http://ashokbanker.com/2008/08/01/is-american-science-fiction-fantasy-racist-and-sexist-bigotted-and-culturally-insensitive-too/

Christian. Part Cherokee.

> And I also Assume that a few of his years in the middle east were in Israel?

I’ve seen him mention Turkey, possibly some other countries. Didn’t happen upon any mention of Israel.

> I Am also going to assume that he Supports the Neo-Conservative Policy?

He reportedly actively campaigned for Kerry in the last presidential election.

> No I?m not saying all Jews are like that BUT there is that faction the neocon(zionist) who?s
> mentallity is very distinct and Sanders Reeks of it.
>
> Anyone here Care to disagree????!

See above.

“Meaning absolutely no irreverence, but quite the contrary. As a Christian
I deeply resent the way these people invoke the name of Jesus Christ to justify
their bullying and power-seeking, let alone their avarice. In place of the
real Jesus they have created this fantastic character, a kind of combination
of real-estate salesman, chief of police, and high-school football coach; and
so I call him “Jeebus” rather than soil the name of Jesus by going along with
their misappropriation of His name. (To harken back to a certain vice-presidential debate: I know Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is a friend of mine. And this figure they worship is no Jesus
Christ.)”

http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=read&group=sff.people.sanders&artnum=84925

Sanders is a JEW I assume?And I also Assume that a few of his years in the middle east were in Israel?

I Am also going to assume that he Supports the Neo-Conservative Policy?

No I’m not saying all Jews are like that BUT there is that faction the neocon(zionist) who’s mentallity is very distinct and Sanders Reeks of it.

Anyone here Care to disagree????!

“But still, the fact remains that this whole thing would never have taken place
if people had simply observed the accepted usages of communications ethics,
not to mention common human decency.”

After writing that letter along with bashing a writer who politely asked to have her story removed from Helix, I find this hypocritical and ironic as hell.
“Communications ethics and human decency”?
How about walking the talk?
(there’s many posts on the link, just hit next to read the entire thing.)

http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=read&group=sff.people.sanders&artnum=84868

No, but saying that middle eastern people shouldn’t be portrayed as having human qualities is racist. And yes, “sheet head” is a racial, not religious, slur aimed generally at middle eastern people. Sanders now claims he wasn’t even talking about all Muslim people (much less all middle eastern people), but with only the extracts I’ve seen to go on it’s hard to conclude anything but the worst. If the actual letter provides more “context” perhaps he should be letting people read it. And perhaps Sanders, despite spending a couple years in the middle east, didn’t realize that his comments would be interpreted as an ethnic slur rather than an insult to a particular religion.

From the details at least one of these 3 things is true: a) Sanders is racist b) Sanders is ignorant (didn’t realize his words would be interpreted as racist) or c) Sanders is stupid (the full body of the rejection letter exonerates him, but he doesn’t want people reading it).

Anyway, rudeness is reason enough to decide not to do business with someone (which is what the SF writers in question are deciding). I didn’t notice the part where Sanders is being tried for hate crimes or anything. Much like Sanders is just saying words, so are his critics.

“I encourage rasing the bar on racism.”

I encourage you to raise the bar on what constitutes pointless PC bickering and find some better shit to criticize (like those Catholics claiming that not swallowing a cracker is a hate crime, or people upset about that New Yorker cover with the Obamas on it).

I generally agree that individual racism is not as big a threat as institutional racism. But it’s important not to forget that institutions are made of people, and have only as much power as people allow them to have. The attitudes of individuals have wide ranging effects. To be horribly cliche, had there not been widespread antisemitism in the Weimar Republic, it’s doubtful the Nazis could have pushed through racist policy. Had racism not be rampant in the American south, the Ku Klux Klan would never have been tolerated.

And seriously. Do words have “magical power”? No. Do words have power? Fuck yes. How do racist attitudes spread? At least partially through words.

And remember, this isn’t just about the uttering of a particular word, it’s about an editor expressing the belief that a particular group of humans be portrayed as subhuman. Even if he only means terrorists and radical jihadists or whatever, I still find that comment troubling. We live in a time when there’s serious public debate over our policies of torturing people accused of being radical Muslim terrorists. Suggesting that media should portray “the enemy” as less than human is not only flimsy literature (I like my villains to be somewhat sympathetic), but worthy of social criticism.

I think what Sanders was referring to here were the “sheet heads”, as he put it. Which is a derogatory term for those of Arabic or Middle Eastern descent.
Are the Arabs a race? What about a culture? Can someone be bigoted against someone’s culture? Sure. And yeah, I’m sure we’ve all met people who have strong feelings about certain groups, racial and cultural. But some of us realize that there are “rude, blunt” (as you put it) people everywhere, and these individuals don’t define the entire race or culture that they come from either.
Once you group together a people with the word “all” (as Sanders did with “like all his kind, he?s incapable of honesty”), I think it’s a safe bet that someone is prejudiced and is discriminating against the entire group of individuals they lump together with the word “all”.

Race is mentioned in a follow-up message from Sanders. He writes he “was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers.” I cannot where Sanders self-identifies in this regard, so I cannot say what that self-identification might be. Online pictures of Sanders (of which I found several) may be helpful in this regard, but I will not say that Sanders is ‘Caucasian’ or ‘non-Caucasian.’

But if it is the follow-up message that is racist, then any similar effort to get ‘non-Caucasians’ in print is also racist. It would mean ‘diversity’ is racism. And if his statement is racist, and if Saunders is ‘Caucasian,’ then one can be racist against one’s own race. Is that possible? What might that mean?

Just because someone is blunt or rude or wrong doesn’t mean they are racist (or sexist, etc.). In the same way that my comment here, just because it questions claims of racism, is not automatically racist. (Still, I’m pretending to be anonymous to shield myself from people who live in a black and white world. Whoops, was that racist too?)

I encourage rasing the bar on racism. People saying words? That’s just what it is. If words had that kind of magic power then every time I’d say “one million dollars!” it would appear. Racism is when law or force is involved, not just being a jerk or politically incorrect or mistaken. The Hutu and Tutsi conflict, Jim Crow laws, now there’s some racism for ya.