I’m breaking from the review-only format to include news from the specfic market/community because I couldn’t read about this and not pass it on, especially since there seems to be an effort to suppress it.

From a rejection letter sent out by an editor of Helix:

I’m impressed by your knowledge of the Q’uran and Islamic traditions. (Having spent a couple of years in the Middle East, I know something about these things.) You did a good job of exploring the worm-brained mentality of those people – at the end we still don’t really understand it, but then no one from the civilized world ever can – and I was pleased to see that you didn’t engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.

Here is where I initially found it at

ktempest

‘s LJ. She links the whole letter and the editor’s response, which is, well, not an apology.

Here is

tobias_buckell

‘s response at his site. He has a very acute analysis of a racist’s defense — the “out of context” argument, among other forms of denial. Some words need no context.

matociquala

 provides a link addressing the private-letter-made-public controversy here.

In the comment threads you can also find the “white-man’s trust” defense, which is probably the nastiest bit of all of it.

Integrity is what you do when nobody’s looking. And the knowledge that someone is always looking.