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As editors we welcome criticism, and particularly the considered arguments in the recent discussions of our policy which I'll link below. Thinking abstractly they're perfectly reasonable statements – but arguments like Shriver's (read more charitably than it merits)
pit specific material decisions against unhistorical universalisms like 'literature', 'objectivity' and 'value' which don't meaningfully exist outside of the contexts of their practice. Those contexts are and always have been political
they are raced, gendered, and classed. This isn't all they are, and I don't think good writing can or should be reduced to a symptom of its determinants, but no serious argument on this subject has presumed to ignore them in about eighty years.
We added an optional question to a number of prizes, after consultation with a wide range of judges, and as a white &c author myself, the clearest reason to have an issue with it is the desire to be read as something you aren't. Simply put this is the mildest response
we could have made to this issue. The policy neither states nor implies retribution for writing outside one's lane, it provides an optional avenue of support for judges should they seek it. Really, the most obvious reply invited is not why shouldn't X write Y
but why are you afraid to be known for writing it?
Also, in terms of being afraid of backlash, mate, we are the backlash
