Racism, Xenophobia, & Microaggressions in Writing Spaces Need to End
my thoughts on how we normalize our own pain - welcome back to The Slush Pile!
I want to start off this issue of The Slush Pile (Issue 23 no less!) by saying that I love my writing community. I love meeting fellow writers, exchanging ideas, discussing our current projects, and getting together both online and in-person at conferences, retreats, gatherings, and other kinds of meet-ups. Most of us know writing to be a solo act so when we get together, it means something much more than just a social call. It’s a sacred meeting of minds.
But something that I’ve noticed and that few people actually seem willing to talk about (except perhaps when only BIPOC writers are in the room) is the issue of racism, xenophobia, and microaggressions in writing spaces. The very spaces we inhabit because we believe them to be these hubs of creativity, diversity, and socialization. Instead, because these are majority-white spaces (thanks to fun things like privilege, financial inequity, and lack of accessibility), what we find is that we’re made to feel different. We stand out. We’re afraid we won’t find someone who understands what we’re writing about. We find ourselves having to justify our being there, especially if we’re at a retreat or conference on a fellowship.
And both the best and the worst part is that we’re never the only ones. You wouldn’t believe how many times my writing friends and I have been able to bond because of racist and xenophobic things we’ve experienced in writing spaces. What ignorant things have been said about our writing or trends in the industry or the need for diversity in storytelling. How many times I’ve been warned and told to “prepare” myself for what b.s. may await me or have felt this shared understanding between BIPOC writers when something questionable happens. By now, it’s an open secret and the only people who seem unaware of the problem are the same ones causing it.
At the same time though, I can’t help but also feel frustrated. How did we get here? How did we get to the point where it’s our responsibility to prepare and protect ourselves, to let things roll off our shoulders and accept that “that’s just how it is”? How have we normalized it into a running gag that we talk about in secret rather than a genuinely troubling problem? Why are we so willing to get used to mistreatment?
Some of my followers may know that I was at a writing conference this past summer and may be wondering if that was a catalyst for my writing about this issue. The sad truth is that this is much bigger than any one conference or retreat or gathering or space. It’s something I’ve had to deal with since I started going to in-person events for writers almost three years ago, and I know for others it might be a lot longer than that. Ever since these spaces were made more open to working-class and BIPOC writers (I’d say somewhere in the 70s), we’ve had to deal with the repercussions of being in spaces that literally weren’t designed for us, that don't know what to do with us other than make us feel small. And it’s not always outright bigotry either but small comments or actions regarding our writing, class, background, ethnicity, that actually speak volumes and have major repercussions on our confidence and sense of worth, even sense of safety.
And yet we’re told by event organizers, even by each other, to brush it off and laugh about it, move on. But why? Why do we put up with so much only for nothing to change and for it to affect others? I’ll admit there’s some truth to laughing about the things white people say and do that initially hurt us, that there’s power in not letting it affect us and keeping up the good fight with our writing regardless of what we experience. But to some extent, it all feels like a subtle way of keeping us out, to remind us in all the little ways—which largely pain us but feel too small and insignificant to complain about to other people in case they don’t see the big deal and we feel even worse—that we don’t belong. That we’re not supposed to be there.
Granted, it’s also true that it’s a privilege to go to conferences and retreats at all. Not everyone can take time off from work or has the money to travel and book lodging even with a scholarship or fellowship. But when you think about these kinds of spaces for more than two seconds and what they’re designed to do, it’s kind of wild to realize that there is no denying they’re made for white men who have no restrictions on their non-writing life (I still think about Stephen King having the gall to say you must write everyday when he very much had a wife who did everything for him). I know friends of mine who are moms or who work full-time and have to move mountains to go to a retreat or conference. Even I who have no kids or ties or financial instability find it extremely difficult to leave my work at home. Sure, you “do what you have to do” but at what cost? And when you get there, why are microaggressions towards those efforts and who you are a given?
The obvious solution is, of course, the “don’t be racist or xenophobic” tactic. But in my heart, I know that’s not enough. It’s not just enough to be “accepted” in writing spaces. At some point, we have to start our own. We have to call out harm. We have to demand accountability, inner work, apologies. And much like preparing ourselves for the battlefield that can be writing spaces, I know it’s not our responsibility. It’s not our job to persuade white people to be decent. But there is no excuse for how I and many people I know have been treated with everything from dismissal to ignorance to condescension. I don’t want to accept it anymore as a given in the writing community, especially when we already have to deal with it in our everyday life in ways we can’t control when we’re not in a bubble like a writing space. When they’re supposed to be safe, why is it that so many of us know that they aren’t? That they’re a breeding ground for something much bigger and scarier? Ask anyone and you’ll hear some horrifying truths.
So yeah, I don’t know what to do about it. But if nothing else, I hope this encourages us all to think more deeply about the way in which we occupy writing spaces—how we enter them, how we function in them, and how we feel leaving them.
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
updates:
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Since January, I’ve been hosting creativity café, an ig live series where i feature, create space, and hold conversation with writers I love and that you should too! The sixteenth episode will premiere on Sunday, July 30th and feature special guest writer Michelle Rochniak, so head to my Instagram to watch it then. See you there!
resources:
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other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
currently watching:
The Summer I Turned Pretty S2
currently listening to:
“Lonely Weekend” by Kacey Musgraves
all my love,
sofía xx
Thank you for writing on this, Sofia! I see these explicit and implicit migroaggressions both in poetry and literary spaces, where I've found myself and other creatives and readers of color boxed into certain categories. I get especially frustrated that art and literature centering non-white, queer, and immigrant experiences are categorized as something other than "intellectual" or "philosophical" work, insinuating that work about our lived experiences cannot be as substantial as Steinbeck.
I'm trying to hold balance between feeling appropriate gratefulness and knowing my worth when I have the privelege to be in these spaces. I know it's a privelege, but I also know that I'm there for a reason, that others like me deserve to be in those spaces because of the merit and importance of our work. You've done so much in poetry and writing already, and I'm so excited to see more of your creativity and thinking!