap because it was the first episode aired, and Balance of Terror because it's actually enjoyable to watch.

An article about the protest my friend organized: http://jezebel.com/an-antisemitic-9-11-truther-grows-in-brooklyn-1786392217

[grrlpup]

Even the Wikipedia synopsis of Balance of Terror was pretty good!

And wow, Brooklyn Commons does not come off well in that article.

[brainwane]

My condolences.

[lokifan]

Such a shame. I'm really sorry. The article you linked to is pretty scary, not least because the venue's website put up that horrifying description of the lecture and apparently no one questioned it!

[seekingferret]

Yeah, so the Brooklyn Commons is more an ecosystem of communities than one single community. I never saw the lecture announcement because I always go to NYRSF's website to get event announcements, not to Brooklyn Commons's website- NYRSF is something I've followed to about five or six venues over the past twelve or so years, I'm attached to it, not to the venue. And I'll admit that even when I found out about it, at first my feeling was to treat it as something going on in another adjacent community, not in my own- my first response was to tell the friend who told me "Don't give that asshole any attention, let's just go to NYRSF the next night and spend time with people who don't hate us." It wasn't until the horrible letter from the Commons's owner that it became for me an issue affecting all communities within the Brooklyn Commons ecosystem, and I started to engage with the NYRSF organizers to try to get them to take a stand against staying involved with BC.

And look, they could have written a letter that made me still okay with them despite hosting this guy. They could have written a letter saying "To those in our community who are upset that there is an anti-semite speaking here, we're sorry. The pitch when they booked the room was not very specific, we failed to dig deeper, and now we feel obligated to let him speak because we've signed a contract and taken his money, but we want to be clear that we condemn his anti-semitism and wouldn't have booked him had we realized how it would hurt our community. We understand those who think we should still cancel the event, and we are sorry, but this is how we have chosen to deal with this challenging situation." I would have been okay if they had done that, it's not that hard to not support anti-semites.

But the problem is that the anti-authoritarian left has an awful lot of entanglement with anti-semitism that they're unwilling to let go of.

[lokifan]

Yeah, agreed. I can imagine getting into this situation (well, sort of. I wouldn't want to host a conspiracy theory thing personally but it wouldn't necessarily seem super-harmful) and not wanting to cancel or whatever but ARGH. The doubling-down sucks, as does the idea that not giving a rabid anti-Semite your platform is the same thing as censoring them.

[seekingferret]

Yeah. Well, I'm growing more opposed over time to 'no-platforming' when it's done by people who are white-knighting. I think it's a worrying trend that more and more we're seeing people with no connection to an institution protesting when that institution gives a venue to a controversial speaker. That's a censorious trend that I think bears monitoring, especially as it seems to be more and more used by leftists against conservative speakers whose messages I don't really think should be beyond the pale. But when people in a community, people who are regular participants at the venue, speak up and say "This is not a voice we want in our community," then I think that framing it as a free speech/censorship issue is completely wrongheaded, and it's a sleight of hand designed to deny safety and freedom of expression to parts of the community who want to self-regulate.