Big Bad Con is a tabletop roleplaying convention founded with a deep commitment to social justice and a healthy community space. This year, people have organized a Big Bad Boycott demanding a strong “anti-Zionist” statement from the Con organization.
I have been itching to clean up my long Twitter thread about it into a crisp post, but have not been able to carve out the time. Because the issue is pressing, I am settling for this somewhat clumsy capture of the thread (with just a few tweaks for clarity and legibility) for sharing elsewhere.
Initial thread
I oppose Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza, and Israel’s longstanding apartheid military policing of Gaza & the West Bank. I am not a Zionist.
So I oppose the ill-informed, irresponsible Big Bad Boycott with sadness in my heart. I feel sadness because the Boycott organizers obviously speak from a sincere commitment to justice. All people of conscience must stand in opposition to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza in this moment. But the terms of the boycott are irresponsible.
(I offer this commentary having never having attended BigBadCon, though I have given the Con modest financial support from the beginning, and I count many Con organizers & participants as part of my personal gamenerd community.)
Had the organizers of the Boycott called for the Con to make a public statement in opposition to Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack on Gaza, I would have considered it outside the scope of the Con’s responsibility, but noble.
This is not that.
The Boycott’s core statement has a host of problems. They summarize their position as a “stand against the normalization of genocidal views within our spaces”, but that summary is misleading.
The Big Bad Boycott demands
a public values statement indicating that Big Bad Con is an anti-Zionist space
That is a far stronger demand than expressing opposition to genocide, in ways which I assume that the boycott organizers do not understand.
“Zionism” does not mean support for the current genocide, or for the Nakba, or for the disenfranchisement of Palestinians. Zionism means neither more nor less than support for the continued existence of the state of Israel in some form.
Again, I am not a Zionist. I respect, even agree with, many anti-Zionist arguments. But given what “Zionism” actually means, even if one faults it as wrong one must respect it as a legitimate position. Many Jewish Israelis who have worked hard for justice for Palestinians understand themselves as Zionists, by which they mean that they love the only home they have ever known. Demanding an anti-Zionist BigBadCon demands their exclusion.
The Boycott summary faults BigBadCon for having “censored anti-Zionist language from event programming”. This is a misleading description of the events documented in the Boycott’s own letter, in which the Con organizers asked for the omission of an event plan in which ‘all panelists were asked to sign onto a statement [which] included the phrases “anti-Zionist” and “from the river to the sea”’. That is much more than Language In Event Programming.
Many say “anti-Zionism” as a noble call for justice across Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. But Jews have good reasons to also hear “anti-Zionism” as a call for the expulsion of Jewish Israelis from the only home they have ever known.
Many say “from the river to the sea” as a noble call for justice across Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. But Jews have good reasons to also hear that as a call for the expulsion of Jewish Israelis from the only home they have ever known.
The Big Bad Boycott summary calls on BigBadCon to “commit to consulting with Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and anti-Zionist Jews”. Thinking about Zionism is hard. Excluding non-Zionist and liberal Zionist Jews from discussion is irresponsible. Placing conditions on Jewish participants but not Palestinians is irresponsible; Palestinian anti-Zionists who advocate genocide exist. And one should reflect on how, and why, the Big Bad Boycott assumes that non-Palestinian Arabs & Muslims have a stake in this conversation.
I have yet to read the Big Bad Boycott letter as closely as I would like. For now, I want to examine just one segment which worries me, an early email from one of the Big Bad Boycott organizers to the Con, saying that Big Bad Con …
… asked to remove anti-zionist language from its event description due to the presence of zionist staff and/or donors at Big Bad. I find this news troubling, given that zionists are currently participating in and supporting a genocide in Palestine.
This passage is true in a trivial sense. Yes, there are Zionists participating in & supporting the genocide in Gaza. Just as there are vegetarians with the same culpability. The passage obviously means something else; it clearly implies that Zionists all participate in, or at least support, the genocide in Gaza. That is simply not what “Zionist” means.
That passage, and the whole tenor of the Big Bad Boycott, says that Zionists should be excluded from the Con community. Much stronger than Anti-Zionist Language In Event Programming.
I recognize that the Big Bad Boycott sponsors believe that they are calling for nothing other than the exclusion of advocates for genocide. If they were, I they would have my support. But they are not. In their ignorance, the leaders of the Big Bad Boycott have actually called for the exclusion of Israeli Jews who oppose the horrors committed under the flag of the home they love.
It should be evident why Jews would be touchy about this.
Again, I respect what the leaders of the Big Bad Boycott sincerely believe that they are doing. But they are responsible for what they are actually doing. Their demands are irresponsibly sloppy & ill-informed; they are harmful to the community.
Because I respect the noble motives behind the Big Bad Boycott, I urge BigBadCon to engage in good faith dialogue with its leaders, and to publicly address their demands. But I also urge BigBadCon to firmly refuse the current demands.
Little follow-ups
The Boycott organizers say:
Any claims to being both pro-Palestine / anti-genocide and a Zionist are inherent contradictions.
It occurs to me that it would be better to instead demand that BigBadCon commit to confronting the legacy of colonialist ideologies in TTRPGs more generally.
Seeing BigBadCon talking about doing “staff education about Zionism and Palestine”. I offer some resources I keep handy:
It really itches me that the Big Bad Boycott faults the BigBadCon organization for “censoring” an event description. A con organization does not just have a right to edit the con program, they have a responsibility to.
A decade back, I played a part in protest against a different con because they allowed an event description which insulted trans people. Con organizers have an obligation to ensure that the program welcomes & supports all members of the community.
Reasonable people may differ about whether BigBadCon made the right editorial decision in response to the event description submitted to them. But the Boycott is wrong to suggest that it was wrong for them to exercise editorial control at all.
I saw that a Quillette pseudo-journalist is criticizing the Big Bad Boycott, and I vigorously reject any support from them. I keep an index of resources about how Quillette respectability-wash the far right.
I have not seen anyone calling the Big Bad Boycott “financial violence”, but for what it’s worth, I concur with critiques of that position. I think the Boycott is wrong. But it is a legitimate instrument for pursuing a legitimate aim.
A long exchange with a Boycott supporter
This exchange starts with me saying how I want to speak to a couple of things about this post in support of the Big Bad Boycott which represents things which I find frustrating about the Boycott in general:
After the most recent update from BigBadCon, I and [others] will be joining #bigbadboycott. I love Big Bad Con, and believe that while likely most of the staff have their hearts in the right place, their failure to roll back their censorship is unacceptable —
This was the most simple and central demand of the boycott. I was so certain it would be addressed I hadn’t even considered it a possibility that they wouldn’t, so I didn’t originally sign on. I was clearly wrong.
Additionally, their insistence that “from the river to the sea” has multiple meanings is, whether intentional or not, a dangerous concession to genocidal propaganda.
I sincerely hope they will change their course in the next seven days before the boycott becomes official.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free 🇵🇸
I respect the Boycott pushing back against the Con’s editorial choices about event descriptions. A con program is an instrument by which the con defines its community; the community absolutely has a stake in it.
I am frustrated by the Boycott characterizing the Con’s editorial control of the program as “censorship”. Con organizers do not just have a right to exercise editorial control over event descriptions, they have a responsibility to, as custodians of the con community. I take the point about con organizers’ editorial control over the program very seriously because I am a veteran of a different con suffering a crisis over the org’s failure to protect vulnerable members of its community in its program.
Second, I am mortified to see the con saying “‘from the river to the sea’ has multiple meanings” characterized as “a dangerous concession to genocidal propaganda”. The multiple implications of the phrase is a fact.
I am confident that this individual and all organizers & participants in the Boycott mean nothing other than liberation & justice for all people in the Levant when they say “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. But no, that is not the only implication. The phrase “from the river to the sea” has long been used by people advocating the expulsion of Jewish Israelis. It has long been used by Israel hardliners who advocate the expulsion of all Arab Palestinians. It. Has. Multiple. Meanings.
The phrase “from the river to the sea” evokes “push them into the sea”, which has been used to advocate the expulsion both of Jewish Israelis and of Arab Palestinians. Anyone well-informed about the history of Israel-Palestine recognizes this. It is simply a fact that the phrase “from the river to the sea” comes burdened with multiple meanings. It is, frankly, chilling to see people call recognition of this bare fact “a dangerous concession to genocidal propaganda”.
Boycott organizers have echoed that refusal to accept facts:
claiming that “anti-Zionist” and “from the river to the sea” have a “plurality of meanings” is a Zionist capitulation, whether it is intended as such or not
Fergawdsake, actual f•cking Nazis commonly call themselves “anti-Zionist” as a coy way of claiming not to offer antisemitism. Damm straight it has a plurality of meanings. Claiming otherwise is unsafe for Jews.
Understand, I would vigorously support a boycott of a con which forbade the use of the expressions “anti-Zionist” or “from the river to the sea” in con events. The Big Bad Boycott is doing something very different.
I admire the organizers & supporters of the Big Bad Boycott working to have the Con community clearly stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as it should. I urge them to reconsider the terms on which they do this.
The author of the thread I was criticizing showed up in my mentions with a very generous-spirited reply:
Hey, first of all I appreciate the fact that you censored my name and pfp [blurring out those identifying details from a screenshot of the thread, to deter harassment] and it seems you are interested in good faith discussion. I can’t fit everything I want to say in one tweet so bare with me for a few minutes—
First of all, my position on the boycott will not be changing. It is tragic, especially when it seems to me that many of the Big Bad staff are in agreement with Palestinian liberation. It sucks that a battle is happening here rather than against worse organizations like the DNC. But I also think it is perfectly reasonable that a group is threatening to boycott an event after the language they want to use in their event has been restricted. Whether or not “Censorship” is the correct term seems immaterial here.
Secondly and more importantly, as far as I am aware, every “official” use of the river-sea slogan is explicitly NOT anti-Jewish / a call for removal. The 1968 PLO charter and its later revisions explicitly say that Jews will not be evicted, only people who oppose liberation. The 2017 Hamas charter also explicitly states that it “rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds”. If there are more similar official uses of the phrase, please let me know about them.
Of course there will be racists and antisemites who try to co-opt the movement and its terminology. In my expirience both in my local community and online, the liberation movement has been very proactive about calling them out and ousting them from pro-Palestine spaces. But I think giving their interpretations of the phrase credence is akin to saying that because equal rights for lgbtq people has been used to justify imperialist projects (including in Palestine), we shouldn’t use pro-lgbtq language.
I’ve spent a lot of time studying this but I am not an expert so please do let me know if there are things I am missing here. I do believe we are ideologically aligned for the most part and do want to hear what you have to say. I can promise to at least look into it
I replied:
Delighted to have you come to me this way, I really appreciate it. Let me reïterate: I respect you and the Boycott movement on two fundamentals. Doing the Boycott is legitimate, and all people of conscience must stand against the genocidal attack on Gaza and for Palestinian liberation. I say that partly because I have been trying to think of a way to respond which does not land at sounding pretty harsh, and feel that I have failed. So I want to be very clear where I am coming from.
I share your sense of tragedy over this conflict. There is stuff to say about [that], but I don’t want to start [there].
Editorial decisions about the Con program affect the Con community, so the community has a stake in those decisions. I both think the Boycott is a bad idea and consider it wholly legitimate. This distinction between “good” and “legitimate” is important in addressing the way the Boycott talks about the Con org “censoring” the event description.
The semantic weight of “censoring” is far from the most important thing, but it is substantive. It is fair for the Boycott to fault the editorial choices the Con org made over the event description in the program. It is very bad for the Boycott to imply that the Con org is wrong to make any editorial choices about event descriptions.
It is very easy to imagine event descriptions which you and I would vigorously agree that the Con org should forbid. The term “censorship” is pejorative and suggests that doing so would be illegitimate.
Further — and again, this is not of central importance, but it is worth naming — faulting the Con for “censoring anti-Zionist language” is weirdly incomplete. The issue is not that the language was anti-Zionist, it was the particular form it took. We can imagine a proposed event description including “kill all Zios” which we would all agree the Con would be right to forbid. So the question is whether the Con was right to forbid this particular anti-Zionist language.
It is reasonable to fault the Con org for having made the wrong decision about that event description. I’m going to mount a defense of their decision, but honestly I don’t feel all that strongly about it. I do feel strongly about the Boycott demands extending far beyond calling for a reversal of that decision about that event description.
So let’s talk about “from the river to the sea”.
Your invocation of “official” use of the slogan is strange. Why should that matter?
In objecting to the use of “from the river to the sea” (FTRTTS) and “anti-Zionist”, the Con org were addressing how those would be read, not what the event organizers meant. [The BigBadCon organization’s] evaluation may not be right, but [the Con organizers grounding their decision in] this standard is correct. I am confident that you are sophisticated enough in social justice advocacy principles to recognize that the Con should be considering impact, not intent.
As I said upthread, I both read most use of FTRTTS (including this one) as a call for liberation which I support and still feel dread when I hear it. I grit my teeth through that because supporting Palestinian liberation is more important than my feelings. But no, it is not unreasonable for Jews — especially Israeli Jews — to feel more threatened by [FTRTTS] than I do. (In a bit, I’ll address some of the historical particulars that you bring up.)
And “anti-Zionism” is even more charged than FTRTTS. I know that you and most “anti-Zionists” mean that you oppose disenfranchisement and worse of Palestinians. But that arrogates the meaning of “Zionism” away from actual Zionists [who] understand Zionism to mean nothing more or less than supporting the continued existence of Israel in some form. Zionism includes opposition to the oppression of Arab Palestinians, from its beginnings through the present. Israeli Jews who have actively worked against the oppression of Palestinians understand themselves as “Zionists” simply because they love the only home they have ever known. The event description excluded them.
Saying, “golly, the ‘anti-Zionist space’ the event description named and the Boycott now demands across the Con is not an attack on Israeli Jews who oppose the genocide in Gaza” is disingenuous. Why should they read it that way?
I have had exchanges with left “anti-Zionists” who say that celebrating Israel’s independence day is cause enough to drive someone out of their community. Why would someone reading the Con program assume that an “anti-Zionist space” means otherwise?
Understand, I am not necessarily defending celebrating Israel’s independence day. Heck, I am critical of celebrating the US’s Independence Day! But I think it is obvious why it would be unreasonable to demand that — since US history is riddled with slavery, genocide, and other brutality — the Con should exclude anyone who celebrates the US Independence Day.
Again, I don’t take you or the Boycott or most advocates for Palestinian liberation as meaning that Israeli Jews who love their home should be excluded from the community. But all y’all are responsible to know that you are saying something which will be heard that way.
OK, so finally I can come to your historical observations arguing that no one should read FTRTTS or “anti-Zionist space” these ways. Frankly, I find this naïve in accepting disingenuous arguments from the Palestinian liberation movement. There is a whole body of rhetoric by the movement for Palestinian liberation which says that Arab Palestinians have only ever wanted to live together in the Levant in peace and harmony, while “Zionists” all sought a violent purge of Arab Palestinians.
Horseshit.
Again, I know that you and the Boycott organizers & supporters and most people standing up for Palestinian liberation in the face of genocide in Gaza want a just, inclusive Palestine in which no one is disenfranchised. But you raised the history.
I know the PLO Charter quite well. It states clearly that they seek an Arab state in the whole of Palestine. It only counts “Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion” as Palestinians.
The PLO Charter says “Jews [⋯] are citizens of the states to which they belong”, not of their imagined Palestine. Most Israeli Jews are not just the descendants of refugees from genocide, they are descended from refugees from Arab states. It must be said that I am not offering Because The Shoah as justifying every wrong committed by pre-Israel Zionists or Israel. My point here is about the PLO’s vision, obviously significant in understanding Palestinian liberation movements.
In the vision of the PLO Charter, only a handful of Israeli Jews could be citizens of Palestine. Article 16 welcomes Israeli Jews as guests in Palestine, not citizens. So sure, the PLO Charter does not call for the murder or expulsion of Israeli Jews, it just announces plans to make them into stateless people, disenfranchised in the only home many of them had ever known.
And human rights language in the Hamas Charter is simply risible. Hamas are authoritarian theocrats. They don’t even respect the human rights of Arab Palestinians.
If you are pointing to the PLO & Hamas charters as reasons why Jews should not find FTRTTS and “anti-Zionist space” threatening, you are just not equipped to understand why the Con org responded as it did or why I am skeptical of the Boycott … you are just not equipped to gauge how diligent the movement for Palestinian liberation has been in avoiding bad allies … and you are just not equipped to understand how American Jews who support Palestinian liberation are touchy about antisemitism in this moment.
In demanding that BigBadCon declare the entire Con an “anti-Zionist space”, the Big Bad Boycott requires Jews to read that phrase more generously than [BigBadCon] can reasonably expect, and is calling for a lot more than [BigBadCon declaring] opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
That brings me back, finally, to the tragedy of the conflict over the Big Bad Boycott. Advocates for the Boycott are willing to crash an institution deeply dedicated to social justice over a stronger demand than y’all understand.
It is right and necessary that the Con community hold the Con org accountable for a truly inclusive space which supports marginalized people. It is unmistakable that the org are responding to the Boycott with the care & seriousness it merits.
I respect Boycott supporters like you who want to stand against the oppression of Arab Palestinians as we all should. I do not respect the Boycott organizers, who are responsible for escalating to bad demands.
This is doubly maddening because I think the Boycott is missing an opportunity to call for a broader reckoning with colonialism which would be relevant to both the TTRPG community and the horrors in Gaza.
I have gotten way too long-winded for Twitter here! And I have said things more harshly than I would like. This thread is clumsy in the name of not leaving you hanging too long. Please understand that I respect you acting out of good conscience, toward a good cause.
Threads from Thirsty Sword Dreadlord Latinx
On antisemitism
Big Bad Con Boycott has an issue with semantics, in that they hide behind it and then accuse their critics of doing the same. Of course, this is about Anti-Zionism. They want this term to be as broadly applied as possible without having to take responsibility.
Currently, Anti-Zionism has two definitions being used in discourse and that is:
- opposition to colonial violence of a Jewish religious enthnocracy.
- opposition to the existence of Israel and refusal to acknowledge imperial antisemitism and Jewish diaspora
The boycott’s Anti-Zionism is vehemently hostile and extends to demanding the names and ostracization of volunteers and donors who they accuse of harboring these sentiments, however they also get defensive and hostile when asked to explain what exactly they mean.
The most obvious reason BBC boycott doesn’t want to engage in defining Anti-Zionism is that leaves them open to accusations and straw-man fallacies and that definitely is a huge risk. I can’t play that down enough: there are people against the boycott are doing this.
However, bad faith accusations are never an excuse to engage in bad faith accusations which is what the boycott has done since mid August, almost a month before they threatened the convention to go public with accusations of being Zionist sympathizers. August 13th, was the first time the boycott called Big Bad Con “Zionist sympathizers” here on twitter, less than one week after they declared their Anti-Zionism boycott of Gencon a failure.
I can’t remark on the Gencon boycott beyond that some of the same people who participated are now involved with the most recent Big Bad Con boycott, however, they have been has escalating the use of Anti-Zionism rhetoric from this point. Big Bad Boycott has so far accused volunteers and attendees of Zionism for the following:
- Censorship of the panel description
- Expressed concerns for the security risk the uncensored panel descriptions would bring to the con by Zionist supporters
- Expressed concerns about the convention’s charity status being jeopardized by making a public statement of being Anti-Zionist
- Expressed concerns that the boycott broad application of Anti-Zionism would be received by the Bay Area’s Jewish community.
- Expressed concerns about the boycott’s accusation that volunteers are protecting Zionist sympathizers who are a danger to people of color.
- And [expressed concerns] that the boycott is specifically targeting critics of the boycott as Zionist sympathizers.
Yet no clear definition of Anti-zionism
That is until last week when a member of the boycott stated on Discord …
- Israel itself is a colony on stolen indigenous land and Jews, as colonizers, have no right to that land.
and more importantly
- Palestinian pain takes precedence over antisemitism.
Malignant ignorance of this stance gives me chills especially when applied to Anti-Zionism. It has no regards to the marginalization of Jews, historical or in the present day.
The Big Bad Boycott’s definition of Anti-Zionism is to exclude and marginalize any Jew or gentile who has a connection to the people and the land of Israel regardless how we use that connection to oppose the crimes against humanity Israel commits. For advocating for that connection, and the refusal to set it aside, Jews and gentiles like me are accused of playing “semantics and tone-policing”, when, in actuality, we demand a free Palestine and condemnation of the state of Israel without denying Jewish pain.
I have seen screenshots of a key bit of this discussion on Discord. Thirsty Sword Dreadlord Latinx is distilling the sense of the exchange rather than simply quoting it. But I can attest that his summary is an astringent but fair representation.
On a troublingly naïve aspect of the Boycott
On the boycott’s and my views on censorship of the panel at Big Bad Con. Censorship is a loaded word and it is abused heavily in right-wing circles. It’s why I get really angry when I see it used, but in this case the term does fit the definition of what has happened, but censorship happens for multiple reasons, and in this case the staff stated it was for security purposes, which the boycott refuses to acknowledge beyond a heavy dose of skepticism. The relationship continues to break down because the boycott doesn’t recognize the threat.
As stated by the staff, through leaked communications between Big Bad Con and the boycott, the con was concerned about vulnerabilities to website and to convention itself. Despite the boycott’s incredulity and ignorance, this threat is real and is growing day by day. A journalist of a right-wing online magazine has already taken notice of the boycott as well has written about two of those involved in a prior incident [I won’t state who nor which magazine]. The boycott is joking about this, but this is exactly the concern the staff have.
My particular concern is about the website and its security. Those who are familiar with our community for the past few years know how much the volunteers struggle to keep the site functioning especially when it comes to assigning spots for attendee at events … least to say, the website is very important to the convention and there are groups hostile to social justice and marginalized people and there are those who can could take advantage of that fact from anywhere in the world.
Those familiar with alt-right online threats know what can happen, but examples are doxxing of volunteers, swatting and harassment of attendees and volunteers, especially if they have highly visible social media presence, and DNS attacks. This is what the staff were referring to.
Hence, this is why the staff of Big Bad Con thought the removal of those key terms from the panel was necessary and I agree with them, and why the boycott's ideological opposition and condemnation is so frustrating. This boycott is righteous, but they are often wrong.
Note that the change in language of the panel ALSO included requiring the panelist to give signed commitment to Anti-Zionism which has complicated relationship with Jewish identity and antisemitism, which I have little understanding of and so I shouldn’t comment beyond this note.
Apropos of which, in the email exchange shared in the long Boycott letter, they asked BigBadCon to name any Zionists in the org. It should be obvious why that is a scary request, as discussed here:
A thread from (Mike) Draco on the Boycott’s theory of change
I told boycotters that painting BigBadCon and staff as being pro-genocide is fucked up and really not “reaching out out of love” and got hit with “so your issue is with the tone of our language”.
No, I think suggesting “YOU ARE EVIL GENOCIDE APOLOGISTS UNLESS YOU DO WHAT WE WANT” is a thing you say to someone you love is deeply, horrifically warped.I tried to be clear that no, I’m not against boycotts. If this was GenCon (which y’all mysteriously did not boycott despite their lack of masking and SJ [social justice] oriented statements), a huge convention that has actively chosen to, for example, not enforce masking and doesn’t have a history of going above and beyond for folks then fine. Or if you're boycotting a business that is explicitly making anti-LGBTQ or pro-Trump statements or whatever have at it!
I’m asking for people to consider that they are throwing rocks AT THEIR FRIENDS, INSIDE THE GLASS HOUSE YOU SHARE WITH THEM.
But I got “so boycotts are fine when you agree with them” in response.
And I sighed so damn hard.
To not be a hypocrite because I often criticize people who have complaints but no solutions:
I’m very curious why — when deciding to go more public with this issue — your group decided to immediately jump to a boycott instead of trying to first rally more public support. The boycott was the first I’d heard of the issue and hearing that y’all tried to go McCarthyist on con staff didn’t strike a good first impression. Did you ever apologize for that ridiculous demand or even admit it was wrong to make?
I know many people are likely not reading your whole (40 page long now) letter, including the 6 pages of e-mails. I’ve read most of it. I didn’t see any admissions of error, only continued brow-beating of staff, which matches my discord experience, and staff was much more polite. This is what I am referring to:
I’m emailing as a TTRPG professional who intends to attend Big Bad Con this year and a Scholarship Recipient. I have received troubling news from Esther, another Scholarship Recipient (CCed here), that one of the panels they are on was asked to remove anti-zionist language from its event description due to the presence of zionist staff and/or donors at Big Bad. I find this news troubling, given that zionists are currently participating in and supporting a genocide in Palestine. It would be beyond disappointing to learn that Big Bad is refusing to stand against genocide and is, in fact, supporting this genocide by siding with zionists. I hope that Big Bad does not make the same mistake that Gen Con made.
Can you please confirm the following?
- Who amongst Big Bad Con’s staff and/or donors identifies as a zionist?
- Does Big Bad Con openly and publicly hold anti-zionist values and support a free Palestine?
Please feel free to include in our email chain whomever among Bid Bad staff is relevant to address this concern. I hope to hear from you soon.
I really, truly, struggle to see how you leap from this response from BigBadCon staff …
Hello Hamnah and Esther,
We appreciate your concerns about Big Bad Con’s stance concerning the phrasing around [the panel organizer]’s panel. We want to make it clear that we do not track the political affiliations of any of our attendees, donors or staff and there have not been any demands made on us by any outside groups, individuals, donors, staff or otherwise. As an institution, no matter what our personal beliefs are, we do not want to draw Zionist attention to our public site, and Big Bad Con in general, through easily searchable phrases. We will not risk the safety of our marginalized attendees, staff, or volunteers.
As you know from attending Big Bad Con in years past, we go to great lengths to protect all of our attendees. Through our scholarship program we help women and people from marginalized genders, people of color, disabled, and lgbtqia+ individuals attend the con. Through Big Bad World we encourage and incentivize our attendees to live our community standards of respect, support, and kindness. Our anti-harassment, public health safety, and accessibility policies are all designed to ensure the wellbeing, safety, and inclusion of everyone who attends.
We are committed to taking action in lieu of statements when we can, in allyship with marginalized people. Every year, we have a fundraising run called the Wolf Run, which raises money for a charitable cause of our choosing. This year, we are donating the proceeds of the Wolf Run to Doctors Without Borders, a non-partisan group providing medical aid in Gaza.
To summarize: In the interests of protecting our staff and attendees, we asked that the more inflammatory language in the panel description be removed while keeping the majority of the values statement intact. We have made no other requests to [the panel organizer] or the other panelists, and have published the panel listing on our website with the amended values statement provided to us by [the panel organizer] in preparation to host the panel at our event this year.
Sincerely,
Nathan Black and the Big Bad Con Community Coordinators… to accusing [the BigBadCon staff] of being pro-Zionism and complicit in genocide.
Endgame
BigBadCon: Our Stance in Support of Palestinians
Posted to the BigBadCon blog on 27 September:
Big Bad Con denounces genocide, apartheid, and human rights violations. We believe in every person's right to self-determination, autonomy, and liberty.
We believe in the decolonization of Palestine, which we define as full equal rights for all people who dwell on the land. We do not condone calls for violence or expulsion of anyone in the region.
We call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an embargo on US military support for Israel. We call for an end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the invasion of Lebanon.
What does this mean for Big Bad Con?
Big Bad Con is a gaming convention dedicated to our community standards of Respect, Support, and Kindness. While we cannot significantly affect the events on the world stage, we can however ensure that our own community is a safer and welcoming space.
When we use the terms “Zionism” and “anti-Zionism”, we base them on the definition provided by the Jewish Voice for Peace: “While it had many strains historically, the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state [in Israel] where Jews have more rights than others.” Using this definition, we align ourselves in opposition to the oppressive actions of this form of Zionism, and stand in allyship with those oppressed by it. This is what we mean when we say that we are an anti-Zionist space.
The claim that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is a means to deflect criticism of Israel’s governmental actions. We reject the claim that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, and reject the use of this claim as a silencing tactic against Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with them.
We cherish the Jewish members of our community. We will not tolerate anti-Zionism being used as an excuse for harassment.
Our anti-harassment policy forbids hate speech and we expect everyone, especially when discussing difficult topics, to embody our community standards and treat each other with Respect, Support, and Kindness. Inclusion in our spaces is based on behavior, not by beliefs or identities.
The use of phrases and slogans to stand for complex sets of values is an important part of establishing a welcoming and supportive environment for those working to liberate themselves and others from oppression.
We acknowledge that phrases and slogans are used to stand for complex sets of values. Phrases such as “Black Lives Matter”, “never again”, “anti-racist”, “anti-Zionist”, and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are calls for the end of oppression and the liberation of oppressed peoples.
Context matters, and we presume the good faith of activists using these phrases. However, the use of these or any other phrase as a call for violence will not be tolerated in the Convention space.
We recognize that Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are often subject to Islamophobic discrimination, dehumanization, and violence. We recognize that Jews are often subject to antisemitic discrimination, dehumanization, and violence. We abhor Islamophobia and antisemitism, and will not tolerate them in our spaces.
Big Bad Con was called on by our community to demonstrate our position as a convention dedicated to supporting marginalized communities. We know that our allyship on these issues has been insufficient and we acknowledge the impact this has had on our community as we worked on this document.
What are we doing to help?
In addition to our above public statement, we are also responding with direct action. We call on our community in turn to join us in providing immediate support to the following relief efforts.
We have donated a total of $5,000 to the following relief funds. From now until October 27, 2024, we will match donations (up to another $5,000 total) to these causes:
- Crips for eSims for Gaza, a digital lifeline for people in Gaza cut off from the internet.
- Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, addressing urgent humanitarian needs and supporting long-term recovery efforts in Gaza.
To have your funds matched use this fundraiser link to donate to PCRF or email donate@bigbadcon.com with a receipt for your donation to Crips for eSims.
Big Bad Boycott response
The summary:
We have accepted Big Bad Con’s response to our demands. They have put out a pro-Palestine values statement, retracted anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine censorship, and committed to consulting with relevant groups in the TTRPG space over the next year. Though the statement is not as strong as we would have liked, we accept it in good faith as a demonstration of effort on the part of Big Bad's staff. We have given Big Bad our feedback on the statement and hope they will amend it to be more firmly anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine.
Since the boycott demands have been met, the #BigBadBoycott will not move forward on Oct. 1st. As per the terms of the boycott, we will not be hosting an alternative convention.
At the same time, we understand that Big Bad's leadership has acted and failed to act in ways that have been harmful to the community, especially to people of colour (PoC). Many have expressed a loss of trust in Big Bad Con as a space as it currently stands. We have expressed as much to the staff and have suggested courses of action they can take to do the long, hard work of appropriately stewarding a space for PoC. It is our hope that, over the next year, we will see Big Bad’s leadership do that work.
Their long demand letter which has a lot of detail about their communications with Con organizers has more, including this comment on the Con’s response:
We have a few thoughts on ways in which the statement could be further strengthened:
“We believe in every person’s right to self-determination, autonomy, and liberty.”
While we agree with the sentiment behind this sentence, “self-determination” is a term that Zionists often use to justify and excuse the colonization of Palestine. In this instance, we would suggest revising the sentence to “We believe in every person’s right to dignity, autonomy, and liberty.”
“We believe in the decolonization of Palestine, which we define as full equal rights for all people who dwell on the land.”
This sentence could call for decolonization in stronger terms – as it is, it reads like a two-state solution redefinition of decolonization. Decolonization means land back. Hamnah and I advise at minimum removing the second clause, and ideally, changing the clause to “which we define as sovereignty over the lands returned to Palestinians.”
“We do not condone calls for violence or expulsion of anyone in the region.”
This sentence comes across as condemning resistance to oppression that must sometimes necessarily manifest in violence. There are a plurality of approaches to liberation among Palestinian communities, and it’s not for us as non-Palestinians to define the terms and methods of their liberation for them. In other words, it’s not our place to tell Palestinians what steps to take to decolonize their lands. Historically, across the world, social progress has been made in part due to violent arms of various resistance movements. We would, at the very least, remove this sentence. Ideally, we would change the sentence to “We believe all resistance to oppression is valid and justified.”
“We call for an end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza”
This sentence invalidates Israel’s occupation of Palestine as a whole. The lands we now call “Israel” are part of occupied Palestine. Thus, when we call for the decolonization of Palestine, we mean all of those lands. Hamnah and I would change this sentence to “We call for an end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine”. This is especially pertinent because the statement cites Jewish Voice for Peace in its opposition to Zionism. It is important to note that JVP actively does not support a two-state solution and does not support Israel as a state. It is inconsistent to cite JVP while using language that suggests anything less than full Palestinian sovereignty over their own lands.
“Context matters, and we presume the good faith of activists using these phrases. However, the use of these or any other phrase as a call for violence will not be tolerated in the convention space.”
We urge the con to continue to develop more precise understandings of how you will determine when these phrases are deployed as “calls for violence.” At the very least, there should be some assurance for folks who do choose to use these and other liberation-minded phrases that, for instance, they will not be expelled from the con due to another attendee taking offense to the phrases and reporting them as a “call for violence.”
Commentary
The BigBadCon response to the #BigBadBoycott declares the con an “anti-Zionist space”, taking care to explicitly define what that does and does not mean, so that antisemitic dogwhisles don’t sneak through that rhetorical door. Using the Jewish Voice For Peace description of Zionism not only rules out ‘zionism’ which exists only in the antisemitic imagination … it also explicitly sets aside numerous real forms of Zionism, including Israelis who oppose their government’s wrongs while still loving their home.
I have serious hesitations about JVP. For example, And their 21 Grief Technologies document says:
Hearing Hebrew language can be deeply traumatizing for Palestinians. Therefore, prayers are best said in English or Arabic, rather than Hebrew. It is not our place to redeem our tradition on the backs of Palestinians. Enough has been taken.
And one of their local chapters said:
“death to israel” is not just a threat. it is a moral imperative and the only acceptable solution. may the entire colony burn to the ground for good.
But drawing on JVP to specify clearly what “Zionism” BigBadCon opposes in making a statement against Zionism has advantages. It benefits from the credibility to strong opponents of Israel of being such strong opponents of Israel. And that description avoids the unwholesome implications of “anti-Zionism” I warned against above, so I support that usage by the Con.
I have a hard time not seeing a bad faith motte-and-bailey move in the Boycot organizers grumbling about an expectation of a more expansive conception of “anti-Zionism” et cetera after their loosely-framed demands were met.