Press Release: Statement Regarding SFWA’s Racist Black Lives Matter E-mail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Francisco, CA – June 4, 2020

The organization, Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. released an email to all current and former members at approximately 3:16 PM EST titled “Statement from SFWA on Black Lives Matter and Protests”. In this email, signed by their Board of Directors, SFWA stated their support for the BLM movement and those rioting in the streets on behalf of the terrorist organization known as ANTIFA, which are being falsely labeled “protests”.

In this email, SFWA also stated they will be giving preferential treatment based on race to members, giving certain races free membership, free tickets to their Nebula Awards ceremony, travel and accommodations for certain racial members, and donating their resources to members of certain races to the exclusion and detriment of other races.

I condemn this blatant racist behavior by Mary Robinette Kowal and her board in the strongest terms possible. Giving preferential treatment based on race flies in the face of everything the United States of America stands for, and this kind of blatant bigotry against all but one race must be challenged at every turn.

It is why we fight for civil rights and for equality, a constant struggle in these troubled times. The actions of SFWA have consistently been detrimental to many races, genders, creeds, and sexual orientations, especially so when it comes to authors of Hispanic descent, as I have documented instances of SFWA holding my membership to different standards than they do members of other races.

Equality means all are equal, and it is something to be strived for. The blatant discrimination by SFWA given to every race except for the chosen race they support is evil and anti-democratic. It violates every tenet of social good.

Moreover, SFWA’s actions hold strong implications that African American members are not able to pay the same dues as other races, are not able to afford tickets to the Nebula Conference, and are in need of being treated as children and not functioning, professional adults. This is blatant racism against African Americans in the worst of ways. It’s insulting and demeaning.

To quote the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man after my own heart, “With patient and firm determination we will press on until every valley of despair is exalted to new peaks of hope, until every mountain of pride and irrationality is made low by the levelling process of humility and compassion; until the rough places of injustice are transformed into a smooth plane of equality of opportunity; and until the crooked places of prejudice are transformed by the straightening process of bright-eyed wisdom.”

We must protest SFWA’s discrimination until they truly will stand for equality for all.

Excelsior,

Jon Del Arroz

The Leading Hispanic Voice In Science Fiction