the work and still trying. If you’re afraid, listen to that too. The fear is telling you something. Don’t be surprised if the work feels difficult—anti-racism requires a challenging baseline of self-compassion, introspection, courage, self-acceptance and self-love—but remember too that the work, however challenging, is a voluntary privilege, and nowhere near so challenging and painful as the work of living with racism itself. And notice what I didn’t say. I didn’t say: “If you’re a


white writer or editor wanting to write about or publish Black or brown people.” I didn’t say that because I believe the moment of choice is past. People from racialised communities don’t have a choice about enduring, much less fighting, against racism—it’s part of the day-to- day—and there should no longer be choice for white people either. There is no colour-free universe where white authors can write a comfortably all-white story without performing, on some level, an act of erasure. I’m not saying every story needs non-white people (far from it) but I am saying that every character we imagine and create has a relationship to racism and power, that their relationship to racism will be filtered through ours, and if we can’t articulate either then our characters are not complete. But here’s the upside. If we do the work, we have noth-


ing to be afraid of. We can speak our various truths from places of perfect ease. We might be saying or describing things that are ugly. Things that people are reluctant to see. It may take a while for readers to come around. What book was ever universally loved? Be true to the writing. If we have done the work, and we have done it with honest and integrit, in dialogue with others and in full light of all the particular world, then the writing will stand. A culture of silence still rules in the majorit white publishing industry and media, which makes breaking the silence all the more frightening and painful for those whom racism has hurt. Race and racism are most commonly discussed when one has a race “problem”, rather than proactively, while at the same time the industry is being encouraged to diversify. People of colour are being asked to step into employment situations poten- tially rife with microaggressions, yet nothing is asked of the fragile perpetrators—we, the good-intentioned, educated, politically aware and liberal white people in publishing—who believe it impossible we have hurt anyone, have no motivation to self-educate and, as a


If we have done the work and we have done it with honesty and integrity, in dialogue with others... then the writing will stand


result, have no capacit or training to hear, discuss or redress injustices when we commit or witness them. We do. Microaggressions happen all the time. Upholding a dichotomy between inclusivit and literary merit is the perfect example. And with microaggressions, nine if not 10 times out of 10, the burden of explanation falls unfairly on the people most injured. Which is exactly what happened with Clanchy.


I wish these things didn’t need speaking aloud. The controversy itself, however, has proven once more (and unequivocally) that such things do need saying, and they need saying by people who look like me as well as by people who don’t. They need saying and saying and saying again, until the tpe of cultural gatekeeping and racist abuse that is experienced by writers of colour—both as overt violence and as relentless microaggressions—is acknowledged as abhorrent by all parties and finally stops.


An ongoing process


Dialoguing about racism is only the first step. It isn’t a substitute for action or meaningful change. Nor is it suffi- cient for writers to offer genteel reflections on privilege while shrugging off any kind of substantive engagement with the issues that make privilege possible. Have we really, as author Brandon Taylor recently speculated in the New York Times, “reached a point in our culture where the pinnacle of moral rigor [sic] in the novel form is an over- whelmed white woman… sighing and having a thought about the warming planet or the existence of refugees”? He was talking about Sally Rooney, but his words couldn’t be more relevant here. Articulating our own relationship to systemic racism is only ever the beginning. If from there we throw up our hands, retreat and continue to write or publish what we know, then racism and injustice become further entrenched.


I believe that the people professionally invested in the success of writers—atention, publishers and agents, this means you—have an obligation to allyship and advocacy. Writers of colour spend a disproportionate amount of time discussing race and making the case for equalit. I person- ally would far rather see their energy directed towards writing. And if that means we in publishing spend a bit more of our time speaking out and standing up, then great. Maybe that’s what service looks like. Last but not least, a reminder. We belong to a commu- nit of publishers, booksellers, writers and translators. We trade in words. Our first and most essential action must be the careful interrogation and curation of the words we use, the tastes we nourish and the books we publish. Our service to books is beter when the Black and brown people who write them are seen as whole, and when the Black and brown people who are in them are whole, seen as whole, when we can hold space for the wholeness of other people without reverting back to ourselves. If we can’t do that then we don’t write. We don’t publish. Period.


Tara Tobler is senior editor for And Other Stories, and a writer and reviewer


TheBookseller.com


A note from the writer If you are not familiar with the Kate Clanchy controversy or would like a clear telling, I would suggest reading Monisha Rajesh’s words as featured in the Guardian, or Beth Bhargava’s article on Bad Form. Bad Form has also issued an open invitation to everyone in UK publish- ing to attend an action for equity brainstorming session on 6th October, via Zoom. Further details are available through Bad Form’s website.


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