Earlier today @FiresideFiction published an essay about OutKast by Dr. Regina Bradley. This is an essay written by a Black woman, about Black musicians, and edited by a Black man. I hired a white man to record the audio for the essay. https://twitter.com/FiresideFiction/status/1331231596133773314
That was ridiculously careless, and frankly, racist — it’s blackface, it's violent, and it’s insulting. I apologize.
The author deserves better, the editor deserves better, our readers deserve better. My carelessness resulted in an act of racist aggression. I’ve taken down the audio, and will have the essay re-recorded by a Black woman, as I should have done from the start.
I’ve reached out to Dr. Bradley and to Maurice, to apologize and to make sure that they can be part fo the process of making this right if they want to be. But I can only imagine how angry they are. It’s up to them to decide whether/when to engage with me on this.
In the meantime, I’d also like to apologize to our readers, to the Black community, and especially to Black women, who often bear the brunt of racism in our society. There’s no excuse for what happened, and we’ll be taking steps to make amends beyond just re-recording the audio.
Just to be explicitly clear: I’m the only one who manages the audio production process—this was entirely my doing, and no one else who works on Fireside had a chance to hear the audio, much less rectify. This is all absolutely my fault, no one else’s. I’ll have more to say soon.
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