Science fidtion and fantasy fans beat back alt-right

An artist's rendition of Juan Rico, I guess, is a mestizo.

THE FIRST Filipino science fiction hero that I encountered was Juan Rico, the main character in sci-fi heavyweight Robert Heinlein's Starship Trooper.
For a young kid struggling with my identity and in search of role models, at that time in my life, that was a revolutionary and evolutionary concept -- that a brown man, specifically someone who might look like me, could be a hero.

I was so disappointed that this aspect of the character's backstory was totally ignored by the movie version of the book in which Rico was whitewashed and played by white actor Caspar Van Dien. Juan Rico became Argentinian.

In recent years, outside the attention of mainstream media and before the election of the current divisive president, the cultural wars being waged by the alt-right (read white nationalists) manifested itself in the world of science fiction and fantasy. This year we witnessed racism raise its ugly head in the online racist harassment and misogynist abuse hurled at actress Kelly Marie Tran for the pivotal role of Rose Tico, who she portrayed in the movie, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Less known was the almost decade-long struggle being waged in the world of science fiction and fantasy (SFF) literature. SFF fans this year fought back against the white supremacists by rejecting right-wing attempts to keep the gates closed against the diversification of the world of science fiction and fantasy writing by voting the Hugo award to African American writer N.K. Jemisin for her third book in the Broken Earth trilogy, The Stone Sky. 

N.K Jemisin, wins Hugo's most prestigious award three years in a row.

Jemisin's award was even more significant because this was the third year in a row that she was given this honor. She is the first author in the Hugo's 65-year history to win back-to-back-to-back awards for every book in a trilogy. Prior to this year, Jemisin won the award for Best Novel for The Fifth Season in 2016 and The Obelisk Gate in 2017.

“It’s been a hard year, hasn’t it,” she said as she accepted the award last Aug. 19 at the 76th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Worldcon 76 held in San Jose, California this year.  

“A hard few years, a hard century. For some of us, things have always been hard. I wrote the Broken Earth trilogy to speak to that struggle, and what it takes to live, let alone thrive, in a world that seems determined to break you — a world of people who constantly question your competence, your relevance, your very existence.”

"I get a lot of questions about where the themes of the Broken Earth trilogy come from. I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m drawing on the human history of structural oppression, as well as my feelings about this moment in American history. What may be less obvious, though, is how much of the story derives from my feelings about science fiction and fantasy. Then again, SFF is a microcosm of the wider world, in no way rarefied from the world’s pettiness or prejudice."

And in conclusion, she said, "But this is the year in which I get to smile at all of those naysayers—every single mediocre insecure wannabe who fixes their mouth to suggest that I do not belong on this stage, that people like me cannot possibly have earned such an honor, that when they win it it’s meritocracy but when we win it it’s “identity politics” — I get to smile at those people, and lift a massive, shining, rocket-shaped middle finger in their direction."

Her Hugo threepeat isn’t just a win for her writing and for fans of her work — it’s a decisive statement made by the SFF community in response to ongoing efforts to silence writers of color.

Hugo winner Liu Cixin, right, and translater Ken Liu, himself a writer of sci-fi and fantasy.

To add to the white supremacists' woes, prior to Jimisin's threepeat, the 2015 winner was Chinese writer Liu Cixin.

Liu became the first Asian, and The Three-Body Problem the first translated novel, to win the Hugo for Best Novel.

He says: “I’m an author who writes sci-fi and the Hugo is the highest honor for the genre. It’s like the Nobel prize of the sci-fi world.”

Why do people who profess that they seek a world better than the one we live in, find it so offensive that people of color should be excluded from this goal?

As an extension of those white supremacists who have come out of the woodwork because of Donald Trump, these fans seek to escape the reality of what's happening in the U.S. and they seek to preserve their privileged status and the social and economic awards that goes along with being on top of the heap. It's that fear based on ignorance that drives them to attack Kelly Marie Tran and Jemisan who they see as threats.

"I look to science fiction and fantasy as the aspirational drive of the zeitgeist,” Jemisin continued. “We creators are the engineers of possibility. And as this genre finally, however grudgingly, acknowledges that the dreams of the marginalized matter and that all of us have a future, so will go the world. (Soon, I hope.)”

Good SFF isn't just about the worlds that "could be,"J emisin said in her acceptance speech, "but also a reflection of the "world that is," It that's true, unfortunately, the world that is, isn't very pretty right now.

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