Read on Twitter
Lately I& #39;ve been having difficulty marshalling how angry I am at different registers of thing. Within a given half hour I find myself incapacitated with fury at about 4-5 different bads, unable to address them productively, just wanting to scream but uncertain of the net benefit.
One of the further, compounding difficulties of Twitter is that I don& #39;t want to raise a serious issue without having some action to offer, some solve. With so much to be angry about it feels important to bring some direction & rigour to my rage, so it doesn& #39;t just swallow me.
There& #39;s this tragic aspect to social media, especially during the pandemic. Usually when we& #39;re hurting we can vent to someone who& #39;s hurting less, share burdens, take turns carrying things. But on Twitter, nothing& #39;s alleviated--only compounded, by the nature of the medium.
Talking about this dispassionately is, for me, a sort of solve. I want to name & own how furious I am. I want to be in solidarity with the people on whose behalf I feel this. & out of the 3-5 things about which I& #39;m hot-in-the-face angry, I& #39;ll single out 1 I feel able to address.
I& #39;ve loved & recommended Fireside Fiction for years, suggesting my students submit stories to it, singing the praises of its editorial team (when it still had one) & values (when it abided by them), admiring its innovations with design. & I can& #39;t do that anymore.
Pablo Defendini hired a white man to narrate the audio for an issue which--in addition to being guest-edited by Maurice Broaddus, whose oeuvre is full of intervocality, belonging, & the complexities of identity--contained an essay by Dr. Regina Bradley. https://twitter.com/redclayscholar/status/1331242578763722752?s=20">https://twitter.com/redclaysc...
He apologizes for this frankly inconceivable failure here: https://firesidefiction.com/regarding-our-audio-recordings
He">https://firesidefiction.com/regarding... acknowledges, "I chose a white man to narrate this issue — edited by a Black man and featuring multiple works by non-white authors. That was negligent of me."
This is wildly insufficient.
He">https://firesidefiction.com/regarding... acknowledges, "I chose a white man to narrate this issue — edited by a Black man and featuring multiple works by non-white authors. That was negligent of me."
This is wildly insufficient.
There is negligence, & then there is reckless fucking endangerment. There is negligence, & then there is such a catastrophic failure of responsibility -- to your authors, your editors, your audience, your STATED VALUES, your magazine& #39;s whole purported reason for being.
I can& #39;t fix Fireside Fiction. I don& #39;t know what fixing it looks like. I don& #39;t think a breach of trust of this magnitude can be healed, at the same time that I don& #39;t want the work already acquired--work by PoC, edited by another guest editor of colour--to be orphaned.
I& #39;ve been too angry to talk about this, so today I found a minute to sit & read Dr. Bradley& #39;s article.
It& #39;s fucking excellent, & fascinating, you should read it if you haven& #39;t yet. https://firesidefiction.com/da-art-of-speculatin">https://firesidefiction.com/da-art-of...
It& #39;s fucking excellent, & fascinating, you should read it if you haven& #39;t yet. https://firesidefiction.com/da-art-of-speculatin">https://firesidefiction.com/da-art-of...
