I am not a teacher. I have never trained as a teacher, nor do I think I’d be a very good one. So it always comes as a surprise that I’m expected to teach non-black people about race. One of the questions I was asked most, on my year-long Queenie press tour, was: “How do we solve the problem of diversity in publishing?” I’m an author. It’s not my responsibility to redress a system that is institutionally racist. I can shine a light on it, but I already have a job. And diversity corrections strategist is not it. Neither is teacher.
My inbox is filled by two types of people at the moment: those who have read and are highlighting the Black Lives Matter discussions in Queenie, and others who are demanding that I tell them how they can do better. They want to know what to read, what to post, where they can begin to learn. And these are hard conversations to have. At the moment, all I can feel is sadness. I feel grief and sometimes I feel helpless. Conversations and questions around race have made me tired since I was old enough to understand what police brutality was.
I’ve seen many good lists, of books and articles to read, about what you can do to support the Black Lives Matter movement. So before you message a black author with requests for teachings and resources, please ask yourself: what load am I putting on to this person that they aren’t already bearing?
