Racism, Marginalisation and Diversity in Writing: Who owns what?

Welcome to the newest iteration of ‘Ana’s Deep and Thoughtful Mondays’!

I spent a lot of time over the weekend wrestling with what’s been happening in writing communities across social media recently, but unsure of whether I should write about it—and if I was going to, how to do so. While taking a quick tour of my Twitter feed this morning, I saw a blog post by Kaelan Rhywiol: her raw and open honesty in considering some of the issues that have been rife throughout the writing community helped inspire me to commit my own thoughts to paper (it’s a truly excellent piece and deserves reading). For this, I’m very grateful.

I am, strictly speaking, a terrible poster girl for diversity. I’m a third- or fourth-generation Australian and if I traced back through my family tree, I think my great or great-great-grandparents on both sides were German (or of German descent)—so no racial or ethnic diversity there. Both of my parents are doctors, and my brothers and I attended a slew of, mostly private, schools: pretty standard, stereotypical white middle-class. After graduating, I joined the military as a seventeen-year-old, but although the majority of the Australian Army is male (despite having four brothers, that was still an adjustment for someone coming out of an all girls high-school) and comes from pretty diverse personal backgrounds… It’s also a predominantly caucasian organisation.

So… You could really say that I have absolutely no right to discuss issues of diversity, racism and marginalisation.

But, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’re probably aware of my passionate feelings about the responsibilities of those who are privileged, whatever form that privilege may take. And as someone who is privileged, I am standing here and saying it is everyone’s responsibility to work towards a world in which people don’t feel ostracised, judged, condemned or discriminated against for their choices. Even if we may not understand some of those choices. You’re entitled to not understand why someone identifies with a particular gender, possesses a certain sexual orientation, experiences physical disability, struggles with mental health issues… Not understanding those things is the consequence of not experiencing them, not being exposed to them, not openly and honestly discussing/researching/thinking about them in order to try and broaden your mind and understand, but it doesn’t actually make you a bad person. (Though it might mean that we have some areas in which we can work really damn hard to learn more about others and try to understand their paradigm).

If you allow that ignorance to affect the way you act towards someone, or for writers, when you write in a way that either diminishes the lives and experiences of those people by failing to acknowledge their existence, or you exploit them (whether intentionally or unintentionally), that’s wrong. And if someone stands up to tell you that what you have created has adversely affected them, then it is your responsibility to chose how you respond to that. Everyone has the innate right to react to the world. If something hurts or offends someone, then I firmly believe that I should do my best to rewire that offensive and hurtful behaviour: honestly, most of the time, it doesn’t affect me at all to stop doing something that is hurting someone else. So how could I not stop doing whatever it is?

And even if it wasn’t easy for me, why would I not work towards changing myself in order for someone else to feel that they too, have as much right to exist and thrive in this world as I do?

[Disclaimer: I am not, claiming for a single moment that I have never offended someone. In fact, even though I’m broke, I’d lay money on me having done so on multiple occasions. I’m also certain that I’ve hurt people with my ignorance and my privilege: it’s very likely I’ll do so again in the future. So this applies to me just as much as anyone reading it, and probably more so.]

So, this takes me to what’s been troubling me lately.

I want to exhibit diversity in my novel, not because (as so disparagingly commented by a number of people) it’s ‘trendy’ right now, but because I believe writing offers us a gift to communicate with the world, and it’s wrong that anyone be excluded from that communication. It’s also vital we acknowledge the power that writers have for their readers, and the burden of responsibility this places on our shoulders: that power means we can harm just as much as we can help and heal. As a writer, that necessitates that I work, and continually develop myself, to write in a way that will allow my work to be accessible to a wide variety of people and allow those individuals to feel welcome, safe and accepted in my work. This matters to me. 

But reading through what has been happening over social media over the weekend not only left me with a bit of a foul taste in my mouth, but also left me feeling that as a white writer, there are only two possible ways for me to approach writing.

1. Stay inside my lane. I am white, straight— and generally pretty vanilla—and have no right to write about or try to represent the diversity that exists in the world around us (and by choosing this path, I whitewash away the brilliance of the human race, making my work not only inaccessible but possibly also harmful to people who I have marginalised)  or
2. Try, very damn hard, to write thoughtfully and respectfully about the wide range of people around me… And possibly then get my butt kicked for doing so in a way that someone didn’t like.

For me, the latter option is my preferred course. But that doesn’t make it any less intimidating to consider the backlash that I could face for trying to be better and to do better: I can understand how there might be writers who feel that there is no correct answer and am dissuaded from trying to tackle this problem.

We can all learn something about other people, and I believe it benefits all of us to do that. Especially writers. But if people are scared of being targeted for trying to diversify our writing, then as a community, we’re already defeating ourselves. Let’s support one another. Let’s try and educate people who have knowingly or unknowingly wounded someone, let’s educate ourselves to try and stop it happening again in the future, and let’s work to include all kinds of people.

At the end of the day, I am asking for the opportunity to (try to) write for everyone, regardless of who I am.

— Ana.

[Disclaimer: In no way, shape or form is this blog post a comment about other writers’ books, or how others have reacted to the current furore over The Continent (I haven’t read the book and as I said earlier, we are all entitled to our personal reactions to the world around us—I don’t feel that I have the right to do so, and also I’m about thigh-deep in Dostoyevsky at the moment and haven’t the strength to leave it to read anything else (or I may be too weak to ever return to the battle). This is about me and my writing.]