Battling the literary establishment

[supergee]

Robert Heinlein: SJW

Thanx to File 770

ETA: And an editor told Joe Haldeman, “Sci-fi does not mix with women.”

Comments

[bibliofile]

I liked the Haldeman interview. I need to reread The Forever War again soon.

[johnpalmer]

That is something I remember about sexism and racism and Heinlein. He was awful, but he was trying to be inclusive. Did he fail? Sure, in a lot of ways, and sometimes, in retrospect, it seems so *painfully* obvious. In this respect, I think he makes for an interesting historical study of prejudices in the US - both the ones he tried to challenge, and those he didn't realize he had.

I also found one line - I think it was "For Us, The Living" where he hits me *smack* between the eyes about racism in the US. A suspended-animation time traveler refused to stand by and let an armed citizen ahead of him in line. He was lectured, and he did something - maybe punched the guy?

He *knew* he was wrong, everyone told him, but his response was that he wouldn't apologize because he wasn't a ni... well, I don't need to spell that out!

I wouldn't have quite *gotten* how accurate the model of "if people can pee on one group, they won't notice you crapping on them" was, without that hammer-hit. More importantly, he used that line to indicate that "some day, this attitude will flabbergast people."

I like and admire Heinlein - and I hope that his writing does get used in this context someday. "Now, class, we're going to show you how incredibly fucking *hard* it is to overcome prejudice. Here we have a fellow who thought he was 'colorblind' trying to help his fellows get with the program."