On being a clueless white person.

I try to avoid being a clueless white person but the fact is that I am white and I grew up surrounded by white people and consuming media that was mostly created for white people. I try to be aware of my own clueless privilege. Sometimes I fuck up. This is the story of me catching one of my fuckups before it could do any damage but still way later than I should have caught it. If you’re a white writer reading this then learn from my mistake.

This week I’ve been preparing to submit Project Kindness to agents. In fact I finally queried an agent today. Most UK agents want the first three chapters or the first 30/40/50 pages as part of the initial query. In the US they’re more likely to only want a letter with maybe a synopsis and possibly 5-10 pages. That means that as part of the process I’ve been focusing on every single word of the first three chapters.

Project Kindness is currently on draft 3.2 and I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve read the whole thing through from start to finish. The early chapters have been read and re-read much more than the later ones because they’re so important to hook the reader and lay the groundwork.

Earlier this week I was re-reading it yet again and I came upon this, “Abigail, the Boss’s top flying monkey. No. That was unfair to both the Boss and to Abby. Abby was the Boss’s strong right hand.” It seemed ok to me when I wrote it. It seemed ok to me the dozens of times I’ve read it since. I seemed ok to the three people who beta read that bit. I knew what I meant and so did they. That Abigail is loyal and terrifying, that she does what she’s told, and that maybe she doesn’t have much say in that.

I picked the phrase ‘flying monkey’ as a colourful descriptor for someone loyal but unthinking because the point of view character is something of a man out of time. It’s not obvious at this point but there will be hints later on. The Wizard of Oz is the most recent pop culture reference he makes and it’s not clear if he’s inspired by the book, 1900, or the film, 1939. It’s a reference that would be appreciated by that other man out of time, Captain America. It’s a cheeky little hint. An easter egg in gamer parlance.

So what’s the problem? Abigail is black. Referring to a black woman as any kind of monkey is super racist. A fact which I somehow missed through all those re-readings because I’m white and I knew what I meant by ‘flying monkey’ when I wrote it. However, even the underlying suggestion that she’s mindlessly loyal carries problematic connotations of colonialism.

Some of you might be wondering what the problem is. It’s clearly not meant in an insulting way and the point of view character immediately withdraws it. The problem is how reading it would make a reader of colour feel. That little phrase might hit a reader like a kick in the ribs. They’re all ready to relax with a good book and then the point of view character, the character they’re supposed to identify with, is calling a black woman a monkey. Goodbye immersive reading experience and hello being reminded that racism lurks everywhere.

This is not about me not wanting people to think that I’m racist. This is me wanting readers of colour to be able to enjoy my story. So I had two choices. I could retain the line and make Abigail white or I could change the line. I chose to lose the line and keep Abby as she was, as she’s always been in my mind’s eye.

I hope that any other clueless white writers reading this will learn from it. Remember that it’s not just what you write it’s who you write it about, it’s who says the lines, it’s who hears them. It’s important to write books with diverse casts but if you’re not careful you can end up just loading them up with microaggressions to assault your readers with.

This could have been avoided if I’d hired a sensitivity reader but, as I keep saying, I don’t have any money. I’m sure sensitivity readers are worth their fees but I can’t spend what I don’t have. Unless there are any writers of colour out there looking for a disabled scottish bisexual to do a sensitivity read and then we can swap.

The dodgy line is fixed. They query is sent. All I have to do now is endlessly fret that my first three chapters are trash while trying to prepare the next query for the next agent.