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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think this story provokes a "yuck" response in a lot of people and that makes people want to say "everyone is equally culpable." I get it. This kind of intractable interpersonal conflict is so unpleasant to be around. If you've ever had something akin to this happen in your social circle or at job or in a school you attended, you can probably relate to the feeling of "oh my god, just stop."

But usually in these situations, both sides have behaved kind of badly from the start. Like one person was a bully, but the other person was also gossiping behind their back or something. At least, that's been my experience. I keep waiting to hear that's the case here too. I keep waiting to find out exactly what it was that made Sonya Larson decide that Dawn Dorland was a villain worthy of a take down. The race angle had me waiting to read that Dawn had been engaging in micro aggression, had a history of negative behavior toward Sonya or POC in general, that kind of thing. The fact that it's been weeks and I still haven't seen anything like this though, makes me think it's not out there.

And that leads me back to what we know, which is that Sonya and her friends were really, really annoyed with Dawn for talking about her kidney donation. And by my count, she was punished for this "crime" with:

- Nasty gossip and backbiting from people who called themselves her friends and were nice to her face
- A thinly veiled takedown of her kidney donation in Sonya's story
- The theft of a letter she wrote from a private FB group
- The potential mishandling of a sexual harassment claim at Grub Street
- Literal years of gaslighting from Sony and others about all of the above
- A lawsuit initiated by Sonya
- Getting dragged in the NYT and on Twitter by Sonya and multiple bestselling authors who Dawn almost certainly counts among her literary heroes

If this happened to me, I can tell you for certain I would not have gone after Sonya as aggressively. No way would I have done things like ask a publisher to pull the story or offer me space to publish my own response. But it's not because I'm nicer or kinder or more emotionally stable than Dawn. It's because I lack the self-esteem and the effing cajones to stand up for myself like that. If this happened to me, I'd probably just crawl away and stop writing and focus on treating the depression, anxiety, and PTSD this situation would definitely cause.

So, no, I don't think Dawn is now the Bad Art Friend.[/quote]

Well said. I also think that class comes into this. The writer class -- the Hobbes essay above is an example -- cannot see another UMC member as the wrongdoer. Look at Hobbes, look at Kolker, not to mention Ng and Gay and the smarmy sexist Almond. The commonality among all of these authors is that they are MC and UMC successful authors who are contorting themselves to come up with a world view where Dawn did something "as bad." I think it is because they cannot abide by a world in which a lower class writer attempting to climb into their world isn't somehow wrong, somehow at fault in some way. There is a deep need on their part to "both sides" this because that protects a class member and -- conveniently -- keeps a lower class interloper out. [/quote]

Disagree that Hobbes can be lumped in with that group. He's a writer but not successful the way Chee, Gay, or Kolker are. He is mostly known now as a podcaster, because You're Wrong About and Maintenance Phase both got really popular in the last couple years. His writing day job is more mundane and lower level (and likely not that well compensated), and unlike these other folks, he's never published a book and certainly not a bestseller.

If you are familiar with his podcasting work, he just likes doing this kind of deep dive into controversial issues to try and sort them out. I disagree with his conclusion here, but I think he's very much acting in good faith.[/quote]

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