Is SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal A Racist?

It’s starting to become quite alarming for SFWA based on the leadership they chose. I don’t believe they’ve ever had a President-of-Color in their organization, and they are consistently picking white women who want to try to speak for PoCs and harm the careers of PoCs who don’t acknowledge their leadership–or take their handouts.

My red flags for SFWA started when their last president, Cat Rambo, began viciously trying to smear me on the hate website, File 770, even though I had only had one prior (and pleasant) interaction with her as an associate editor for a project where she had a story accepted for publication. I was getting more popular at this time, and I believe many of these white women in the industry get upset when LatinX authors like myself get too big too fast and don’t “need their help”.

Every action regarding race these women do tend to be for power plays for themselves, and maintaining the establishment of white women commanding every aspect of publishing — which they do across the board from New York Publishing houses to these clubs like SFWA. They use minorities as human shields and as props rather than humans.

Ms. Rambo misused SFWA’s Twitter account to later attack me again when I privately sent her data from my blog regarding the fact that white women have a SEVERE advantage over others in short story markets. Instead of helping a PoC author get the word out, she blasted me. SFWA’s double standard became apparent again as they allowed Rambo to do this without censure when just a few years later they banned another PoC, and Native American activist Vox Day from their club for doing similar. No apologies to Mr. Day were issued.

Later, SFWA would use Cat Rambo’s personal feud with me as an excuse why I could not be allowed into SFWA, again holding a non-white author to different standards than anyone else in the club have to abide by.

I have attempted to rectify the situation with Ms. Rambo several times as it is the Christian thing to do, but she stubbornly and perhaps racistly continues her angry rage at me which all stems from her instigating attacks on me.

Kowal was supposed to represent something different than what had gone on with SFWA for years, which is why I endorsed her candidacy for president. I thought she would reverse the insanely bigoted decisions of Rambo, especially as Ms. Kowal has before she ascended to power, endorsed my books on her blog multiple times, and communicated with me in private about real issues facing the industry and conventions. She seemed to be someone who would listen.

Once she became SFWA President and attained her white-power that comes with the presidency, it all changed. She no longer spoke with me, maintained the same extra standards above and beyond qualification for the club which white authors do not have to hold to, and has made a series of bizarre moves with SFWA where it appears she is trying to enslave the next generation of PoC authors to dependence on her.

Yesterday, SFWA announced a racist — and illegal via several Civil Rights statutes — action in which if you are a member of a certain race, you do not have to pay SFWA dues nor do you have to pay to attend their convention. Moreover, the California Incorporated SFWA announced they would be giving money from their coffers to causes which have nothing to do with club members nor science fiction.

As a corporation, SFWA has to abide by rules which do not discriminate via race, gender, religion, etc. And yet with their denying my entry when I duly qualify, and now these initiatives, they are showing that they do not respect minority authors at all, but view us as slaves who are too poor to be able to handle business as their “proper” white authors like Mary do, and also they believe we are too stupid to be able to handle our own charitable causes or have our own opinions on public matters which are different than what Mary or Cat (both white women) advocate for.

The response has been incredible. White authors are championing the cause, of course, but PoC authors like myself are condemning it across the internet:

But the most bizarre is Kowal’s own reaction to a comment by a LatinX man who voiced his favor of equality. She decided to swear at him and call him nasty names because he dared have an opinion different than her white leadership offered on the matter:

The facts are in, and they look very bad for Ms. Kowal.

I recommend she step down from SFWA leadership and appoint a PoC in her stead who will guide SFWA in matters only someone who doesn’t try to culturally appropriate a cause would do. What Mary Robinette Kowal has done these last 24 hours and during her tenure of leadership of SFWA d is deplorable and irredeemable and must be disavowed by any non-racists.

Is this because of her inherent, systemic, underlying racism? I will let you decide based on what you see here. But this is definitely a very bad look for SFWA.