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Regarding a certain anthology...
7 years ago
General
A while ago, I wrote an article for Dogpatch Press. This is it: http://dogpatch.press/2018/08/06/re.....w-red-engines/
It's a rather critical review of a short story which appeared in the furry anthology "Dogs of War II: Aftermath." I found the story offensive because it was Islamophobic in nature (for more details, read the review itself), so much so that despite being a passive, non-confrontational sort of person, I felt like I had to do something.
I expected the review would be largely ignored. I expected most of the attention it did get would be from trolls representing hate groups. Instead, support poured in from every corner of the furry writing community (something for which I shall be eternally grateful).
There were some arguments. Neither the editor nor the author of the story have acknowledged any wrongdoing, and the closest thing to an act of contrition we've seen was one of those "I'm sorry if people were offended" comments which don't qualify as meaningful apologies at all. They seem content to claim, "Actually, the story means the opposite of that" as if that alone were some kind of defense, and which I'm tempted to call gaslighting.
That brings us here, with the editor now asking to reprint one of my stories for a new anthology. Specifically, he wants to reprint "Behesht" from Roar volume 8.
I think if it were any other story, I would tell him, "No." But "Behesht" just so happens to be a story full of Muslim characters. It isn't a "pro-Islam" story, just one that happens to feature Muslims living their lives and not being portrayed as violent savages. Sad as this is, there's a conspicuous dearth of that sort of thing in American media. Therefore, I have decided that I will let my story be included in the anthology.
It's a rather critical review of a short story which appeared in the furry anthology "Dogs of War II: Aftermath." I found the story offensive because it was Islamophobic in nature (for more details, read the review itself), so much so that despite being a passive, non-confrontational sort of person, I felt like I had to do something.
I expected the review would be largely ignored. I expected most of the attention it did get would be from trolls representing hate groups. Instead, support poured in from every corner of the furry writing community (something for which I shall be eternally grateful).
There were some arguments. Neither the editor nor the author of the story have acknowledged any wrongdoing, and the closest thing to an act of contrition we've seen was one of those "I'm sorry if people were offended" comments which don't qualify as meaningful apologies at all. They seem content to claim, "Actually, the story means the opposite of that" as if that alone were some kind of defense, and which I'm tempted to call gaslighting.
That brings us here, with the editor now asking to reprint one of my stories for a new anthology. Specifically, he wants to reprint "Behesht" from Roar volume 8.
I think if it were any other story, I would tell him, "No." But "Behesht" just so happens to be a story full of Muslim characters. It isn't a "pro-Islam" story, just one that happens to feature Muslims living their lives and not being portrayed as violent savages. Sad as this is, there's a conspicuous dearth of that sort of thing in American media. Therefore, I have decided that I will let my story be included in the anthology.
If I was going to write about something like that I would take great care about how hard I'd be putting my foot down on the proverbial eggshells and tread very bloody carefully. Are one set of people inherently evil, or are they the end product of the same process the children are going through with their propaganda kids TV? It's a tough thing to cover and I don't think they covered it as appropriately as they could have.