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Phanteur, issue 5, May 1948

Page 4

4 PHANTEUR 4

Negroes and Science Fiction -- No. 2

The response to the article by Russ Willison, Chicago Negro fan, in the Fall issue of PHANTEUR was quite good. Several members expressed whole-hearted, enthusiastic approval of the whole article, although it might be more gratifying if such idealistic statements were backed up by some concrete suggestions of ways and means. Still, no program ever succeeded without its idealistic supporters, so far as I can remember offhand. 
Personally, I was more interested in the brief discussions of the problem by Speer, Stevenson and several others who took the trouble to study the matter with some care. Several, for example, pointed out that it is contrary to editorial policy to engage in propaganda in popular fiction magazines, and one individual added that any departure from such a policy would imply that the science fiction publications constituted a group outside and above the limitations of the general run of pulps. 
The obvious answer to those statements is that the sf pulps are a group apart, and do, already, engage in propaganda. Astounding SCIENCE FICTION already devotes half its pages to socially significant stories; stories that definitely partake of the quality of propaganda. The other magazines in the field do the same thing to varying degrees. Basically, such stories present a plea for sane thinking with respect to matters of social and scientific advance. Not infrequently, the success attained by such stories is directly proportional to the the success with which the writer has presented his point. And, of course, there is a lot of anti-religious propaganda in the sf pulps. 
Magazines in other fields don't present such stories; their fiction is concerned almost exclusively with the glorification of the status quo -- which is both logical and practical, since most of their readers -- and all their advertisers -- prefer stories of this type. They are usually good stories, too. 
But, since aST and the other sf pulps do not conform to the mold in this respect, it seems to me that they are being peculiarly inconsistent in conforming so closely in this one respect. 
Dragging Negro characters in willy-nilly, merely for the sake of getting them in, would certainly be bad business, and could probably be classifies as deliberate, if ineffective, propaganda. But presenting them in "natural" situations could hardly be so classified. I doubt that even the most "White-Supremacy" fanatic would object to the presence of a Negro foreman and several Negro technicians in an industrial development story place in a steaming, extra-terrestrial jungle. After all, that would be an "Earth-normal" situation. 
Russ's way of looking at the matter is, of course, somewhat influenced by the fact that he is a Negro himself. He knew whereof he spoke, for example, when he said that the presence of Negro characters in the stories would enhance the sales to Negro readers. His statement that Negro heroes would not be expected resulted from his recognition of the fact that, in so far as the English speaking peoples are concerned, this is a White man's world. 
Steveson took exception to the statement that Negroes can stand heat better than Whites. So far as I know, that exception is fully justified; the notion that Negroes are less susceptible to heat than other races seems to stem from the fact that they are natives of a "hot" continent, plus the fact that they are to some extent immune to sunburn. This latter point, incidentally, overlooks the fact that sunburn results from ultra-violet, rather than from infra-red radiation. 
Speer challenged the statement that Negroes would be good peacemakers "because they constitute a persecuted minority." Well, I think it is fairly evident that most of our civilized Negroes are peaceable, but their is certainly no objective evidence to substantiate the theory that it is a result of their "persecuted minority" status. They might, however, be a little more cognizant of the bad effects of subjugation. Which ends this page and the article.

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4 PHANTEUR 4 Negroes and Science Fiction -- No. 2 The response to the article by Russ Willison, Chicago Negro fan, in the Fall issue of PHANTEUR was quite good. Several members expressed whole-hearted, enthusiastic approval of the whole article, although it might be more gratifying if such idealistic statements were backed up by some concrete suggestions of ways and means. Still, no program ever succeeded without its idealistic supporters, so far as I can remember offhand. Personally, I was more interested in the brief discussions of the problem by Speer, Stevenson and several others who took the trouble to study the matter with some care. Several, for example, pointed out that it is contrary to editorial policy to engage in propaganda in popular fiction magazines, and one individual added that any departure from such a policy would imply that the science fiction publications constituted a group outside and above the limitations of the general run of pulps. The obvious answer to those statements is that the sf pulps are a group apart, and do, already, engage in propaganda. Astounding SCIENCE FICTION already devotes half its pages to socially significant stories; stories that definitely partake of the quality of propaganda. The other magazines in the field do the same thing to varying degrees. Basically, such stories present a plea for sane thinking with respect to matters of social and scientific advance. Not infrequently, the success attained by such stories is directly proportional to the the success with which the writer has presented his point. And, of course, there is a lot of anti-religious propaganda in the sf pulps. Magazines in other fields don't present such stories; their fiction is concerned almost exclusively with the glorification of the status quo -- which is both logical and practical, since most of their readers -- and all their advertisers -- prefer stories of this type. They are usually good stories, too. But, since aST and the other sf pulps do not conform to the mold in this respect, it seems to me that they are being peculiarly inconsistent in conforming so closely in this one respect. Dragging Negro characters in willy-nilly, merely for the sake of getting them in, would certainly be bad business, and could probably be classifies as deliberate, if ineffective, propaganda. But presenting them in "natural" situations could hardly be so classified. I doubt that even the most "White-Supremacy" fanatic would object to the presence of a Negro foreman and several Negro technicians in an industrial development story place in a steaming, extra-terrestrial jungle. After all, that would be an "Earth-normal" situation. Russ's way of looking at the matter is, of course, somewhat influenced by the fact that he is a Negro himself. He knew whereof he spoke, for example, when he said that the presence of Negro characters in the stories would enhance the sales to Negro readers. His statement that Negro heroes would not be expected resulted from his recognition of the fact that, in so far as the English speaking peoples are concerned, this is a White man's world. Steveson took exception to the statement that Negroes can stand heat better than Whites. So far as I know, that exception is fully justified; the notion that Negroes are less susceptible to heat than other races seems to stem from the fact that they are natives of a "hot" continent, plus the fact that they are to some extent immune to sunburn. This latter point, incidentally, overlooks the fact that sunburn results from ultra-violet, rather than from infra-red radiation. Speer challenged the statement that Negroes would be good peacemakers "because they constitute a persecuted minority." Well, I think it is fairly evident that most of our civilized Negroes are peaceable, but their is certainly no objective evidence to substantiate the theory that it is a result of their "persecuted minority" status. They might, however, be a little more cognizant of the bad effects of subjugation. Which ends this page and the article.