New Diverse Perspectives: Anti Racism and Pigeon Holing Creatives

Make it stand out

After the Black Lives Matter protests began in late May, I thought about whether and how I, as a writer, should contribute to the discourse of being non-white. Suddenly media outlets were expressing a renewed interest in publishing and promoting “new diverse perspectives”, as a way of remedying the racism they were being forced to contend with. And there I was, conveniently falling under the crudely defined “new diverse” ambit as an unpublished “brown” “woman” — who, as it would happen, had desperately been craving publication and promotion. 

The thing is, I’m sceptical of diversity as practiced by historically un-diverse institutions. I get the idea behind it: that, in theory, if you’re not white, male and middle class, you’re potentially locked out of some system or network that’s important to penetrate in order to achieve as much as your average white, male, middle-class person.

The problem with “diversity opportunities” at historically exclusionary institutions, however, is that it’s usually white people who have historically excluded people of colour, and so it’s white people who make decisions to make their institutions more diverse; any attempts at diversity are on a white person’s terms. And because white people are the ones who need to learn and show support, too often it feels as if “diverse” perspectives and cultural objects — usually labelled as suchby white people — are consigned to educational or solidarity roles. Critic Lauren Michele Jackson writes eloquently about this in her essay, “What Is An Anti-Racist Reading List For?” Critiquing the proliferation of race-related reading lists following the BLM protests, she argues that minority work, particularly that which deals with the minority experience in any way, is so often consumed either to “learn” something or to show “support.” Her essay articulates so perfectly a suspicion I’ve long held about art created by minorities — that the compulsion to consume it in order to learn or show support has prevented the work from being seen as greater than those functions, to stand on its own artistic merits.

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In relation to my own work, it’s likely that my being brown is going to, at least somewhat, inform what I write. And yet, I spend a lot of time thinking about the extent to which it should or should not. The primary goal of my writing isn’t to try and make someone understand what it’s like to be a “brown” person. Above all else, I want to write things that make people feel like they’re reading art. I want my work to be transcendent, boundary-pushing, to defy expectations. I want my work to be bigger than who I am. Throughout my late teens, I had ambitions of redefining Irish writing, of pushing the canon into uncharted territory. I know I have the capacity to do this, not just because I’m brown, and because that gives me a “different” perspective on the possibilities of Irish identity, but also because I understand contemporary Irish life and culture, and because I believe I have the ability to write about it in a new and unique way. I want my work to be constitutive of the Irish experience, a thread integral to the fabric of it, as opposed to something that stands on the side, musings of an outsider in a foreign land — or whatever. 

The question, however, is whether that is achieved through the way in which I write, or the way in which others read. Until very recently, I had thought it was within my power to write in a way that pulled me out of the “minority” rubric, out of Brown Writing into just Writing (that happens to be brown). I had thought that it was incumbent on me to do so. Then I discussed this essay with an acquaintance who is also a person of colour. Responding to this idea that I could write my way out of being seen as a Brown Writer, she said:

“That seems to me a problem located within other people that you can’t solve, without more fundamental societal shifts. Why should your work be consumed under any rubric at all? … You shouldn’t have to ‘transcend’ your own complex and multi-faceted experiences of being alive, institutions should have to ‘transcend’ their limited ability to view you as a full human being.”

And she’s right — why do I feel like I need to write in a way that attempts to normalise my brownness relative to the white status quo? Why do I think about writing in a way that portrays my brownness as having the potential to be universal and perfectly ordinary, when it simply is? Perhaps the institution, the reader, needs to see that the fact of my writing, as well as its subject matter, are more than a “diversity” project. Until then, I will always feel a sense of discomfort in offering a “new diverse perspective”, if that’s the only way in which what I have to offer is asked for, and subsequently discussed.

Beyond my personal resistance to it, though, I have been wondering what diversity is actually for? What does it achieve? I think the real reason I’m reluctant to pander to it is because, even if it was important to me to do so, I don’t think writing and disseminating my experience of being non-white (which is what most outlets for diversity have traditionally expected of minorities) achieves much in the way of tackling structural racism. Because racism isn’t simply white people hating on people of colour, with the solution being to combat that hate by garnering empathy or understanding through more “new diverse perspectives”. That just isn’t going to cut it. Real and tangible socio-economic inequalities between white and non-white people persist in the face of all that’s been written about the non-white experience and how it diverges from a white one. So, I’m no longer interested in listing all the ways in which I’ve experienced racism to show it’s real, and I’m certainly not interested in trying to prove my fundamental humanity, my right to be here. All of that should be a given at this stage. 

And fair enough, diversity also serves an inclusionary purpose, helps people penetrate the systems and networks they’ve been excluded from. But it only promises inclusion on a surface level, by taking as its core the simplistic idea that some people are not-white, and therefore excluded. What is missed is how other social and economic factors compound race to produce different degrees of exclusion, like class and cultural capital. Sure, I am not white, but I don’t want to overstate the extent to which I might suffer from this. My parents are doctors, I’ve had an extremely middle-class and financially comfortable upbringing, I went to the highest-ranked university in Ireland, and my parents paid for my entire time there. I know I would’ve had a very different experience of being brown in Ireland if my parents hadn’t gone to university, if they couldn’t speak English, if they’d been on lower incomes. I would feel incredibly uncomfortable saying that I achieved what I’ve achieved against the odds I faced as a brown person, because my socio-economic background and education have done a lot to mitigate any barriers my brownness might have posed. 

And so, I’m wary of anyone who thinks that by giving me a leg up on the basis of my brownness, or by reading my work as part of their attempt to diversify their newsfeed, they’ve done something meaningful to tackle racism. Exclusion is far more complicated and pernicious than that. We need to remember that the BLM protests have erupted because Black people, both in the US and UK, suffer disproportionately worse outcomes than any other racial or ethnic group in society. Any meaningful anti-racist activity we engage in or support should think long and hard about the material effects of that fact, and how it’s come to be. 

Writer: Huda Awan | Art: Efea Rutlin