DECIBEL INVESTIGATION


more diverse image. “I have been wheeled out when publishers wanted to acquire a Black book.” She recalls being summoned by two different employers into pitches for projects by Black authors, one of which she would have had no other involvement in. “I think they were quite glad to field a Black member of staff.” Though rare, explicit racism is not unknown. “I went for a job at a small company,” says Black publishing executive Lucy (not her real name). “When I got there, one of the two interviewers refused to shake my hand. He then refused to look at me, instead he gazed at the ceiling throughout the interview.” Sales and marketing executive Syphia (not her real name) suf- fered serious harassment when she started in publishing. “A director made my life hell,” she recalls. The man bombarded her with racist comments, jokes and questions, forcing his attentions on her in a clear abuse of his position and power. Though man- agement acknowledged the situation it took two years for them to act. “Why did I put up with it for so long? I thought that maybe that was the way it was in publishing,” she recalls bitterly. Twenty years on, things are better, she concedes, but racism


still exists. “A big thing is white, middle-class men who see Black and Asian women as some kind of sexual fantasy,” she says. It happens out of hours, she says,when emboldened by a few drinks white, male colleagues sidle up and say they find “exotic women very sexy”. It is a line familiar to British Asian Sue Amaradiva- kara, senior account manager at Colman Getty. “Yeah, I have had the ‘exotic’ thing said to me occasionally,” she says. But Amaradivakara’s worst experience concerned two


authors, husband and wife, when she worked inhouse. They told her in no uncertain terms to anglicise her surname as “it was silly having such a long surname in this country”. She adds: “There was one other Asian girl who worked in design and people used to call us by the same name all the time, as if we were indistinguishable,though we looked completely differ- ent.We were just the same height and colour.”


A potential minefield Victims of racial harassment rarely report it. There is a strong sense among minority ethnic publishers that to say anything will harm their career prospects. Even raising the subject of diversity can be a minefield, observes Ravi Mirchandani, editorial director at Wm Heinemann. He recalls a conversation with white publishing friends about


why he liked working with an Asian colleague. “There are things only we have in common,” he told them. What he regarded as a harmless observation spiralled into an argument, as his friends became defensive refusing to acknowledge that his ethnicity might make him different to them. This refusal to acknowledge


first person:Ravi Mirchandani IS OF MIXED RACE AND IS PUBLISHING DIRECTOR FOR WM HEINEMANN


“I began a publishing career as a trainee graduate at Macmillan after graduating from King’s College, Cambridge. I stayed at Macmillan for two-and-half years, nine at Penguin, two at Weidenfeld within Orion, and the past six years at Wm Heinemann/Random House. The university careers service had details on file of graduate trainee programmes at CUP and Macmillan and they were among the half-dozen jobs I applied for at that time. So there was nothing in the way of encouragement from the university itself, but the information was available to me. I didn’t experience any barriers because of my race. I got turned down by the BBC and CUP, but such graduate jobs are pretty competitive, so I wouldn’t really refer to this in terms of ‘difficulties’. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that publishing is closed to particular groups, but like many small worlds, it tends to favour people who are similar to the people who are already there. I think this shows itself far more in terms of class and educational background, a bias towards Oxbridge, than in race terms. But one does tend to have the effect of leading to the other. I hope publishing will become accessible to ethnic groups in time, but I’m not sure about ways of


shortcutting the process. The old Arts Council ethnic minority trainee scheme was rather a good idea as it presented publishing as an option to more potential candidates from ethnic groups.”


Interview: Aislinn McCormick 10 IN FULL COLOUR


cultural differences outrages Mirchandani: “Just let me be differ- ent. Everyone around can be as liberal as hell, but that does not mean that sometimes it would be nice to have a couple of other people around who are like me.” He adds: “Denial is about destroying colour. Being colour blind isn’t about tolerance. Tolerance is about allowing people to be different and acknowl- edging that we all have different stories.”


“ It is clearly


desirable to have one’s spread of staff as representative of the population as possible, but we aren’t always able to do that


David Young ”


So-called liberals “One of the difficulties we have is with so-called liberals who absolutely refuse to acknowledge that the effects of what they do is racist,” says Vastiana Belfon, founder of the independent Black women’s erotica list Brown Skin Books. The denial of cultural difference can create taboos around the subject of diversity. As one African Caribbean publisher observes: “Diversity is a very awkward subject to raise. There is no one here that I would talk to about it because they don’t want to think about it. It is like being a whistle blower in the government. You know you should say something, because it is the right thing to do, but you don’t.” How can publishers ensure Black and Asian colleagues are free to speak out? Open communication helps. Better still, says one Black director, they can lead by example. “I asked a close colleague of my former chief executive why the company didn’t have a bigger Black workforce, and he said, ‘I don’t think that is important’. What is shocking about managing directors who have that mentality is that, if they are at the helm, their attitude has an effect on the rest of the staff. If they don’t think it is a priority, then there is no incentive for managers to make it a priority.” For most minority ethnic publishers the hardest thing to bear is being the only one, however understanding white colleagues may be. Elise Dillsworth describes it as the Desert Island syndrome. “When I see another Black person at a party, I have such a feeling of excitement that I want to run up to them and say: I thought I was alone.” Being a pioneer is tough, and the lack of senior role models is dispiriting. “I have worked with really wonderful people,” says one, “but when I look above me, I don’t see my face reflected back. Hopefully if a young Black girl started out now she would feel better.” It also creates pressure of another kind. Many feel they are in a goldfish bowl, the token minority ethnic member of staff in a senior position. If they get it wrong they will bar the way for any other Black or Asian colleague. Says one senior minority ethnic publisher: “For much of the past 20 years Monica Green, production director at HarperCollins, has been the only Black person in a senior position. It seems as if they only have room for one Black person and it’s Monica.” The only way to challenge this belief is to increase cultural


diversity in senior management. But how? Natural wastage is a slow process. Besides, as writer, publisher and critic Margaret Busby observes, unlike the fight for women to achieve status in the profession, the battle for cultural diversity has produced few results in the past 30 years. “In terms of racial diversity publishing has not changed much since I came into the business. I can still go to things where I am the only Black person in the room,” com- ments the founder of Allison & Busby.


The quota argument The alternative to evolution is revolution, and in particular quotas. These bring numerous complications, one of the most serious being that they leave beneficiaries vulnerable to accusa- tions that their appointment is due to policy not ability. Quotas would also meet fierce resistance at executive level. Merely men- tioning cultural diversity to some chief executives draws a sharp response that “quotas are a bad idea”, whether quotas are mentioned or not.


What will make a difference is when senior management feels that the lack of cultural diversity in publishing threatens profit-


12 MARCH 2004


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