Thread by @tinytempest

Despite my not wanting to do this Looking back At The Decade thing, I was sitting here thinking about the defining moments of 2009, 1999, etc., thanks to that @lizzo post.

One of the things that comes immediately to mind from 2009 is RaceFail.

It happened in January of that year, so in January of this year several people approached me (and other folks who were involved) asking if we'd be interested in a look back at it. I said no. A few people I know said no.

One of the reasons I said no is that a Look Back would imply that RaceFail ended and there's a legacy. Yet, in some significant ways, RaceFail has not ended nor been resolved, and a whole bunch of people did not learn from it despite the efforts of BIPOC in SFF lit.

When this RWA nightmare / #IStandWithCourtney thing kicked off, more than a few people felt the echoes of RaceFail. Not the specific argument or the specific people involved--RF was a SFF lit community thing for the most part--the attitudes and entrenched racism at the core of it

The foundation of RaceFail was white authors talking about appropriation and the "right" way to write characters of color and being challenged on their "wisdom" by readers and writers of color and/or having their problematic works held up as bad examples of representation.

Said white authors then responded to this in the worst possible way. In ways that are now so recognizable and predictable a decade later that there are BINGO cards based on them. Ways that are *just like* the ways the Nice White Ladies of the RWA are responding right now.

The result of this, for me, is to think about how depressing it is that we haven't come that far. These are not the same communities but there is overlap, and the issues we struggled with during RaceFail have been part of wider discourse for years now. And yet...

This decade has been about writers and readers and fans and publishing pros clawing our way out of this racist tar pit centimeter by centimeter.

The despairing part of me goes: is this all we have to show for it?

The optimist way at the back of my brain goes: Oh but wait...

b/c this is also the decade that saw @nkjemisin make Hugo history, not just as "the first Black woman" but the first person to win a Hugo for all three books in a trilogy.

We've had quite a few firsts in SFF awards, such as our first Filipino winners, @crashwong & @GeekMelange.

We have seen multiple years where there were multiple writers of color on Nebula and Hugo and Locus and other prominent award ballots alongside QUILTBAG authors, women authors, disabled authors, and other marginalized authors--sometimes with multiple intersections.

This is the decade that brought us award-winning fiction by @kyliu99, @aliettedb, @ecmyers, @Nalo_Hopkinson, @alayadj, @NisiShawl, @RoanhorseBex, @pdjeliclark, @john_chu, @GWillowWilson, @Nnedi, @tithenai, @marjoriemliu, @zenaldehyde...

...Eugie Foster, Hao Jingfang, Ted Chiang, and Cixin Liu.

This is just naming the BIPOC who have won the Hugo or Nebula (or both) (+ a Tiptree). This isn't even nominees. Or other awards. This isn't all the women and the LGBTQIAP+ folks and the disabled creators and and and.

There has been joy in this past decade. Part of my joy has been seeing writers I admire who work hard to create amazing fictions get the opportunity to put their work out there so everyone can read it. I've had the joy of inhabiting so many varied & beautiful characters & worlds.

And I've had the joy of seeing just how many writers DO want to Do Better. I see it in the classes I teach and the communities I belong to. I am so lucky to know so many talented artists who want to make a better world while also wanting to make fantastic art.

Yes, it's been a slog getting out of this tar pit of racism. But if the last decade has taught me anything, it's that it is possible if we fight for it.

And it will be a fight. Even if you aren't a warrior.

If we stand together? We all might just make it to 2029.