Worldcon Ordered to Apologize and Pay Conservative Author Jon Del Arroz for Banning Him and Calling Him 'Racist'

Photo credit Jon Del Arroz.

The snowflakes at Worldcon are having a very bad weekend. On Friday, the San Francisco chapter of Worldcon settled a lawsuit and agreed to pay restitution and to issue a public apology for banning conservative author Jon Del Arroz from their convention in 2018 and for besmirching him as a “racist.” Del Arroz is the most dangerous Hispanic voice in science fiction because he refuses to back down in the face of political bullies. He has also written an amazing series, The Saga of the Nano Templar, that my teen daughter is reading for the second time—that’s how good it is—and I don’t have to worry about garbage culture or leftist politics sullying her mind. The Adventures of Baron Von Monacle, a steampunk series, is also highly entertaining. (Always support freedom-loving artists!)

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At the time of the banning, Del Arroz was under serious mob attack from social justice warriors trying to drive him out of the sci-fi community. SJWs even sent a spring-loaded exploding can of penis-shaped glitter to his home, which scared his wife and children. The ban came about when Del Arroz asked Worldcon for security measures because he feared for his safety due to the mob-like attacks on him and his family from industry insiders. Instead of helping him, Worldcon banned him and made public statements claiming the author was a “racist” and a “bully,” with no substantiated evidence to back those statements up. I’ve known Del Arroz personally for many years. He is a devout and kind man with a good sense of humor and a love of the art of the troll. He is not vicious, but provocative in a way that is necessary for freedom of speech to be preserved. He’s the one brave enough to exercise the First Amendment in ways that ensure we will keep it. We all need people like Del Arroz in the fight to preserve liberty.

RELATED: Conservative Author Banned from Worldcon Sues for Political Discrimination and Defamation

After refusing to let it go, as most spineless conservatives would, Del Arroz fought for his reputation in court. Now, Worldcon has agreed to pay him $4,000, and issued this apology:

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SFSFC acknowledges the importance of reputation, especially for a relatively new author, and regrets that its public statement about barring his attendance might have led people unfamiliar with Mr. Del Arroz and his work to infer that he is or was a racist. For that, SFSFC apologizes. This attendance ban was specific to the Worldcon 76 events produced by SFSFC, and Mr. Del Arroz has the same opportunity as other members of the public to register for future SFSFC events. Worldcon 76 does not tolerate discrimination in any form — including through cosplay — based on but not limited to gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical/mental health conditions. SFSFC firmly believes that healthy political discourse requires active, mutual, good faith participation by members of the community with differing opinions.

Kevin Roche
Chair, Worldcon 76 in San Jose
President, San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions, Inc.

File 770, an industry blog, has readers who aren’t too happy with this news. Their reactions are laughably pained.

“Jon Del Arroz is DEAD TO ME. I would trust advice from him on ‘diversity and inclusion’ about as far as I could throw him…into an active volcano,” wrote Chris Barkley.

Jim Hines seemed very confused about the apology and didn’t think it was humiliating for Worldcon. “Maybe it’s just me, but ‘SFSFC firmly believes that healthy political discourse requires active, mutual, good faith participation by members of the community with differing opinions’ reads like a pretty big FU to JDA and his trolling.” It’s just you, Jim. 

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File 770 writer Mike Glyer straightened it out for him, writing, “Apologizing to him and paying him money is not something that will look to JDA like an FU.” Nor does it look that way to us!

Reader Eric Franklin crowed that Del Arroz can’t use social media to crow about his victory because he keeps getting suspended. “I’m glad he’s off of Twitter and Facebook right now, because this will be old news before he has a chance to be completely insufferable about this in public again.” Not so fast, Eric. You’ve forgotten that conservative media isn’t suspended from social media (yet) and we are happy to do the crowing for him.

Reader John Arkansawyer had the best insight, writing, “Perhaps people should be a little more careful how they throw around the word ‘racist.’ A court is capable of determining when a term of art becomes a slur.”

And it seems that the mob leaders are getting the message—at least on Twitter where the leftist tears are flowing. No one is calling Del Arroz a “racist” anymore. They’ve been effectively neutered. Paul Weimer wrote, “I mean…I’ve got nothing I can say. Or probably should, publicly or otherwise.” That’s terrific, Paul. You’re finally learning to obey your mother when she told you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all!” Congratulations on figuring out how civilized people behave.

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Some are still claiming they are “unsafe” in Del Arroz’s presence. It’s such baloney. He’s one of the nicest guys I know. He would never, ever physically harm anyone if it wasn’t in self-defense. He would be more likely to talk to an attacker about Jesus than throw down. They don’t know him at all and it would be comical if it weren’t so nasty. It’s my opinion that his critics should reconsider suggesting publicly that he is somehow dangerous. Again, they’re wading into dangerous territory with a man who has a lawyer and is patient enough to wait years to get justice. Alex Brown wrote, “WorldCon is about to get even less safe for marginalized people,” in response to the settlement. How absolutely absurd.

Jon Del Arroz Worldcon
Twitter screenshot.

PJ Media reached out to Del Arroz — one of the most marginalized people in the science-fiction community as a minority and a conservative Christian — to get his reaction to the news.

“I hope this is the first step toward cultural institutions understanding they can’t treat conservatives and Christians like second-class citizens,” he said. “It’s our right to enjoy science-fiction, comic books, or any fandom without being harassed for who we are.”

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Fandoms in gaming and comics have a bad history of discriminating against Christian conservative people. And it will never end until the people being discriminated against get lawyers and sue, as Del Arroz did. The defamation of character that SJWs regularly engage in should be confronted and they should be forced to behave like decent civilized people instead of rabid gangsters on the prowl during Purge Night.

RELATED: #BoardGamergate: SJW Coup of Board Game Industry in Progress!

Del Arroz has shown that the unfair character assassinations happening all over the Internet will not hold up in a court of law. So stop apologizing to the far-left lunatics and lawyer up. This is the way. The only thing that would have made this settlement better is if Worldcon had been forced to adopt Del Arroz’s other idea for helping them with their “diversity” training. Left out of the settlement was Del Arroz’s generous offer to add him as the “Diversity & Inclusivity Officer to the organization for future conventions and events to ensure discrimination based on identity does not occur again.” That would have been beautiful, but an apology and a few thousand dollars ain’t bad, either.

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