More on Antonelli ... and a Personal Apology to Tempest Bradford

More thoughts following on from yesterdays post about Lou Antonelli after a nights sleep, a morning's research, and a (quite fair) schooling on twitter. As you will see, I have had cause to change my views significantly.

First, I think it would be tremendously helpful if Antonelli would post an exact copy of the letter he sent to Spokane PD, as well as an exact copy of the letter he sent to redress the problem. There seems to me to a big difference between writing to say that David Gerrold is "insane and a public danger and needs to be watched" and that he is "inciting to violence" and "he belongs in a secure psychiatric facility", which is what he said on the podcast, and writing to say that the police should "be aware of the controversy and possibility of people getting, uhh, maybe too enthused", which is what he reportedly said to Lou Berger and "expressing some concerns over potential security issues at the upcoming Sasquan" which is what he says he did in his apology.

Second, if Antonelli wants to be forgiven, he should also apologize to the blogger he tried to have fired. And for any other things he has done which have caused offense in this whole mess.

Third, I do not suggest that we (i.e. fandom) simply "forgive and forget" what Antonelli has done. We should never forget. And forgiveness will take time. Indeed, in light of his past record of apologies discussed next, it is going to take a long period of improved behavior on his part before we should even think of forgiving him. I hope that one day he will prove worthy of that forgiveness.

Fourth, K. Tempest Bradford and others have pointed out to me that Antonelli has a history of making fake apologies. I was not aware of this last night, but as Tempest points out it is quite easy to find the details online. I should have done my research. Jim C. Hines and Natalie Luhrs provide good summaries.

Obviously, this casts a whole new light on Antonelli's apology. In it, he says:

I need to ponder the hurt I have caused. To give me time to think, after Sasquan I am taking a half-year hiatus from attending any conventions and/or submitting any fiction.

I hope he takes that commitment seriously. Forgiveness needs to be earned.

Fifth, I owe Tempest a big apology. This morning I tweeted:

@LouAntonelli loses the plot, @tinytempest loses her nut, and fans of SFF lose all hope of reconciliation.

Clearly, this implied that I thought Tempest shared the blame for the discord in SFF. This was not what I meant. I apologize for what I wrote, and I apologize to Tempest for the harm that it caused. I will be more careful in future.

Sixth, Tempest was quite clearly justified in "losing her nut." She does a great job explaining her point of view in her facebook post. I had not thought carefully about the points she makes in her step 1, and I have evidently tripped up on step 3. Mea culpa.

Seventh, I do sincerely hope for some sort of reconciliation in SFF. I hope that some of the participants in the Controversy will step up and earn their forgiveness. That includes Lou Antonelli and Benjanun Sriduangkaew (someone who has made big strides in this area, becomes more sympathetic the more I learn about her, and to whom I also owe an apology).