I’m a little unnerved at the moment. It has to do with the column at Buzzscope where Ronée Garcia Bourgeois relates a tale of sexual assault perpetrated by someone in a leadership position at “[a] fine upstanding group which works diligently to help creators in need.”
At the request of the victim, who has reported the incident to the police and approached the organization in question with her story, Garcia Bourgeois has related the tale without naming any of the parties involved. This has led to some heated discussion in the comments thread following the article and at Chris Butcher’s blog.
The burning question seems to be whether or not an anonymous retelling of this incident has value. Garcia Bourgeois explains her decision in the column:
“I just want this organization and the man behind all of this to be warned. This WILL come out and I am gunning for him.”
She adds in the subsequent comments:
“Just know that steps ARE being taken by this person to hold the man accountable and things are under investigation. I wrote this to hopefully force the organizations hand on firing the asshole. As soon as I know me running my mouth won’t ruin the investigation I shall sing like a canary, with a vendetta. trust that.”
I’m unnerved because, nobility of intentions aside, I think Garcia Bourgeois’s warning shot fires too widely and has the potential to strike innocent bystanders.
There’s more than one “fine upstanding group which works diligently to help [comics] creators in need.” By writing about this before receiving permission to identify any of the parties involved, Garcia Bourgeois does more than just put the squeeze on one organization. She casts a pall over any number of perfectly blameless groups that need and deserve public support to do their work.
I’m sure that isn’t her intention. She wants to drive the bad organization towards transparency and action, which is noble, and her column may well have that effect. But I just wrote a check to a “fine upstanding group” like this a couple of weeks ago. And I can’t help but wonder if I wrote it to the wrong one.
That’s where I think Garcia Bourgeois’s efforts falter. Not in her desire to cast light on an awful set of circumstances that may reflect a depressingly pervasive attitude in the comics industry. I’m entirely behind that kind of discussion. I just worry that, in trying to squeeze decency out of one group, she’s put undeserved pressure on all of them. And that’s counter-productive.
And, if I look back a couple of weeks, I find I’m guilty of it myself. That non-profit organization I mentioned who made unwarranted assumptions about my marital status in their mailings? It’s the Humane Society. And they never did sufficiently address my concerns regarding their assumptions, so they probably won’t get any money from me in the future.