This Week's Topic Made Me Laugh

That's a sucky title, but it's all that I've got in me today. I say that with a smile, though. I've been working really hard on copy edits while living in a house that's mid-remodel, so I'm just glad that I'm still holding it all together. 

But, yes. When I saw this week's topic, I literally laughed out loud. Should you speak your mind on social media regarding politics or keep your tongue? 

First--I have never kept my tongue when it comes to political injustices, and I never will.

That's what made me laugh.

Second--Silence is often a privilege. Being able to live in a mental and physical state where you don't have to speak out about politics or injustices is something that's not afforded to many. A little backlash about our political and social views is nothing compared to what marginalized people face daily. If we--the privileged--don't speak up, that puts the onus on those who are affected most by certain political agendas.

Do you know how hard that is?

I don't let my friends fight alone, and when old white men try to take away anyone's rights, yes, I'm going to be vocal as hell.

Third--Authors are real people. We have opinions. We hungrily seek out facts. And, we mirror the world around us, creating a reflection called Fiction. Literature is political, y'all. It always has been. And if readers follow me, they're going to know where I stand and therefore won't be surprised when they read my books. 

So that's that. I'm not silent, and I never will be.

We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ~ Elie Wiesel

 

XOXO,

Social Media, Politics, and the New Etiquette

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Social Media and politics: Should you speak your mind or keep your tongue?"

So, once upon a time, friends and neighbors, this used to be a subject for actual debate. Social media was new, the internet itself was new, and we had a lot of conversations that involved determining the etiquette of this new, virtual world. Especially where social media was concerned, there was a lot of advice-giving around establishing a persona/brand. Many of us first adopted social media as a way to gain viewers/readers. I joined Facebook and Twitter originally to funnel people into reading my newly created blog. So we treated social media as a kind of moving billboard for ourselves. 

Accordingly, we focused on creating a non-controversial, attractive persona/brand. We also took the longstanding holiday dinner etiquette of staying away from money, religion, and politics. It was the approach of someone who wanted to maintain family connection enough to hold their tongue for a few hours - and then depart to go live an unedited life after.

Well, a funny thing happened as the internet grew and more people adopted social media: it became a globally connected form of communication. News could be transmitted immediately, from people directly involved. Grassroots efforts became more effective than ever. It became more difficult to hide or suppress injustices. 

In ecology, we talk about the predator-prey cycle. If there are too many coyotes, they eat all the rabbits. Because there are no more rabbits, the coyotes die off and the population diminishes. With fewer coyotes around, the rabbit population bounces back - and so follows the coyote population. 

Well, those interested in perpetuating injustice, feeling thwarted by the power of the internet to drag their nasty business into the scorching light of social disapproval, countered by developing an elaborate misinformation effort. The internet and social media shared damaging information? Well, they would kill it by flooding social media with so much false and misleading information that people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

And so the cycle continues.

I don't know if I'm a rabbit or a coyote - it could depend on the day - but I do know that the way I combat the flood of misinformation is by being authentic. I don't feel we have the luxury of presenting a bland persona to the online world. If we don't speak up, then we create a silence that allows other voices to dominate. We're not talking about a family dinner that lasts a few hours. This IS our lives, day in and day out. If we choose to hold our tongues in the name of seducing readers with a blandly non-offensive position, then we're choosing to live edited lives - and to allow the blowhards to dominate the conversation. We can't afford to hold our tongues, even for a few hours. 

Turns out, family dinners have gotten a lot more contentious, too. Frankly, I think that's a good thing. Harmony that comes from voices being silenced is no harmony at all. 

Terrible Politics

Sit back and let me tell you a terrible story. 

I have a friend who is a military veteran. This isn't hard. I grew up in a military family and on military bases. This friend is terminally ill. Doesn't matter how or with what. Just know they are. They are aware they are. This friend is also very, very poor and because of that is currently homeless and living out of a car. 

When this friend was first diagnosed, they did some mental math and decided that they'd rather die by their own hand than endure disability and increasing doses of pain medications that probably wouldn't actually dull the pain but which WOULD dull my friend. Two weeks ago Sunday, my friend emailed me their suicide note saying goodbye.

You very likely just had a visceral reaction to that. Look at it. Examine it. That reaction is political. Even if you believe it's moral or compassionate, your reaction is political because it's shaped by the culture that shaped you - a culture shaped by and that shapes the politics with which we all live. What was it? Horror over suicide? Horror over someone forced into a position where suicide seems like the best option? Or was it sadness over the recognition that this person is actively dying anyway, and deciding to take that death into their own hands seems like the final piece of control they can wrest from this world? Whatever it your reaction was, with a little thought, you can trace it to either religious conditioning, or to secular conditioning around right and wrong as defined by Western cultural and political thought.

Still, we're fortunate. Most of us can point to other cultures in the world that don't have the same suicide taboo that our Christianized culture does. We're at least aware there are other viewpoints on death in the world. My point in telling this tale is to point out how deeply entwined politics (and religion) is in our lives and our attitudes and in how we see the world. So you bet politics plays into my stories. I submit that it plays into every story and all world-building, whether we want it to or not. If you're writing romance, the notion of one person falling in love with another (and only one other) person is political. Ask anyone who's polyamorous. 

As for the story about my friend - I didn't make it up. The friend was found by the police and taken to the ER. They survived the suicide attempt, only to be denied hospice care by the VA and turned out onto the streets again today. Still terminally ill. Still homeless. Still living out of a car while I scramble for solutions for getting them housed so that Medicare can provide in-home hospice to them for however long remains.

THAT situation is also deeply political. Not to mention deeply damning of our political system.

Politics Optional

When two unrelated factions meet, the thing that keeps everyone alive to go home at the end of the day is politics. Unless you're George R. R. Martin.

Case in point: This photo is politics in action. Two felines, both alike in dignity, on the sunny dock, where we lay our scene. (With apologies to Shakespeare) Max (the boy facing the camera) is a neighbor who desperately wants to be accepted by my cats. He is particularly taken with Hatshepsut (foreground). She, being a decade older and wiser than he, has been known to shove him in the water. True story. This moment of détente brought to you by catnip. I'd make a joke about US politics needing some weed, but frankly, I think maybe anti-psychotics are called for at this point.

So there you have it. Do I include politics in my SFF? Absolutely. I contend that it's impossible to avoid

Humans are social animals, which naturally sort themselves into hierarchies as a matter of survival - this is the stuff hardwired into the oldest parts of our brains. When we were still cheetah-snacks wandering the savannahs, the social hierarchy determined who led a group. Who ate first. Who reproduced. Who lived. Who didn't. Jockeying for position within a given social structure is part of being human.

Since Science Fiction is as a genre, one big, open ended 'what comes next?' there's really no way to avoid politics. Which isn't to say that an authors personal political views ought to intrude. They shouldn't, however, I admit that my voice, my experiences and my world view are so colored by my beliefs/thoughts/ideals that I suspect it all bleeds through. If my characters hold political convictions, I want them to belong to those characters, not to me. I'm not writing to make my characters a megaphone for my own views.

That said. I have a fondness for shining light on certain marginalized populations. As a result, many of my characters hold alternative religious views, or are other-abled, or are non-hetero. In all those cases, there are politics surrounding the issues those characters face. And because I'm usually writing romance where HEAs are the expectation, my politics DO slip into the story - I'm going for acceptance and equality. Some days, like today, after more men were killed by police (and I freely admit I will never have the full story on those incidents, but the mounting death toll of young black men in this country is unacceptable) I wonder if inserting politics into writing isn't a duty - a way of saying something, as Elie Wiesel urged - a way of sounding the alarm at enough of a remove that the message of and for compassion slips in beneath a reader's skin and takes root.

I don't know yet how to respond to something that bothers me so deeply about my society. Maybe it requires someone more skilled than I. All I know is that I grew up on the golden-eyed optimism of Star Trek. Apparently, some of that optimism rubbed off on me. Because I do think politics end up in fiction anytime there's more than one character on a page. What I don't know is where the line in the sand lies. At what point does a socially conscious scifi story turn into a morality tale? I'd prefer to stand firmly on SFF side of that equation.

Social Politics of Writing Fiction

The social politics of writing fiction extends beyond the page, beyond the rounds of edits and publishing. It's a necessity of marketing and sales. It's the joys of peer networking and consumer reach. It's navigating participation in a community without sticking your foot in a steaming pile.

Traditionally when we think of genre authors and politics, we think of the rebels we aspire to be--authors whose stories permeated the public consciousness to the point of affecting real-world change. Our passions about a certain topics or themes provoke our need to write about social injustice, climate change, agri-business, religion, war, etc. We start our stories with the state of what is then weave a tale around what could be. Cautionary or inspirational, often it's both. It doesn't matter if the story suits a publisher's business model. It matters only that we're planting a seed to make a total stranger explore a different point of view. It's long been the place of genre authors to expose government hypocrisies and to speak up as harbingers against complacency through fiction. What great company to want to keep, right?

However...

The fertile bed of social politics can turn against authors when it becomes the censor of creativity. We're currently in the throes of a resurgence in pre-print censorship. There are a lot of opinionated voices given platforms via social media and the Con circuits dictating what authors are "allowed" to write based on the characteristics of the author. Some of those voices are angry, some are well-intentioned, and some exemplify the behaviors they seek to quash. This has given rise to a tide of shaming authors for daring to write something other than "what they know...first hand." Far beyond the usual critical review that dismantles the book, this trend goes after the author for being "unqualified" to write particular aspects of fiction. It's a tragedy because too many stories that fill the narrative need aren't being submitted because of the social politics and the bullies feigning authority.

Authors, be confident in your story. Submit. Publish. Don't let social politics limit your imagination or your ambition.

On Being Afraid to Speak Up

Yesterday, on July 2, 2016, Elie Wiesel died. He was a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and a celebrated writer who brought to life the realities of the Holocaust.

On the same day, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump ran this ad:

Note the use of the Star of David for the speech bubble. An hour later, he changed it to a circle:

It wasn't an accident. No one - especially a publicist in a presidential campaign - accidentally uses an enormously fraught symbol of race and religion.

I read Elie Wiesel's The Gates of the Forest in college, as part of my religious studies major. It's been on my shelf ever since. The protagonist is no hero. In fact, he's weak. He allows others to sacrifice themselves so he can live and he ultimately commits a craven act of betrayal. We had extensive class debates on his motivations. I see it as fear. He was afraid - justifiably so - and let fear run his life.

Our topic this week, appropriately enough, is "The Politics of Writing."

Now, I know that many, many writers will advise staying away from politics. We hand that around a lot. Don't mention personal politics on social media because we don't want to alienate readers. People who disagree with our politics might no longer buy our books.

But isn't that fear?

Writers have a long history of being vitally involved in political and social change. I'll give you a hint: Elie Wiesel didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a treaty or arranging food for the poor. It was for his books.

There's a famous poem by Martin Niemöller which has been perhaps overdone to the point of invisibility. It's also been modified and co-opted numerous times. But it captures an essential truth:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

It's been since criticized because Niemöller admitted to his own antisemitism (for which he later apologized) and for the way it frames social responsibility in terms of self-interest. However, it does speak powerfully to the complicity of those who stood by during the Holocaust and to the idea that we can safely refrain from exposing ourselves to difficulty - including people not buying our books - because the problem doesn't relate exactly to us.

Which is cowardly, isn't it?

In some ways, it's fascinating that we're at this place now, where writers advise each other to stay away from politics. As if money is more important than anything else. I'm not talking about agitating over Democrats vs. Republicans.

I'm talking about standing by while the religious and racial persecution of other groups is openly discussed as a viable political position.

Something to ponder.