 from the outside. This is also a Carl Brandon Society benefit: if you don't know who the Carl Brandon Society are, do come and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have about them! I will also have membership forms for people interested in joining or donating to the Carl Brandon Society.
Steampunks of Colour, Unite! will be a Safe Space. It is meant to be a POC-centric space. 
Mad scientists are a staple in the pulp fiction that eventually led to steampunk, but perceptions of the mad scientist have changed over the years. Formerly tragic figures or evil blasphemers, they are now celebrated as brilliant eccentrics. How does the figure of the mad scientist reflect or gloss over attitudes towards mental illness and neuro-diversity? We'll talk about who gets called a mad scientist, who doesn't, what constitutes madness and genius, and how that's changed over the years.
God knows why they've given me such an unholy time of day for it, but I'm not complaining, because I'm one of those mad ones who actually like the mornings. I will be joined by Julie Hoehn, who will be presenting on mental illness and asylums in the Victorian era. I have no idea who she is but I look forward to meeting her!
Yes, we do get a full two hours in the afternoon to natter all we want on this issue! Now, the only problem is that the auditorium isn't conducive to creating a roundtable, so it'll be difficult for the usual circle sit-down, but we'll manage. I will facilitate discussion, and everybody else gets to talk. We've done it before; we can do it again.
After that, go have a nap, rest up, and then join us later in the evening for FIREBRANDS! The Radical Steampunk Party in the party room! If there are conversational threads you'd like to pick up on from Envisioning, come continue them with us.  I'll be in and out because of the concert, but overall, it'll be a very chill party.
On SUNDAY, I end SteamCon with Art, Profit & Capitalism In Steampunk in Regency B, at 11am -12pm.
The Industrial Revolution was the time period where capitalism first began to take hold. Now, the steampunk aesthetic is a new market commodity, and steampunks are a fresh market to tap into. How does this affect the tensions between artists who have to make a living and folks who do it for fun? What is the place of profit in a community that supposedly values re-engineering old things? How can we support our favorite artists, makers and musicians without putting ourselves and themselves out of pocket?
I'm trying very hard to present panel suggestions that ask some difficult questions that I can engage conversation with, rather than stuff that have clear-cut answers and are about info-dumping. There are no absolute answers, and hopefully you'll find the discussions useful to you in the future.
So, come hang out!
Lately we've been seeing a huge boom in steampunk. I think we can agree with this; we can find books on steampunk, we have more steampunk conventions this year than three years ago (possibly over 200% more), and we see steampunk costumes at regular cons too. I've met a lot of people who enjoy steampunk's newfound popularity. Yay, we're going mainstream. Woo.
Now, I'm not sure if anyone is keeping receipts, but we have a community problem, in which certain personalities in steampunk have become somehow representative of the best in steampunk, mostly because they're smart enough to invest in the ignorance of newcomers to the scene, making them fans while covering up their tracks as they alienate other members of the subculture.
People who have issue with Evelyn Kriete, you know what I mean.
Robert Brown of Abney Park, though, does.
A while back, "Captian" Robert deleted a fan image off his Facebook wall. Why delete this fan image, a tribute from El Investigador, Mexico's first steampunk magazine? Because it had writing on it. In Spanish. In Robert Brown's memorable words, "If I can't read it, it's spam."
Now I don't know about you but there are a lot of things I can read, and is spam. There are a lot of things I can read, and it's patent rubbish. There're a lot of things I can read, and it is misleading racist vitriol. There are a lot of things I can read, and it's sexist tirades.
And then there are things I cannot read.
Like poetry in the mother tongue I have lost to colonialism.
Like the bilingual/multi-dialect work of Gloria Anzaldua articulating a borderlands identity.
Like revolutionary literature across Latin America and Europe.
Like Jacques Derrida untranslated.
There's a superb ethnocentrism in insisting in that your environment can only be Anglo, that it must always cater to you, and that you will not only refuse to endorse something to the contrary, something you deem foreign, but also to put it down, insult it as "spam."
Backed with the institutional power, privilege and shied from backlash that is a benefit of the white supremacist system of North America, to dismiss something from a fan that does not suit your ethnocentrist world-view is a kind of everyday racism.
It's so common I only had an eyeroll when it happened.
Then there was the arguments. And the fans coming to his defense. And then the fans going all YAY ROBERT THAT'S RIGHT SPEAK ENGLISH IF YOU WANT TO LIVE IN THIS COUNTRY.
After it became clear what a racist fiasco it was turning out to be, good ol' Captian Robert started deleting things off Facebook. And he's never been called to account for it since then. Abney Park still got to play to large crowds at Steamstock. Robert Brown is still selling albums.
Quite unlike Evelyn Kriete's funnelling fans into steampunk, whereby her methods rely on the genuine curiousity of new steampunk fans, Robert Brown's drawing in of new steampunk fans relies on the consumerist impulse to find new things to like, new music to enjoy in self-centered vicarity.
This does not mean that Abney Park fans stay in that place of consumerist fetishism; it explains why Robert Brown is never called to account for his actions: on the principle that you can separate the work from the artist, that the support for the art in no way reflects on support for the artist's actions, especially if fans of the art are ignorant of the artist's essential flaws.
Now, I believe that it is possible to take a work of art on its own. To appreciate how it has been put together as it is. To void it of its context entirely, and come to a value judgement based on this. This is how a lot of us are taught to approach art, and I think it's necessary to be able to do this.
Nonetheless, this approach is how we allow racists in our midst, accepting their presences as somehow valuable because of the work they produce.
Recently, a young fan of Abney Park wrote to Robert Brown. Why? Because in an Abney Park song (as in many steampunk songs, sadly), the word "gypsy", a common slur, so common so few people recognize it as a slur, comes up.
As the new super-power howls through the night!
Until recently, however, it was not brought to Abney Park’s attention that the word “Gypsy,” when used by a non-Roma or non-Romani individual, is an offensive slur at worst and an unkind, obnoxious stereotype at best. I have a Rroma friend who is very uncomfortable attending steampunk concerts or conventions, due to the large amount of stereotyping that goes on towards Romani culture in the steampunk commmunity. Hearing this song was icing on the cake for her - after the first time she heard it, she started crying and tearfully swore she would not have anything more to do with steampunk. I felt awful.
So, I sent a very polite e-mail to Robert Brown, their lead singer/songwriter.
I expected benevolent indifference or dismissive “Sorry you were offended” responses, honestly. But what I got was much, much worse.
I’m ashamed of what I did next.
I was willing to let it slide. I miserably told my Roma friend (who is the sweetest, kindest person who told me I had done my best, when I hadn’t) I had failed, and I wasn’t going to go the extra mile to find out if Robert Brown, my former idol, sucked just as much as a ton of other white people.
Unfortunately, he proved it to me himself.
One of my friends moved in for a call out, after which he called her a troll and a “suburban white kid with an adopted cause,” deleted and blocked her, and eventually deleted the entire post itself – something the good Captain seems fond of doing, as he’s deleted other posts that caused controversy.
Words don’t come in and out of fashion like the Captain seems to think they do - Gypsy has been used as a slur for a really really long time. No one suddenly decided it’s a bad word to use.
Up til now, I had done nothing to indicate to him that he