Well, where do I begin?
Perhaps by saying that I wanted to get away from all the negative, toxic backbiting and hating that goes on in the internet world. So I thought, I'd retreat back to books and writing, a friendly place of fun. I even revamped this very blog.
Then I read in a post in a writer's group, something that I found rather unpleasant. Something that threatens the fun world of writing and reading and books. She said that a group of writers were being attacked for being white and writing an Asian hero box set. I commented on the post about how insane I thought that was, then I set about find out how I would review the box set. Here's the box set:
And here's the Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GDQLSBB
I was successful in getting a review copy, and I downloaded it to my reader just today, to read. I like keeping up with the books I've read by adding them to goodreads, and I added this one to my currently reading list. Then I decided to check out the reviews, to find out if anyone was slamming the book in the reviews. The first one I found, on Goodreads, was this:
Her 'review' mainly just quoted the link to the original post on Twitter that apparently started all this. By the way, I reported her review, then later learned that she's a Goodreads Librarian. She and another who attacked me, for a couple of comments I made in support of the writers. Here's the other person's comment:
I was bullied and teased in high school. I've been harassed and bullied online enough that I know how that all goes. I beat a hasty retreat. I've blocked both of them on Goodreads in an effort to protect myself. Her review wasn't a review, but was the sharing of a hate post.
And what of the original post that started it all, you might ask? Well, here it is:
Now you'll notice that was posted on Twitter, which, in case you don't realize it, is a liberal's playground where they can sling forth any insult that they want with impunity. I went ahead and posted a couple of comments on her tweet, and here's what I said:
So make sure I'm getting this. You haven't read the book, nor has much of anyone else who has commented. You don't know much of anything about the authors of the books in the set. But you object to it? And white people can't write about asian characters?
Does this mean that black people can't write about white people? Hispanic people can't write about asian or black or white people? What? Are we segregating writing by race now? You can only write about people of your own race? Explain this to me.
And here's the response I got from her:
She blocked me. Turns out she had taken to blocking everyone who didn't agree with her. She didn't have to cajones to take what she dished out to the authors of that box set. And then in subsequent tweets, seemed like she tried to explain or back away from what she initially said.
What really ticked me off was, the more I read about this, I discovered that pretty much all the people criticizing the box set hadn't even bothered to read it. Didn't seem like they had researched anything about the writers at all either. They just deemed them 'a bunch of white women writing about Asians', and 'how dare they'.
It's both sad and ridiculous that this crazy liberal bigotry and hate has made it's way into books and writing. So I'm doing what I can:
- writing this post,
- am reading the box set for a review based on the merits of the stories and not the skin color of the writers,
- reporting hate posts trying to masquerade as reviews.
I feel sorry for the writers of the box set, because they truly don't deserve this. They didn't do anything wrong.
During the sixties and seventies, we made such great strides to remove bigotry from our society, to where people were just treated as people, and the color of their skin didn't matter. For some reason, the liberals seem bound and determined to undo all that and bring to rise bigotry and hatred and segregation.
It's just sad. Beyond sad even. It's tragic.
And with that, I'll close.
