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There are several topics that flare up with a certain amount of passion from time to time on the internet, sexism and racism being foremost among them. These are important topics that ought to be discussed, and while I think most start out as well-meaning exchanges, they often deteriorate into exercises in frustration. Someone will make a comment, to which someone else will reply, “That’s racist.” What the second person meant was, “That’s a racist comment,” but often times it’s not what was actually said. The person on the receiving end of that comment will then get indignant and reply, “I not a racist!” and off we go to the racist debate races.

Overall I think the science fiction and fantasy community is one of the most open-minded communities I know of—we’ve all heard numerous times how the first interracial kiss on network television took place on Star Trek, between Kirk and Uhura—but at the same time, to say that there is no racism or sexism would be so ridiculous as to render the speaker of such nonsense as a fool or a liar.

Last night I got an email from one of my assistant editors, who said that there’s another kerfuffle (his wonderful word) going on about sexism in SF and F, and out of curiosity, he went back into his records and crunched some numbers to see where he stood. He admitted he “was actually kind of worried that the exercise might reveal some sort of imbalance that might reflect unconscious bias on my part,” but he was interested enough to pursue the numbers, no matter where they led. I have to give him a lot of credit for looking the issue squarely in the eye despite his concerns.

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