I can’t keep up with all the social media that discusses Barker so perhaps some already cited the following. I found this link, which dates from December 2014, on the Your Dungeon is Suck blog. A pseudonymous poster says Barker was “pretty much a Nazi.” (I apologize for the ethnic slur in the following — it was in the original.)
Begin Quote
Coxzucker., December 10, 2014 6:43 am: As long as we’re discussing Barker, it’s worth pointing out that he was pretty much a Nazi, too. At least, he struck the pose for shock value. Of course, he married a Paki, so who knows how seriously he took it.
Xartan Tsathoggua, December 10, 2014 12:16 pm: Nazi? Where’s your source for that?
Coxzucker, December 10, 2014 1:07 pm: I game with several guys who, at one time or another, were members of his “Thursday Night” Tekumel group.
Xartan Tsathoggua, December 11, 2014 6:15 am: Holy shit! I guess he was from northern Idaho.
bad wolf, December 11, 2014 6:38 am: Not really sure what you’re referring to as ‘Nazi’. It’s hard to see any racial angles on Tekumel. The world more or less has one racial type, and it’s definitely a non-aryan olive skinned black hair look. A posthistorical mixing of everyone that wasn’t wiped out in a nuclear war, ie. north America and Europe (No blondes! No blue eyes!).
[Unrelated post deleted]
Coxzucker, December 11, 2014 10:45 am: ‘Taint Tekumel I’m talkin’ ’bout. Barker had a bizarre fascination with Holocaust Revisionism and other unseemly White Powery sort of deals. You should have seen the catalogue list for his “WW2 Collection” when they liquidated his books.
End Quote
(The above is slightly edited for format.)
Seems the Thursday Night Group was talking about Barker’s Nazi tendencies almost eight years ago.
Well, Jeff Berry has said he notified the foundation about all this in 2012 and found out that two of the board already knew about it.
Jeff Berry has a well-known antipathy toward the Tekumel Foundation. That doesn’t disprove his claim, but it does suggest that it should be taken with a grain of salt unless backed up by supporting evidence.
I’ve been in touch with someone who took a photo of Berry’s copy of Barker’s Nazi novel somewhere around 9 years ago, which is independent verification that Berry knew at least that much around that time. Yet that same person told me Berry’s an “unreliable”. witness, and said, “it’s entirely plausible to me that they [the Foundation] didn’t know for quite some time”.
Jeff Berry isn’t the only one who’s been outspokenly critical of the Foundation, of course, and at least some of the spin on this story seems (to me, at least) to be driven by their spite. That sure makes it difficult for someone like me, caught in the middle, to draw any hard conclusions either way. The Foundation *definitely* knew 2 1/2 years ago, which already looks very bad, but not “we licensed Tekumel to Jeff Dee while we knew about Barker’s secret Nazi activities” bad. And I can easily see, with regret, how a group as slow as they are to get *anything* done, and faced with something as upsetting as this, and with Barker’s *widow* on their board of directors, could procrastinate for a couple of years foolishly hoping it’d go away. But I’m personally going to have to see much more conclusive evidence before believing they sat on this for *ten* years.
Thanks for your comment.
Jeff Berry disclosed publicly that Barker had written the book. The Tékumel Foundation has acknowledged that it chose not to disclose this information. It’s clear to me that were it not for Berry the wider public would not know who wrote Serpent’s Walk.
Berry says that in 2012 he informed the Foundation that Barker wrote Serpent’s Walk. The Foundation has not yet provided a clear timeline of when its officers knew (unless I missed something). However, Dave Morris said in his blog that Barker spoke openly of the book in the late 1980s. The blog quoted in the Post above is evidence that Thursday Night Group players knew as before 2014. Barker’s book collection contained anti-Semitic literature when auctioned after his death in 2012. An academic colleague of Barker’s told me that he openly displayed Nazi memorabilia while a professor. I think this is all “supporting evidence” that it is plausible some people in the Foundation knew of the book several years ago. After all, these were among Barker’s closest confidantes (and many were members of the Thursday Night Group).
Certain people at the Foundation and Berry have been feuding for many years, it is true. I am neutral and I certainly do not judge the Foundation. We are all human and make mistakes and the Foundation has acknowledged its mistake. However, I think it is in bad taste to accuse Berry of being a liar. I’ll repeat that were it not for Berry, none of of this would have come out.
Jeff (Dee), I imagine you are in a difficult situation. You have a solid reputation as a progressive advocate of inclusion, yet now your work is linked to the work of a Nazi sympathizer. You’ve written some interesting thoughts on how to separate Tékumel from Barker. “Occupy Tékumel” could provide some players a way to adjust the setting so they will feel more comfortable. I think this is a healthy way to proceed. Casting aspersions on Berry, however, might be wrongly perceived as attempted revenge on the person who was honest about Barker’s authorship.
Read my comment again. I haven’t called Jeff Berry I liar. I’ve pointed out that he’s a person with a known motive to lie. A motive which you acknowledge. So can we please have some independent confirmation of his claim that he told the Foundation in 2012, before leaping to the conclusion that it’s true? I don’t think this is too much to ask.
I’ve been compiling names and dates to try and get to the bottom of all this. The earliest *public* post about Barker’s Naziism that I’ve been able to find is by Peter Gifford, in late 2019. And the earliest public post about it I’ve found from Jeff Berry was in late 2020. A year later. If you can direct me to an earlier public statement by Jeff Berry, I’d love to know about it. Thanks.
I did not acknowledge Jeff (Berry) has a motive to lie.
Nor did I say that his having a motive proves that he lied.
Okay?
Has Berry explained why he said nothing publicly about this until recently? Regardless of when/whether he told the Board about it, he’s certainly known himself for at least 10 years, by his own admission. And yet he said nothing to the broader community. Great that he helped blow the whistle on this. But why did he take so long to do so?
I’ve been asking this question in various places for a while now and have yet to get an answer.
If anyone had questions of Jeff Berry, why not simply ask him directly? His contact info is all over the internet. Seems like a whole lot of pouring all over the internet looking for other clues instead of just asking.
I don’t use social media, his blog is gone, he’s gone dark on the forums I use, and the one email I found that might have been him bounced when I tried it. That’s why.
His blog is not gone:https://chirinebakal.proboards.com
I find that characterization of mrs Barker as a “paki” by coxzucker merely shows as repugnant an attitude as nazism.
Jeff Dee on March 28, 2022 at 1:08 pm said:
Jeff Berry has a well-known antipathy toward the Tekumel Foundation. That doesn’t disprove his claim, but it does suggest that it should be taken with a grain of salt unless backed up by supporting evidence.
collector
on March 28, 2022 at 9:33 pm said:
Barker’s book collection contained anti-Semitic literature when auctioned after his death in 2012. An academic colleague of Barker’s told me that he openly displayed Nazi memorabilia while a professor.
Wouldn’t the Foundation have known about the book collection that went up for auction? And they were Barker’s “inner circle,” had they not seen Barker’s collection of Nazi memorabilia? And the Foundation has the greatest reason to dispute Berry’s claim, no? I’m sure they wouldn’t like to admit that they sat on the issue for ten years.
If you were to take anything at all with a grain of salt, I would think it would be regarding the Foundation only being aware of the issue for 2 1/2 years.
“Barker’s book collection contained anti-Semitic literature when auctioned after his death in 2012.”
1) Is there a link to the source of this information? It would be helpful to know who said it, when, and how they knew it.
2) What reason is there to conclude that the Tekumel Foundation had anything at all to do with any part of Barker’s estate, other than the Tekumel material? Barker knew the Foundation was forming, he’d taken steps to keep his Nazi novel secret, and he had time to make sure the Tekumel material they got wouldn’t ‘out’ him as its author. No?
“An academic colleague of Barker’s told me that he openly displayed Nazi memorabilia while a professor.”
The possession of war memorabilia does not prove, let along strongly indicate, a sympathy for the enemy side. My dad owned Confederate Civil War stuff, but was no supporter of their cause. And may of Barkers associates, knowing he has Nazi memorabilia, have publicly chalked it up to him merely being qa history buff.
I don’t think anybody is seriously arguing any more that Barker wasn’t a Nazi. But *that* isn’t how we know it. We know it because of the book he wrote, its publisher, and his seat on the editorial board of that Holocaust-denying rag. And possibly also because he had anti-Semitic literature in his book collection (citation needed).
“Wouldn’t the Foundation have known about the book collection that went up for auction?”
Possibly, but it’s also possible they simply gathered up Tekumel material that had been set aside for them and went their merry way. We need a first-hand account, preferably more than one, to know for sure either way.
“And they were Barker’s “inner circle,” had they not seen Barker’s collection of Nazi memorabilia?”
Yes, and yet multiple people *not* in his inner circle also saw that stuff and presumed it just meant he was a history buff.
“And the Foundation has the greatest reason to dispute Berry’s claim, no?”
Yes. That’s why I’m equally interested in discovering whether there are independent sources verifying *their* side of the story.
Sorry for the typos. In particular, I wrote “multiple people *not* in his inner circle” when I meant “multiple people in his inner circle who are *not* in the Tekumel Foundation”. Because that’s the point I was making. It’s difficult to attribute the conclusion that he was just a history buff to the Foundation bias when multiple people who wouldn’t share that bias reached the same conclusion.
OK, to go through your points:
1) Part of Barker’s book collection was listed on Amazon for sale (an Amazon store?). I was never able to see the list of books (which had already been sold) but when I looked in 2017 there was a comment still preserved that mentioned the many anti-Semitic books. That also no longer comes up in a search — wayback might be able to find it — but I remember it clearly. The post above also mentions the sale of his book collection. I am guessing both Jeff B. and the Foundation have a list of the books sold.
2) The people who served on the Foundation were among Barker’s closest confidantes and involved in helping Ambereen take care of his effects.
3) Yes, but Barker’s memorabilia was part of a pattern and as you say it’s not really in question that he was a Nazi or active sympathizer (if there’s a difference).
I consider myself friends with at least one person on the Foundation and I am not trying to prove they engaged in a coverup and I take no joy in an of this. However, Jeff B. says he told them in 2012 and I don’t have any reason to doubt that. Nothing else he’s said about this has proved untrue.
Thanks for posting this or else I wouldn’t have seen it. I feel for you; as a collector, the man’s presence must be pretty much unavoidable.
I wonder whether you know what you’re aiming for with this research. Are you hoping to better discern when Barker went off the rails? Or whom in the scene is trustworthy going forward? (It’s disquieting the number of his associates who lacked alacrity in bringing this to the wider community’s attention or seemed not too bothered by his provision of propaganda to a neo-Nazi publisher or lending his name, at the least, to a Holocaust-denial “journal”.)
I’m pretty much at the point where I’m just waiting to see what happens with the community. If too many people leave and the space ends up occupied by neo-Nazis or anti-Semites then it’s over for me. But I also don’t think we need to “Occupy Tékumel” so much as be careful of what stories we tell in it.
It is pretty strange to see myself quoted in this context! I had no memory of this exchange until you posted it. As you can see from the rest of the exchange I was clueless what the other poster was talking about, as it doesn’t mean anything within the context of Tekumel itself.
Am I upset about these ‘revelations’? Again, no. I didn’t know him personally, and given he was surrounded by a number of family, players, friends and fans through this time I have a hard time believing this is some ‘inner person’ that should horrify us. He did not somehow form a socialist worker’s union or take up arms against the Allies in late 1980’s Minnesota. No one even said he was personally offensive (people really obsessed with such things don’t seem to ever stop talking about them) and I don’t really believe in ‘mind-reading’ people for their ‘hidden agendas’, let alone someone dead for a decade. People once upon a time were still allowed to have diverse, even contrarian, positions, and these were not necessarily anathema to polite society. (My personal theory is a response to the Satanic Verses kerfluffle of the time, perhaps suggested to him that he demonstrate how little ‘freedom of speech’ really means in the West?)
So does this do anything for me? Not really, no. My biggest source of ‘anger and disappointment’ is that the Prof would have been working on this in the late ’80s, when I imagine his writing was at higher level of quality. That he wrote no more Tekumel novels until the late ’90s publication of Lords of Tsamra was always unfortunate to me, his writing or lack of editing left that a poorer product.
Finally am I upset at the Foundation? Again, no. Given the current climate for this sort of allegation I would have buried anyone in the know under a mountain of Non-Disclosure Agreements. I don’t know what this portends for the future but it can only hurt licensing or crowdfunding. But if anything the Foundation disappointed me more by taking 5+ years to get out a Kindle edition of Flamesong. As my other comments on YDIS note, it has been many years of hearing about the wonderful things in the Professor’s filing cabinets. Ten years on, what have we seen? The group has produced nothing new, while an independent blogger such as yourself has given us the only new story and artwork in a couple of decades. Why is that?
(Apologies if this is comment-section necromancy; I don’t follow RPG news much these days, and it’s blind chance I’m only this late hearing this has gone public.)
I learned something about this about ten years ago (around the time of Barker’s death, the cataloguing and transfer of his library to the Tekumel Foundation, and its auctioning off by the Foundation). In fact, I heard about it three times. Two different sources were people from Minneapolis and Barker’s gaming groups, who weren’t at that point part of each others’ social circles as far as I knew, and both asked me to keep it confidential (as, I understood it, a condition of being told.) I didn’t get enough details to use to verify the information myself (about the novel; the decade as editor for the negationist didn’t come up), chose not to ask for more details or really follow up on it, and subsequently drifted myself even farther right out of the scene.
Shortly later, through academic circles, I also heard from someone in Barker’s field and previously connected with U. Minnesota, who confirmed that Barker’s sidelining/early retirement from the uni in the early 90s was (as I’d already heard) because the administration had learned about his ‘publishing some neo-Nazi novel, without even trying to hide it’. This third person, FWIW, knew nothing about Tekumel at all; it came up in the context of Nazi-admiring American Indologists, which is a category with membership >1.
Now, I feel even guiltier, ashamed, and more nauseous than I have for the last decade. ‘Respecting confidentiality’ (until this post, I guess) aside, having participated in and contributed to Tekumel fandom, I then contributed to the cover-up; I made myself part of the problem. I’m sorry.
But also, the fact that I — a never more than marginal and by then pretty inactive player in Tekumeliana, with no face-to-face connection to anyone in the Twin Cities — could learn of this from three different people, without going looking for it, makes me absolutely incredulous about any proposal that anyone made this up or exaggerated it on a grudge, or that it wasn’t much more generally known among the Tekumel Foundation board, Tuesday/Thursday/whatever Night Group members, etc., at the time of his death if not earlier. That’s just too much fantasy even for the life of M.A.R. Barker to contain.
Thanks Kim. I apologize for taking so long to approve the post. I haven’t gone through the comments in a while. I agree with you completely except I don’t think you should beat ourself up too badly.