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Speaking up has been a process. In some cases, it didn’t dawn on me at the time that I should have spoken up. Other times, I kicked myself because I knew I should’ve said something in the moment. Here are two times that come to mind–very different situations, but both times I should’ve said something. Maybe if you find yourself in a similar position, you’ll speak up.
These examples don’t seem like a big deal. They’re not examples of overt racism where someone used a slur or made direct comments denigrating another race. But the little moments matter.
The little moments reinforce systemic racism.
Anecdote 1
About 6-ish years ago, when we were living in Germany, we met a couple. After having lived over a year of living in that town, this was the first couple we’d met that we hit it off with. We spent all day and evening hanging out with them.
During one conversation, the woman mentioned a corporate ESL instructor who had come over. A Black guy. But, she said, surprised, he was still pretty good.
I should have spoken up. Were it to happen today, I probably would ask, “Why wouldn’t he be?” or say something snarky like, “Black people can speak English, too.” But at the time, I said nothing. I did nothing to break the pattern of a linguistic stereotype (doubly shameful for a freaking linguist).
This example might not seem like a big deal, but people assuming a Black man couldn’t be as good at teaching English as a White man is a big deal–it’s nothing less than white supremacy. It’s assuming that a White speaker of American English is more competent, more appropriate, more articulate, more English-speaking than a Black speaker of American English; that a Black man is not as good as a White man at teaching English.
That’s white supremacy.
Anecdote 2
About three years ago, I was getting ready to self-publish The Time Flash Had the Best Day Ever with its illustrator, Aaron Parrott. I was volunteering with Maryland Writers’ Association at a booth at Baltimore Book Festival, where I had my dummy along with some promotional materials.
There was a small publisher present–a White woman. I showed her the dummy. She loved the concept: the way I had every other page wordless and zoomed in and out of the scenes to focus on the two characters’ different experiences. She was interested in picking it up, but wanted to use a different illustrator (which is normal in picture book publishing–if you’re not an author-illustrator, publishers like to use their own illustrators).
She said she had a specific illustrator in mind, and asked if I would mind if the character were “diverse.” She lowered her voice and said there’s been a push for diversity in picture books.
The discussion didn’t go further, because I wasn’t going to break ties with my illustrator. It didn’t dawn on me until later, though, that plopping “diverse” illustrations onto a White woman’s manuscript isn’t diversity. I don’t have Black voice. I don’t have the worldview of a person of color. What the publishing field needs is BIPOC authors with BIPOC voices and BIPOC illustrators–that’s what constitutes representation. Not White authors in blackface.
