As an author who has been surrounded by a similar culture, it’s frustrated me how the media only reports on right-wing censorship and insists it’s purely a right-wing issue. It does indeed happen on the right, and the left. It happens on all sides.
As an author who has been surrounded by a similar culture, it’s frustrated me how the media only reports on right-wing censorship and insists it’s purely a right-wing issue. It does indeed happen on the right, and the left. It happens on all sides.
I’ve started to see shelves in bookstores more frequently highlighting things like “LGBTQ+ fiction” or “Books by X Race,” and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, if there is interest for those subjects, people should be directed as to where to find them. On the other hand, it’s always made me feel pigeonholed… If they made shelves for “Female Authors,” would I not be allowed on the ordinary shelves? Are stories featuring black people or gay people or trans people or characters from other countries not just human stories like any other? I’m sure every author and reader feels differently, I just hope authors aren’t being forced to pigeonhole themselves unwillingly.
I always felt pressured to represent diversity in my work, and read books solely because the author was a minority (“read a book by an author of color”, no requirements for quality, was actually one of my school assignments!), and started feeling like if I, as a cishet white author, got published… My spot would just be a waste of space among the bookshelf slots that NEEDED to go to minorities… or so I was taught.
I’m committedly anti-censorship now. I believe that if an author wants to write something with a focus on radical social justice beliefs, they can. If a specific book store wants to focus their content on social justice out of their own volition, they can.
But mandating everyone confirm to a single set of beliefs, and even regulating who’s allowed at author events based on factors irrelevant to the event’s purpose that they cannot control? That’s wrong. I’m sorry to hear things have gotten this bad over there, but glad to see you’re speaking up!
While I agree with everything you said, I wanted to point out that when you call yourself "a cishet white person" you're using their language and reifying it.
Of course we're being forced to pigeonhole ourselves unwillingly. It's no different than the yellow star of David, pink triangle, or other identifiers so favored by the National Socialist camp system (the identity-centric left seems obtusely blind to the parallels). And if you try to represent diversity in your work, you're accused of appropriating something or another or not being able to accurately represent a particular character's point of view based on identify (of course no one says women shouldn't write from a male PoV, or that a writer of color shouldn't write from a white character's PoV).
I made the mistake of participating in NaNoWriMo a couple of years back, and most of the thing was a pathetic exercise in identity politics. No one seemed to care to talk about writing...it was all about the struggle of being a non-binary neurodiverse Furry or whatever label a person cared to adopt for themselves. And if you didn't play the game, you could expect to be ignored, marginalized, or even harassed.
I've commented before that it's sad to me that the arts (which flourished in a permissive society) have become such staunch censors and guardians of what they happen to believe is "right" on any particular day. And adding to the irony...who else remembers the many attempts by left-leaning organizations to ban Huck Finn?
It sucks to see writing focused communities all about censorship when writing should be about having the bravery to present challenging ideas. The diversity conundrum is a mess too - You have to represent those POVs, yet you can’t write those POVs, and it basically creates a trap where writers feel they may as well give up…
NaNo has also disappointed me over the years. They stopped legitimately treating it like a challenge and replaced their attitude with a bunch of “We’re all winners in our own way!” nonsense, which sucks as NaNo is one of the best ways someone can improve as a writer if taken seriously. And I definitely noticed the emails get all diversity-oriented, which also definitely happened at the cost of no longer receiving much practical writing advice. I love the exercise but never use the site anymore.
I try to find writing forums now that still agree to do the challenge together but actually have a writer-friendly culture. It’s hard, since they all wind up sliding off the rails in the end, but I pray that some of the forums I’m in now will have the courage to stay viewpoint neutral or at least accept not everyone shares the same philosophy.
Yeah...it's really tough. I actually did the challenge on my own (by accident really) when I was working on a project and then decided the following year to try the "official" version. BIG mistake I'm still paying for in some ways. Their closed message boards were echo-chambers of nastiness. God forbid you wrote anything other than queer speculative fantasy or the like...
The sad thing is I've found better writing communities once I left the realm of the "declared" writing forums. People who enjoy a particular TV show or fiction genre are often quite good at giving feedback, and they're nowhere near as locked into the dogma that's currently possessing parts of the fiction community. It's also fun to help them learn to get some of their own stories down...so many of the writing forums are also excessively hostile to newcomers or new writers.
No problem having books about topics of interest....but books with contents restricted based on not adhering to a belief system that is just one of many in the US...many of us on the left don't think for instance that you reduce racism by having racism against another group this time around. You do it by the things fair is pushing. Censorship of either view is inappropriate at this high level!
Thank you, so much, for shedding light on this!
As an author who has been surrounded by a similar culture, it’s frustrated me how the media only reports on right-wing censorship and insists it’s purely a right-wing issue. It does indeed happen on the right, and the left. It happens on all sides.
I’ve started to see shelves in bookstores more frequently highlighting things like “LGBTQ+ fiction” or “Books by X Race,” and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, if there is interest for those subjects, people should be directed as to where to find them. On the other hand, it’s always made me feel pigeonholed… If they made shelves for “Female Authors,” would I not be allowed on the ordinary shelves? Are stories featuring black people or gay people or trans people or characters from other countries not just human stories like any other? I’m sure every author and reader feels differently, I just hope authors aren’t being forced to pigeonhole themselves unwillingly.
I always felt pressured to represent diversity in my work, and read books solely because the author was a minority (“read a book by an author of color”, no requirements for quality, was actually one of my school assignments!), and started feeling like if I, as a cishet white author, got published… My spot would just be a waste of space among the bookshelf slots that NEEDED to go to minorities… or so I was taught.
I’m committedly anti-censorship now. I believe that if an author wants to write something with a focus on radical social justice beliefs, they can. If a specific book store wants to focus their content on social justice out of their own volition, they can.
But mandating everyone confirm to a single set of beliefs, and even regulating who’s allowed at author events based on factors irrelevant to the event’s purpose that they cannot control? That’s wrong. I’m sorry to hear things have gotten this bad over there, but glad to see you’re speaking up!
While I agree with everything you said, I wanted to point out that when you call yourself "a cishet white person" you're using their language and reifying it.
Of course we're being forced to pigeonhole ourselves unwillingly. It's no different than the yellow star of David, pink triangle, or other identifiers so favored by the National Socialist camp system (the identity-centric left seems obtusely blind to the parallels). And if you try to represent diversity in your work, you're accused of appropriating something or another or not being able to accurately represent a particular character's point of view based on identify (of course no one says women shouldn't write from a male PoV, or that a writer of color shouldn't write from a white character's PoV).
I made the mistake of participating in NaNoWriMo a couple of years back, and most of the thing was a pathetic exercise in identity politics. No one seemed to care to talk about writing...it was all about the struggle of being a non-binary neurodiverse Furry or whatever label a person cared to adopt for themselves. And if you didn't play the game, you could expect to be ignored, marginalized, or even harassed.
I've commented before that it's sad to me that the arts (which flourished in a permissive society) have become such staunch censors and guardians of what they happen to believe is "right" on any particular day. And adding to the irony...who else remembers the many attempts by left-leaning organizations to ban Huck Finn?
Dang, that’s awful!
It sucks to see writing focused communities all about censorship when writing should be about having the bravery to present challenging ideas. The diversity conundrum is a mess too - You have to represent those POVs, yet you can’t write those POVs, and it basically creates a trap where writers feel they may as well give up…
NaNo has also disappointed me over the years. They stopped legitimately treating it like a challenge and replaced their attitude with a bunch of “We’re all winners in our own way!” nonsense, which sucks as NaNo is one of the best ways someone can improve as a writer if taken seriously. And I definitely noticed the emails get all diversity-oriented, which also definitely happened at the cost of no longer receiving much practical writing advice. I love the exercise but never use the site anymore.
I try to find writing forums now that still agree to do the challenge together but actually have a writer-friendly culture. It’s hard, since they all wind up sliding off the rails in the end, but I pray that some of the forums I’m in now will have the courage to stay viewpoint neutral or at least accept not everyone shares the same philosophy.
Yeah...it's really tough. I actually did the challenge on my own (by accident really) when I was working on a project and then decided the following year to try the "official" version. BIG mistake I'm still paying for in some ways. Their closed message boards were echo-chambers of nastiness. God forbid you wrote anything other than queer speculative fantasy or the like...
The sad thing is I've found better writing communities once I left the realm of the "declared" writing forums. People who enjoy a particular TV show or fiction genre are often quite good at giving feedback, and they're nowhere near as locked into the dogma that's currently possessing parts of the fiction community. It's also fun to help them learn to get some of their own stories down...so many of the writing forums are also excessively hostile to newcomers or new writers.
No problem having books about topics of interest....but books with contents restricted based on not adhering to a belief system that is just one of many in the US...many of us on the left don't think for instance that you reduce racism by having racism against another group this time around. You do it by the things fair is pushing. Censorship of either view is inappropriate at this high level!
Well said!
I appreciate this thoughtful comment from an author.