You have to hand it to the New York Times: they made a concerted effort to promote a book by an author specifically looking to introduce themes of slavery and its legacy in modern society to a science fiction audience. But as with most attempts at courting social justice warriors, it went horribly awry as the Times failed to take into account that social justice warriors will always be outraged about something.
Ben Winters’s Underground Airlines is a book about an alternate-history America in which the Civil War never happened and slavery is still legal, focusing on a hard-nosed detective who infiltrates an escape program for slaves. According to the NYT, the book is “confrontational,” tackling racial injustice “in the context of a sci-fi thriller.” They quote African American authors who give the book high praise, note that Winters is headed for a television series based on the story, and talk about how the book is “striking a nerve” with booksellers — and especially social justice warriors — nationwide.
The author of the book, though, is white. And some other social justice warriors just can’t handle it.
In a piece for Slate, J. Holtham rails against the New York Times‘s gall at praising a white writer tackling black issues. For nearly a thousand words, Holtham excoriates Winters and the NYT, calling them “tone deaf” to the history of slavery and sci-fi and accusing the NYT of finding a writer who “checks all the right boxes,” though he never specifies exactly what boxes Winters checked for the NYT‘s literary crew.
According to Holtham, Winters gets credit for being “brave” and “controversial” because he has the privilege of being on the outside of racial injustice, handling the themes while not experiencing them — something Winters himself acknowledges. And though Holtham claims white writers should tackle race, he accuses Winters of “drowning out” writers of color who aren’t profiled in the Times, apparently by simply agreeing to the interview.
Holtham may be right. There are a number of great black science fiction writers who tackle themes of racial injustice in their works. There have also been great white science fiction writers who have (Star Trek: The Original Series writers went out of their way to address themes of racial strife for a predominantly white audience, for example). But should white writers shy away from difficult subject matter simply because they can’t experience it for themselves?
Fortunately for Holtham, Winters was moved by his piece and subsequently apologized for the attention he’s been given in an email statement to Slate. Holtham’s criticism, he says, “breaks his heart.” Winters hasn’t asked for his book to be stricken from publishers lists, though, or pulled off bookshelves — or that the NYT piece be corrected to specify that he wasn’t actually “daring.”
