Spent two hours rage-reading the #IStandWithCourtney debacle and was trying to formulate my thoughts...but then saw this. Fuck it. No patience to formulate.
I used to be deeply involved in @romancewriters, and I'm enraged but not surprised that it got to this. (1/?)
I used to be deeply involved in @romancewriters, and I'm enraged but not surprised that it got to this. (1/?)
@romancewriters There are several threads here, all tied up in one garbage package:
1) Blatant underbelly of oldskool racism in RWA
2) Massive, necessary changes that members like @courtneymilan have tried to push up the hill
3) A paid RWA staff that financially benefits from status quo
1) Blatant underbelly of oldskool racism in RWA
2) Massive, necessary changes that members like @courtneymilan have tried to push up the hill
3) A paid RWA staff that financially benefits from status quo
@romancewriters @courtneymilan First, some background. I was the awards ceremony committee chair in 2012, so I was deeply involved in a v. small piece of official RWA national work. I was committed to @romancewriters, but also privately unhappy with how little actual power the committee had.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan The staff 'liaison' on the committee was truly lovely to work with, but it was clear that the staff was the final decider.
Their mandate wasn't to make a great show. It was avoid repeating the Reno ceremony debacle (which, I've heard, was legendary, but 10yrs before my show).
Their mandate wasn't to make a great show. It was avoid repeating the Reno ceremony debacle (which, I've heard, was legendary, but 10yrs before my show).
@romancewriters @courtneymilan So that's how you end up with decades of anodyne awards ceremonies (until @LizzieShaneAK took up the show-running torch - kudos to her).
The staff is not in the business of supporting an org going through upheaval. Their goal seems to be *stopping* the upheaval.
The staff is not in the business of supporting an org going through upheaval. Their goal seems to be *stopping* the upheaval.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK I'll repeat. Despite all the change @courtneymilan and many many others have pushed, and the board members elected to continue that vision....
The staff is not in the business of supporting an org going through upheaval. Their goal seems to be *stopping* the upheaval.
The staff is not in the business of supporting an org going through upheaval. Their goal seems to be *stopping* the upheaval.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK Which, if you have a nice office building in Houston that you need to pay for, and jobs you've held for two decades, makes sense.
You need revenue, from contests and memberships and conferences.
You need revenue, from contests and memberships and conferences.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK What you don't need is someone like @courtneymilan stirring shit on twitter. Even if the membership seems, in the majority, and still painfully slowly, moving in a new direction.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK You especially don't need a conference like NYC'19, which gave voices to new people at the 'expense' of the old guard...
..and which I don't think sold out, for the first time for an NYC conference? Correct me if I'm wrong, but slow registrations must have freaked the staff out.
..and which I don't think sold out, for the first time for an NYC conference? Correct me if I'm wrong, but slow registrations must have freaked the staff out.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK And if you're the staff, and have probably spent the last several years getting blasted daily with complaints about members, and all you really want is to put on a nice conference and make money off a contest...
You want things to go back to the way they were.
You want things to go back to the way they were.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK I've avoided saying this for a long time because the staff works really hard, I personally have hugely benefitted from RWA and the Golden Heart, I believe strongly in the mission, and I want to believe the best in people.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK But I question whether an organization can achieve a sea change in the way it pursues a truly fair and inclusive writing community for *all* when it has a staff that has historically been rewarded for keeping things exactly the same.
Which is why #IStandWithCourtney.
Which is why #IStandWithCourtney.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK I look forward to hearing more from the board about this, and hope we can understand the role that paid staff plays in forwarding ethics complaints to the committee vs. "handling" (or burying) them without ever notifying the board.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK I also want to know why the entire ethics committee was replaced before investigating Courtney. I accept, a little, why that committee is the *only* one whose membership is confidential - but ethics require sunlight, which may come at the expense of personal confidentiality.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK And in the interest of fairness, I want to know more about the Board's discussion and why, by my count, at least a couple of the members I might have expected to vote for Courtney did not.
But I also want to know whether/how the staff framed the convo to the board.
But I also want to know whether/how the staff framed the convo to the board.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK Callback to my RWA committee experience: I was constantly told I couldn't do something because of past precedent.
If your past precedent was set in a racist past, with the goal of keeping nice white ladies comfortable and staff paychecks rolling, you're gonna have a bad time.
If your past precedent was set in a racist past, with the goal of keeping nice white ladies comfortable and staff paychecks rolling, you're gonna have a bad time.
@romancewriters @courtneymilan @LizzieShaneAK So if @romancewriters is an org steeped in past precedent that doesn't serve current needs, run by a paid staff that is not elected and is incentivized to keep the status quo, I question whether it is an organization that can be saved.
