This newspaper clipping is making the rounds:
What appalled me the most when I read this was not its complete sociopolitical wrongheadedness but the giant logic holes. If all whites have been put on reservations, why is Chester’s grandson (who identifies as white) still living in the family home in California? Why can we afford shuttles to the moon but not food for the starving nation? Why is there more food on the moon than on Earth? Why do people on the moon not know who the U.S. president is or what’s happening on Earth? Why would the legalization of plural marriage mean that someone would be forced to marry people he didn’t want to marry? What sort of rotten grandfather would miss not one but all five of his grandson’s weddings? And that’s a classic “as you know, Bob” paragraph of expository dialogue there–cut and reword, please!
I think it’s pretty funny that I can so easily look past the stupendously flawed premise to critique the way it’s developed, but it’s also sobering. I wonder how many other editors and critics out there let content problems slide, or miss them altogether, while hammering on structural matters. That would explain how a lot of problematic books get published, come to think of it. This is a good reminder to those of us who edit and critique SF/F to dig down below comma placement and character development, and make sure the heart of the story is sound.
(While we’re checking our credulity at the door, let’s not forget to verify our sources. This letter does indeed appear to have run in the June 14 edition of The La Jolla Light; you can see the whole paper on Issuu here, and find the letter on page A19. A complete transcript is at the Gawker page linked from the top of this entry.)
Searching La Jolla Light for other op-eds by Weber (no relation) I found pieces proposing Sunday square dancing in the street (“Where else could children and grandparents ‘trip the light fantastic’ together? ”) and selling objects made in the USA so La Jolla could be advertise its patriotism. She seems to feel herself a stranger in a strange land; she dreams of the good old days (which doubtless were better for her than for for non-whites, non-straights, vegans, abstract artists, & other deviants). But if she has been contributing the paper since 1953, she may feel that the atom bomb has already fallen on her & the days if IV feeding aren’t far away. Deplorable xenophobia, to be sure. Consider, though, that she probably has to call a grandchild to unscramble the remotes for her TV. She’s not the enemy–just old.
I don’t think being old makes her immune to critique. There are millions of older Americans who aren’t writing nonsensical bigoted tripe and trying to get it published (and hundreds of newspapers that aren’t publishing the nonsensical bigoted tripe they do receive). Considered by the standards of her peers, she’s still built a poorly structured story on a reprehensible premise.
As for being “the enemy”, the only enemy I pointed out in my original piece was editorial laziness.
If anyone should be blamed for disseminated said tripe it should be the newspaper. Yes, I think editorial laxity sums it up quite nicely. What, were they so desperate to fill that space that they allowed it through? Freedom of speech aside, the author’s ignorance is inexcusable. I think she forgot to take her pills that morning.
I believe it only says she’s been a La Jolla Resident since 1953. If she’d been a contributing writer for nearly 60 years I would suggest we judge her even more harshly. I mean, that writing? It’s awful.
Right you are, Spitfire! Resident of, not contributor to. Read in haste, repent at leisure. Write in haste & ditto: two typos in my first missive. As for the deeper issues Rose & you raise: yes, the writing is awful, every which way; and, no, age is not an excuse for promulgating bigotry & otherwise behaving badly. As an oldie (70), talking about someone who is at least 59, I just wanted to raise the point that even the coolest, most forward-thinking, healthy, lucky person of age encounters bias every day. Fighting bias with bias is the worst idea in the world, but it’s understandable as a stratagem for someone who fears she has no other weapons.
I see it as more a La Jolla thing than an aging thing. That place is truly the land that time and progressive thinking forgot.
I’m not sure you CAN judge a racist homophobe too harshly, even if she is old. It’s like saying alcohol made Mel Gibson say anti-semetic things. Yeah that’s right, beer contains racism, and all the old people who aren’t bigots are just lucky.
One of those dumb “if two guys can get married then I suppose a man and a wolverine could get married too” arguments. Marriage by gays makes everyone’s marriage worthless, huh?
This is not SF, it’s Tea Party reasoning.
Thank you for sharing this view of the future. As you are well aware Rose, words change meaning over time. To understand the true state of our world in 2065 we must consider the future meaning of the words used. You are in luck. I picked up a Defanginator2070 at the Time Mart this weekend. This device converts language from any time period to present day English. Please allow me to translate. “Five wives” converts to half a 2012 human unit. You see the Native American president, recognizing the cognitive efficiencies to be gained, converted the U.S. to the metric system. We must also consider inflation over the next fifty-three years. How does one get half a wife? Through a tragic accident of course, but don’t despair – he got the good half. I know because I consulted a temporal psychic for clarity. “Horrified” means embarrassed yet intrigued. The “Moon” means Canada. Alas, this is a pejorative term reflecting American envy for the standards of living enjoyed in Canada. “Atomic bombing” refers to the future diet craze of reverse feeding. Please don’t ask me to describe this practice as I just ate. “Breakfast and lunch” are breakfast and lunch while “intravenous feeding” describes a state of mind open and accepting of all human identities. Finally, “reservations” refers to the custom-formulated multi-vitamins consumed to counteract effects of reverse feeding. With the correct understanding of the article, I hope you will take heart in our bright future.
La Jolla has, for a very long time, been one of the most conservative communities in the somewhat conservative city of San Diego. As the several previous comments have been entirely on the mark. This is simply bigotry and wishful thinking. Clearly, Ms. (who I’ll bet thinks of herself as Mrs.) Weber is not only a bigot, but also in denial, since if she’s as old as she must be to have lived in La Jolla since 1953, she was there when women were quite clearly considered second-class citizens . . . but she doesn’t talk about that.
She’s a very bitter, confused, and sad person.
Does she get her point across that she is not happy with what this country has become? I think she does. She has the right to say what she wants and I don’t think that it is fair for people to criticize how she expresses herself. This is an editorial published in a newspaper, not a literary magazine. Her creativity may not become a standard which will be read by future SF readers, but it was a decent attempt at creative expression by a non-writer. When people begin to republish articles/editorials like this one, it gives them more of an impact than if they were ignored.
She has the right to say what she wants
Correct.
and I don’t think that it is fair for people to criticize how she expresses herself.
Incorrect; it is precisely fair for any public statement to be the subject of public discussion.