After a few years’ absence from RWA due to academic pursuits, I am shocked and disappointed to return to Twitter to see RWA in such an upheaval. What happened to conflict resolution? Instead, so many people have decided that resigning is the answer. Ironically, to endorse diversity, they are lessening the diversity of RWA by leaving, thinking that will solve the conflict. As both a person of color and a trained mediator, this kind of resolution seems ridiculous. So many emotion-driven decisions are flooding the media right now. What will happen to everyone when all the dust settles? How is RWA supposed to rebuild in a new image, when people keep leaving? Where is the collaboration?
It seems to me that the safest place for race in publishing is no place. That is to say, no description of a character’s appearance is going to be politically correct in all regards, and when race is addressed, the most true-to-historical-perspective depictions of race are going to be derogatory–which could get really bad really fast. The only “safety” is to not talk about it, which does not help people heal from the hundreds of years of racial oppression against minority cultures.
Where do we go from here? Shelving books in African American and Native American sections in Barnes & Noble when I worked there did strike me the wrong way–enough that I questioned another co-worker why we even had such sections. They replied by way of sympathy to minority groups, wanting to make culturally relevant books more findable; clearly my co-worker had no ill intentions by agreeing with the categorization. But what was corporate thinking? It seemed like a risky move for them to endorse. I certainly didn’t want to show anyone to a section with their race or ethnicity as its official label. Rosa Parks wasn’t that long ago.
One of the reasons why negative treatment of women, enslavement, and corrupt politics show up in my writing is because it’s frightening how difficult they are to address, and the wounds go deep in every culture. Being the slave, being the oppressed–how do you reconcile that with how things are supposed to be? How do you build a utopia, when people can never forget, even if they forgive?
I don’t think cussing out another writer or torching someone on social media is the answer. I also don’t think white fiction is wrong, or in any danger of going away. There are chauvinists, there are racists, but to look for these in every white person (like you need to screen them) is to stereotype them just as we (people of color) have been stereotyped. I don’t mind reading a story full of white people. I also don’t mind sitting through stereotypes, if I sense the author or speaker is going to swing an interesting curve ball my way. I might hurl if every African American or Latina literary character is described as having “mocha” skin. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get past the mocha to see the story beneath. It just means that your heroine should probably drink a mocha every day, for word-choice irony. 🙂
I think we forget sometimes that writing is built on stereotypes. They’re called tropes. What we do with the trope, the stigma, the conflict of interest, is what matters. We’re authors. We transform what is bad into something good, or at least into a guess at forward progress for humanity. Even if it’s messy. Especially if it’s messy.
It’s always messy.
With two main maps of Rome’s mansion posted, and a third map underway, my mind is now moving from hidden doors and secret passageways to the puzzles, stereotypes, and inner workings of society. Much to my chagrin, I have been forced to map out a rough sketch of Labriella’s town, thereby adding to the growing number of maps rattling around in my head. Without at least a rough sketch of the town, it is almost impossible to determine where Rome should go next in his quest for information, or what types of people he will meet and the nature of the help he will receive.
Seriah Black 