Jennifer Marie Brissett

It is very easy to see the racism in Scifi. It’s not really hidden. It’s supposed to be about the future, but really it’s about the past dressed in new clothes. I watch the Stargate franchise and enjoy it by suspending my gag reflex from the obvious cliché casting of “white man hero here to save the universe!” It’s even worse for Atlantis. They added that extra special touch of the rest of the universe being filled with white people. “You darkies are just sooo strange. If there are people of there you know they don’t look like you, but us IS everywhere.” I’ve seen it all my life. I’m used to it. It’s just that now that I’m working to be a part of Scifi world, it’s really beginning to bother me.

I can’t help wondering how this can possibly be still happening. I went to school with guys who loved this stuff. They were some of the most open, smart, great guys I ever met. That’s why I liked hanging around with them. Now I feel funny. Were people thinking of me as a monkey all this time and not saying it? It hurts. That this the rawest thing about racism, you can’t tell what someone thinks about you. Then one day it comes out. I call it the “I’m looking though you” moment a la The Beatles. It’s just been happening too much lately. It makes me feel tired. And scared. Scared to make friends. Scared to reach out and trust. I have a lot of white people in my life. Hell, my partner is white. I know that people are just people. The trouble is, others don’t seem to think that.

The article on Clarkesworld Magazine Cavemen Discovered in the 21st Century by Neil Clarke cheered me up though —

“Dear lord, people like that do exist. I think I must live a sheltered life or perhaps I just hang out with a better quality of people.”

Glad that someone white now realizes that what POC have been saying isn’t just in our heads.

Since this article was posted even more of this kinda stuff in the SciFi world has come out —
The Helix magazine Flap and Orson Scott Card comes out as a homophobe.

Great. Just great.

It looks like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy is going to film at last. I read this series when I was in college and I thought it was incredible. Then I tried to read it again a few years ago and found it unreadable. I know that I could get into trouble for saying this, but Asimov just couldn’t write. He had an incredible imagination and could weave a tale like nobody’s business, but he couldn’t write an elegant word to save his life. All his characters were stiff and cartoonic. I guess I’ve read a lot since college and my reading tastes have matured. It makes it easier to see these flaws. I know I couldn’t say this in the wrong company for fear of the mob turning ugly and chasing me down the street with pitchforks and torches. (I once said a similar thing about Richard Wright in comparison to James Baldwin. I just think that Baldwin is a better writer. It got ice cold quiet.) You just can’t criticize people’s heroes without a strong back and fast feet.

I saw Asimov read when I was in college for the 150 anniversary of the university. It seemed like everyone in the university was there. He was a prof emeritus at BU at the time. I must admit it was a thrill to see him. The others on the panel were scientists who spoke on their prospective topics with great authority and promptly put the audience to sleep. Then Asimov spoke. He clearly had not prepared anything. He was completely talking out of his ass—and he was captivating. He was the greatest bullshitter I’ve ever had the privilege to bear witness to.

I did read I, Robot and other works by him. They are okay. It’s just that speculative fiction has come so far. Ted Chang is easily a better writer than him.