Aussiecon 4 Masquerade - Who to Blame

[dalekboy]

Some of you will have heard about the kerfuffle at the Aussiecon 4 Masquerade. Without going into the details as to why things blew up the way they did after the event (that's something for another post), I just wanted to talk about who was to blame for it.

The person to blame is me. No one else, just me.

I'd like to make that 100% clear.

I'm big on people taking responsibility for their actions, and while Nick is the person who delivered the line one member of our audience seemed to find so very offensive, the reason the anecdote was told was me. In an unscripted moment (we had run out of material quite some time before), I essentially grabbed a gun, loaded it, cocked it, then tossed it to my friend, and it went off in his hands. The amount of control he had over the situation at the time was minimal.

That an individual found the line hurtful is unfortunate, was certainly never intended, and I am sorry that it has caused him pain. However, his choices over how to present what happened, who to demand apologies from, and who he was upset at I have found rather perplexing, hence this post to clear up who should be attacked over the incident.

So, to make it absolutely crystal clear to anyone - Rose and Perry weren't to blame and neither was the Aussiecon 4 ConCom, the hundreds of audience members for laughing at the time, or Nick.

The blame is mine and I'm quite prepared to wear it.

I should also point out that Nick doesn't want me taking the blame, but I am insisting, and have told him to refer anyone hassling him about this issue to me. I will not stand idly by and see him blamed for my mistake. Especially when it's by people who weren't there and are basing all their opinions on hearsay.

I would ask that anyone you see discussing the situation also gets pointed to this post.

Comments

[ghoath.livejournal.com]

Disclosure: I wasn't there and therefore don't know what happened. However, I am vision impaired, and as such have had far too closer an encounter with political correctness and the like, and therefore have an opinion.

ah, such is the price of political correctness on our society.

Gone are the days, from when I was growing up, that if someone offended you, and you reacted badly, you were the one that then had to go and apologise for going off the deep end and acting like an idiot.

These days, after one person is offended, popular opinion can jump to the "that person said a bad thing and offended someone" camp, and it gives that person very little room to move. People say all sorts of things, and some people make mistakes with what they say, we need to accept that sometimes someone says the wrong thing, and we move on. Victimising someone just because they incidentally said the wrong thing, ends up harming the public face of good people.

With all this political correctness, it has legitimised people's ability to get upset when someone says something they don't like. IN turn, this has legitimised people being able to jump off the deep end if they hear something they don't like, and thus acting in an undignified manner.

What people don't realise until afterards, is that they are neglecting their own dignity and respect in public life by being so reactive to one sentence, phrase, word etc, by carrying on about it and making it such a public affair.

Furthermore, it is difficult for people to know what to say to someone, if they think that that person is in a group of potential prejudice. I am fed up of going somewhere that provides a public service, and hearing someone say "this person needs help....because...umm" and they don't know what to say, because they don't know what the *correct* word is to describe me. For goodness sake I'd rather have a label, so that people can somehow categorise what my disability is, in terms of "this person needs help because she can't see".

I am thoroughly fed up with saying the right or wrong thing being headline news, I'm thoroughly fed up with people feeling that they have some right to launch off at people because they hear something they don't like, and I'm thoroughly fed up of people not being able to talk to me comfortably, because they are scared of upsetting me by saying something that they don't know if it is the wrong thing before they speak.

[(Anonymous)]

[GregT] In some of the reaction, there's a conflation of four questions.

(a) Was Nick and Danny's shtick inherently offensive?
(b) Are Nick and Danny homophobic, or otherwise bad people?
(c) Was someone offended?
(d) Should Nick or Danny apologise?

And the trap is to think that if the answer to any question is "no", the answer to all questions should be "no". Clearly Nick and Danny are not bad people, as I'd think the vast majority of people who know them would agree. Equally clearly someone was, rightly or wrongly, genuinely offended and felt genuinely upset.

As Danny has recognised, it's entirely possible to say, "I'm sorry I offended you, I realise it was entirely possible for me to have not offended you, and I wish that's what I had done," without pleading guilty to homophobia. We all wish this person hadn't been offended; Danny is just acknowledging that he was in a position to have prevented it. It's not necessarily an obligation to have prevented it; just that he had that opportunity, and missed it.

It's not a political correctness issue. It's not about what words or phrases we can or can't say in public. It's recognising that one person had a disproportionately bad day, it didn't have to be that way, and that as fans, we support fans, and we therefore support solutions that allow everyone else to enjoy the Worldcon as much as we did.

[(Anonymous)]

[GregT] Worth adding that the remarks of the individual concerned ( http://twitter.com/sguod ) don't make the situation any better.

I absolutely don't follow the logic of, "This comment was offensive because of the way it attacked and vilified a community without sensitivity or discrimination, and, because it was said, AussieCon 4 and all of its members are bad people."

Reading down past the source of this particular drama to his earlier Twitters that night provides some much needed context.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

There's no doubt he was ready to blow before we'd said anything.

Only just seen this since most of my day yesterday was taken up, so a request - if any of you follow the link and read his Twitter, don't comment to him, or try to correct him. He's not going to listen, and as he's made clear, he's only going to use it to fuel his idea that Aussiecon 4 was not a safe WorldCon.

Further upsettting him helps no-one.

[(Anonymous)]

[GregT] LJ sadly doesn't have an "edit post" option for anonymous commentors but if you have that ability feel free to edit or delete my post above containing his Twitter details.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about it. You make some good points and I'd actually be quite surprised if anyone did hassle him.

[(Anonymous)]

[ManicSpider] As (mostly) usual, I'm in agreement with GregT. I have been reigning in my gut response to the comments against the MCs as I didn't wish to inflame the situation, but I would like you to know that you both have my support and that I strongly believe that this has been blown out of all proportion.

On a related note, I told my sister, she laughed and said "Oh no! I laughed! I must be homophobic! Quick, someone go tell my girlfriend!"

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

LOL

I mean that literally, I really did Laugh Out Loud.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

The thing I've been fed up with for a long time is people treating hearsay as fact.

But yes, the way people react to stuff in general is vilify. As I posted a while back, a person is not the worst thing they have ever done.

[gutter-monkey.livejournal.com]

"The thing I've been fed up with for a long time is people treating hearsay as fact."

It's a short trip from hearsay to heresy.

[fred-mouse.livejournal.com]

as someone said* recently, when comments were made about someone who hasn't been seen for 20 years - "oh, gods, i hope you don't judge *me* based on who i was at 18"

* for a value of 'said' that is 'this is the best phrasing I can generate from the bits I remember

[angela cockburn (from livejournal.com)]

Excellent summary. Thank you.

I remember - after having surgery - having the stick I was using described in an embarassed way as a "mobility aid". C'mon !