Tamora Pierce, author of some pretty famous YA fantasy novels, is doing the apology rounds on Tumblr. This is in reference to her messy and ignorant comments on black representation in Agent Carteras summarized by
imnotasquirrel.from apology 3 on feb 6:
I think where I erred was when I claimed to be “thinking.” [...] I apologize for pushing an error-filled non-version of history on people. I am deeply sorry that I did not use terms of respect for those who are not white correctly, something I should have gotten straight long before this. And lastly, beg your pardon for demanding that you respect opinions that I did not even bother to double-check, thereby disrespecting you. I claimed we were having a discussion, but I was only making declarations, for which I am very ashamed. These are all things I must work on, as are the issues I have expressed in my previous two apologies and elsewhere. The only way I can begin to do that is to shut up, and start working.
I apologize with all my heart for asking if people would prefer no representation to representation. It was an asshole thing to say. I also apologize, and will apologize again, for using a term black people find offensive, and using POC when the issue is the presence of black people. I gave offense to people who endure too many offenses as it is, and there is no excuse for that.
apology 2 on feb 5:
I apologize for my tone, my snark, my claim that of all the many varied people in all the many varied neighborhoods in New York City, those that I remembered seeing in “Agent Carter” would have no one who was not white. I had lost my temper, and it shows in this post. I should have kept silent until I could be polite, and not written anything until I checked my facts and my common sense.
I apologize that my statement that Hitler was a human being caused people pain. I am deeply sorry that I used cartoon characters as comparisons, giving added, cruel offense. And as I said above, I had lost my temper, which means I was shamefully sharp. But I do not withdraw my central posit, that Hitler was a human being. Our media and our history books are often inclined to treat these people as marble figures, monsters, which leaves us feeling there is nothing we could have done to stop their rise. If we understand them as human, and try to find and change the forces that helped them to rise and made their monstrous ideas acceptable to entire populations, we can hopefully stop at least some future humans who have monstrous ideas.
The next three paragraphs [regarding one of one of her previous posts]: I am so sorry for the level of sarcasm [in that post]. Writing today, after a day to cool off, I’m appalled. And I am deeply ashamed of that crack about me being a Name. I have always promised myself I would not be one of Those People, talking myself up, and yet here I am, talking through my asshole.
Regarding my remarks about the forms of name that have been used for black people and Native Americans (my mention of “People of Color” was my screw-up): I also always told myself I would never do “when I was your age,” and yet I did it here. When I was asked to properly address form I delivered a lecture on how much more swell my experience was, to boot. For that, I am very sorry, and for ignoring the issue of speaking to people as they wish to be spoken to now.
For all of these things, for the offense I have given black people and their allies in particular in one paragraph of my earlier post, my greatest apologies.
tamora pierce also sent a fan who was pretty upset about her comments a personal apology. from that:
- ''My fans mean everything to me, whether you believe that at this point or not. It breaks my heart to know any assholicness of mine hurt them; it shames me no end that my stupid words hurt any fan. I have spent a lot of books and stories trying to build worlds where they are accepted, whatever their sex, whatever their race, their color, their nationality, their faith. I am bitterly, bitterly ashamed, and I have no one to blame but myself'
- she also talks about how she got unnecessarily defensive when she found out that people were rooting through past posts of her to prove to others 'what she was really like' [which is something tumblr people do, lbr]
- and she talks about how wrong it was of her to try and look at things from the pov of the writers of the show and how that deafened her to what people were saying
- etc etc it's pretty long
