Description: No judgment. No exceptions. Geeks got your back.
When we are very invested in our particular passions, and the communities that surround them, it can be all too easy to fall into a number of rhetorical traps, including gaslighting , whatabouting , or sealioning (see below for Wondermark cartoon that inspired the term) against people trying to call attention to those who are behaving badly within those communities.
However, there’s another trap that can be easy to fall into, which is to assume that you don’t have any sea lions in your community because they are all barking elsewhere. The truth, however, is that no matter which community it may be — anime, literary SF, cartoon, or any number of others — the underlying issues with harassment and bullying are almost identical.
With that in mind, please do take some time to read this link ( https://www.facebook.com/bill.ernoehazy/posts/10156637709013035 ) to a public Facebook post regarding some rather unsettling, recent upheaval in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). Further information can be found in two other blogs, here ( https://amauncheargent.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/confronting-racism-in-the-sca/ ) and here ( https://melessee.blogspot.com/2018/08/on-public-enemies-and-wars-between-us.html?m=1 ).