Diversity road to no where

Originally published June 15, 2020

Last week #publishingpaidme blew up on Twitter, highlighting the ugly truth Black authors have long known, that they are offered a fraction of the advances white authors get, even when the Black authors in question are well established award-winners with an international fan base and a history of successful books, and the white authors in question have untested debut manuscripts or less, perhaps just a single essay that went viral. How can this be, this appalling and unfair disparity? IT’S WHITE SUPREMACY. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

White supremacy isn’t just pillowcase-hooded lunatics and tax-payer funded terrorists who call themselves cops. Supremacy is an entire industry - publishing houses, literary journals, literary agencies, books’ columnists, Bookstagram influencers, the faculty at MFA programs - overwhelmingly staffed by a homogeneous group of people. Is it any wonder they unconsciously undervalue the voices and work and stories of authors who don’t look like them? Is it any wonder they publish books stuffed to the gills with moronic tropes? Is it any wonder the books about Black characters that net the big money advances are written by white authors and feature said tropes? Some publishers have vowed to do better, Penguin Random House included. And I’m sincerely rooting for them, not least because they have been a good home to The Boat People. But I’m not getting my hopes up prematurely. We shall wait. We shall see.

Fact is, I’ve already been down this diversity road to nowhere. Last year I was asked to join an advisory board for a literary journal. They wanted to diversify their content and created a new volunteer board. Except they didn’t have a plan for how this board would accomplish the job. There were no meetings. In hindsight: a red flag. And in requesting my unpaid labour, they weren’t giving me any decision making power (apart from the ability to curate 25 pages in a special issue). I had my reservations, a bad feeling in my gut that these were, well-meaning perhaps, but ultimately, empty words about diversity, perhaps only a check box on a grant application. But years of reading literary magazines have proven how few Asian and Black and Indigenous authors get fiction published. My own experience is the stories I’ve written featuring white protagonists are more readily accepted. So I said yes to the volunteer work I did not have time for, because holding the door open is important. As anyone who isn’t a naive fool might have guessed, my good intentions backfired. A year later it became obvious that despite being on something that purported to be an advisory board, my advice was not wanted, thank you very much, and they would publish a known and unrepentant plagiarizer, despite the fact that I’d made it abundantly clear on Day Zero that this was the one non-negotiable about my involvement. Surprise! They didn’t want my counsel so much as my on-trend brown skin and the false veneer of diversity it conferred on the masthead. (Related: Isn’t it curious how mediocre white guys keep getting second and third and infinite chances?)

Fast forward to the present. In the overdue cultural reckoning that has resulted from George Floyd’s brutal murder, many an empty word has been uttered. Companies large and small are preening for back pats while simultaneously doing nothing. Or worse. An indie clothing store in St John’s posted their commitment to anti-racism on Instagram along with their grand plan to start a book club, of all things (this store that doesn’t sell books save the kind of amusing trifle you might find in a downstairs loo). Punchline: They want a black/ indigenous/ person of colour to lead said book club. It is what my mother would call a “goo contract.” Naturally, there is no mention of payment. Hey guys! We’re looking for slave labour. Spread the word. #blacklivesmatter.

“The right acknowledgment of black justice, humanity, freedom and happiness won’t be found in your book clubs, protest signs, chalk talks or organizational statements. It will be found in your earnest willingness to dismantle systems that stand in our way.”

— Tre Johnson, Washington Post

Tre Johnson, in a searing and thoughtful Washington Post essay on book clubs, writes (emphasis mine): “The right acknowledgment of black justice, humanity, freedom and happiness won’t be found in your book clubs, protest signs, chalk talks or organizational statements. It will be found in your earnest willingness to dismantle systems that stand in our way — be they at your job, in your social network, your neighborhood associations, your family or your home. It’s not just about amplifying our voices, it’s about investing in them and in our businesses, education, political representation, power, housing and art.”

Dismantle the systems. This is the work. The revolutionary work. Organizations could scrutinize their staff, their leadership teams, their payroll, their tenured faculty, their editors and gatekeepers, the merchandise they choose to not just sell but heavily promote. Companies, yes, even an entire industry, could diversify all of this if they wanted. If they were earnestly willing to tear down the systems that artificially prop up one group’s supremacy at the expense of everyone else. If.

RECEIPTS

Because there’s always some fragile bro piping up ”but…but…” here are:

Pie charts, bar graphs, and hard numbers illustrating demographics from the 2018 Canadian Book Publishing Diversity Baseline Survey and America’s Lee & Low 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey Results.

Here’s a first person video account from someone who works inside the industry. Here’s another.

Finally, you don’t have to be on Twitter to pay attention to @BIPOCPub.