More on Affirmative Action in Publishing

A few days ago, I wrote about the case of Michael Derrick Hudson who had a poem published in The Best American Poetry under the pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou. Hudson hasn't been exactly shy about implying that he used the pseudonym take take advantage of affirmative action in poetry publishing. An uproar arose over Hudson's actions, as well as the decision of the editor—Sherman Alexie—to leave his poem in the Anthology after these facts came to light.

In my post I made two arguments. First, I argued that leaving the poem in the anthology was the correct decision. If it was good enough to be published when thought to have been authored by a Chinese American writer, it was still good enough to be published once it was known to be published by a white author. I stand by this argument.

Second, I was not especially condemning of the actions of Hudson. The way I saw it, an argument could be made that if people perceive that affirmative action efforts to redress barriers to some groups publishing have gone so far as to create a net advantage to that group, then we should let people try to publish under an identity belonging to that group. This should ensure that, eventually, affirmative action efforts would balance advantages and disadvantages correctly.

I have had cause to revisit my thoughts on this issue after reading Jenny Zhang's post on Buzzfeed entitled They Pretend To Be Us While Pretending We Don’t Exist. Zhang has a number of interesting and important points to make and facts to relate:

1. The perception that affirmative action is excessively generous towards people of color is widely held among poets:

   When I was a graduate student at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for fiction writing, I felt both coveted and hated. My white classmates never failed to remind me that I was more fortunate than they were at this particular juncture in American literature. “No one is going to pay attention to a name like mine,” a white dude who exclusively wrote stories about white dudes said to me one time when I was feeling particularly low about my writing. I couldn’t enjoy a scrap of validation or wallow in a sliver of self-doubt without someone interjecting some version of “You’re so lucky. You’re going to have an easier time than any of us getting published.” They were shameless about their envy, not shy or coy at all about their certainty that my race and gender were an undeniable asset, which, in turn, implied that I could be as mediocre and shitty as I wanted and still succeed.

2. The case of John Howard Griffin:

   White people have always slipped in and out of the experiences of people of color and been praised extravagantly for it. After all, 50 years ago, when black voices were fighting to be heard, when their stories of trauma and abuse were struggling for legitimacy, it took John Howard Griffin, a white man who dyed his skin black and wrote about his experiences as a “black” man in his book, Black Like Me, for white Americans to believe that yes, black people were telling the truth about their lived experiences in the Jim Crow South. He was hailed a singular hero. Studs Terkel once said, “Griffin was one of the most remarkable people I have ever encountered. He was just one of those guys that comes along once or twice in a century and lifts the hearts of the rest of us.” It may seem totally nuts now, but as far as who gets credit for simply being affected by black pain, it doesn’t seem very removed from our current world where we heap lavish praise on someone like Jon Stewart for announcing on the Daily Show that he was too heartbroken to make jokes after the Charleston church shooting, as if all throughout this country’s present and past, black people and people of color have not been so heartbroken and so violated that we were left humorless, or worse, dead. To praise Stewart as excessively as he was praised is to say to black people: Your pain is unexceptional and does not matter until a white man feels it too.

3. The case of Araki Yasusada:

   In the early ’90s, well-respected poetry journals became enrapt with the work of Araki Yasusada, a Japanese poet who had survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The avant-garde was greedy to consume his work, which was formally experimental but also weighted with the trauma of living through nuclear war. It was exposed, although never fully confirmed, that Yasusada was the fictional creation of Kent Johnson, a white poet who taught at an university in Illinois. In a wonderfully comprehensive essay about the minstrel theatre of the American poetic avant-garde, Ken Chen writes, “what Yasusada created was a way for avant-garde white writers to give themselves emotional permission to enjoy lyric poems of suffering.”

4. A particularly despicable use of an "'Asian'-sounding" pseudonym:

   I had a white teacher in college who published some of his stories under an ambiguously “Asian”-sounding name (and also ambiguously gendered) in an anthology he edited so that people would not accuse him of not having enough diverse writers in the anthology. Was that shitty? Yeah. It was. But so was not soliciting or finding actual writers of color to include in the book. So was recruiting me, an Asian American writer, to be an assistant editor (for free of course) for the anthology. So was not acknowledging that I was also a fiction writer, that I might have at one point written something that he could give consideration to instead of choosing to include himself, under an Asian pseudonym that, in the end, I could have never used to get anything at all.

5. Some of the unexpected (at least to me) costs of being a minority in your area of expertise:

   I’m happy to speak on how my Chinese American name and writing about my Chinese American identity has helped me in the literary world. For one, I get asked frequently to donate my intellectual emotional and psychic labor to educate white audiences and comment on issues of race because I am often the only or one of few people of color that many white writers/poets/editors/organizers of panels and readings know. I have been published many times without any compensation for my work in publications that frequently have few to zero other writers of color other than me. I am often put in the position of having to occupy higher moral ground when publications I am in are called out for being racist/misogynist/transphobic or whatever injustice they may have openly committed, and have felt pressure to pull my piece, even though as a woman of color who occupies many identities, I really would not have very many places to publish and share my work if I am to only publish in places that have never violated any aspect of my identity. It means publications run by mostly white editors specifically reach out to me when something horrific happens in the news to black or Arab people, even though I am not black or Arab and the experience of being an Asian person of color is so very different from being a black person of color or an Arab person of color, and yet I am often solicited to write something nuanced and educated on any news item affecting people of color because when these publications don’t have any black or Arab writers on staff, I suppose I’m the next best thing, which I could take as a compliment, but more often it feels like a burden.
   
   What I want is to get paid for my labor and be credited for my excellence. What I want is to not have to be made aware that because most publications only ever make room for one or two writers of color when those publications publish me it means another excellent writer of color does not get to have that spot, and yes, we internalize that scarcity and it makes us act wild and violent toward each other sometimes instead of kind.
   
   What I usually get is a white editor soliciting me because they have failed to broaden their social circles and reading tastes to include more writers of color. What I get is publications that mostly publish white writers using me to prove that they are “trying” and “improving.” What I get is people criticizing these publications and erasing my work or dismissing me as just another co-opted writer of color. No wonder a white writer who doesn’t have to take ANY of this on could succeed using an Asian American pseudonym. Because that’s what my cohorts at Iowa wanted too, to have the right to a name that gave them an “edge” without having to endure racism, erasure, tokenization, self-devaluation, and the constant requests for free intellectual labor.

6. More examples of the barriers faced by people of color in publishing:

   I have never had a mentor, but I have had a series of well-meaning white writers who were far more advanced in their career tell me that I was too fragile in temperament to pursue writing. I have had well-meaning white tenure-track professors and established writers discourage me, neg me, derail me, and at one point, even suggest that I take a remedial English class to improve my grammar — a move, I later realized, many writers of color were familiar with. My imagination and my talents were framed again and again as too limited, too provincial, too tethered to my identity.

This article made me think harder about the issues and in particular about the fact that white people, by selectively writing under a pseudonym, are able to choose from a "menu" of advantages and disadvantages that all people of color face. To some extent, people of color can choose to eliminate some items off this menu, too, by writing under a white pseudonym. But only some.

To what extent should some advantage on "the menu" be used to compensate for some very different disadvantage on "the menu"? It would seem to be better to attack the problem of their not being enough good mentors for people like Zhang by working hard to find more mentors and to train the ones that do exist to do a better job, rather than compensate by varying editorial standards. But this may not be possible for all disadvantages. In such cases, what do we do? And how do we ensure that the compensating measures are proportional to the disadvantages? I don't know for sure, but accepting that some authors will use pseudonyms to take advantage of the perception of a disproportionate advantage should serve as a check on such outcomes.

Let's also be clear. What Hudson did was not as bad as what Zhang's college teacher did: faking an "Asian sounding" name to deflect criticism of discrimination. Nor do I think it is as bad as the Yasusada case: adopting a Japanese pseudonym to add credibility to an exploration of a particular theme.

On Race in Publishing and Affirmative Action

In the latest publishing brouhaha, the poet Michael Derrick Hudson had a poem published in The Best American Poetry under the pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou. In a note in the volume, Hudson explains:

After a poem of mine has been rejected a multitude of times under my real name, I put Yi-Fen’s name on it and send it out again ... As a strategy for ‘placing’ poems this has been quite successful ... The poem in question … was rejected under my real name forty times before I sent it out as Yi-Fen Chou (I keep detailed records). As Yi-Fen the poem was rejected nine times before Prairie Schooner took it. If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print, but I’m nothing if not persistent.

Hudson's experience publishing this poem in-and-of-itself tells us nothing, of course, about reverse racism in publishing. All it tells us is that opinions are diverse and that this particular poem struggled to find its audience. Had he submitted the same poem to the same outlet under different names and had it accepted under Chou but not Hudson, that would be more suggestive but still not proof (perhaps a different editor handled each submission?)

Nonetheless, the resulting outrage prompted the editor of the volume, Sherman Alexie, to write an explanation. The result was a very candid admission that affirmative action played a significant role in the poetry selection process. In Sherman's words:

I chose a strange and funny and rueful poem written by Yi-Fen Chou, which turns out to be a Chinese pseudonym used by a white male poet named Michael Derrick Hudson as a means of subverting what he believes to be a politically correct poetry business.  

I only learned that Yi-Fen Chou was a pseudonym used by a white man after I'd already picked the poem and Hudson promptly wrote to reveal himself.  

Of course, I was angry at the subterfuge and at myself for being fooled by this guy. I silently cursed him and wondered how I would deal with this colonial theft.  

So I went back and reread the poem to figure out exactly how I had been fooled and to consider my potential actions and reactions. And I realized that I hadn't been fooled by anything obvious. I'd been drawn to the poem because of its long list title (check my bibliography and you'll see how much I love long titles) and, yes, because of the poet's Chinese name. Of course, I am no expert on Chinese names so I'd only assumed the name was Chinese. As part of my mission to pay more attention to underrepresented poets and to writers I'd never read, I gave this particular poem a close reading. And I found it to be a compelling work. In rereading the poem, I still found it to be compelling. And most important, it didn't contain any overt or covert Chinese influences or identity. I hadn't been fooled by its "Chinese-ness" because it contained nothing that I recognized as being inherently Chinese or Asian. There could very well be allusions to Chinese culture that I don't see. But there was nothing in Yi-Fen Chou's public biography about actually being Chinese. In fact, by referencing Adam and Eve, Poseidon, the Roman Coliseum, and Jesus, I'd argue that the poem is inherently obsessed with European culture. When I first read it, I'd briefly wondered about the life story of a Chinese American poet who would be compelled to write a poem with such overt and affectionate European classical and Christian imagery, and I marveled at how interesting many of us are in our cross-cultural lives, and then I tossed the poem on the "maybe" pile that eventually became a "yes" pile.

Do you see what happened?  

I did exactly what that pseudonym-user feared other editors had done to him in the past: I paid more initial attention to his poem because of my perception and misperception of the poet's identity. Bluntly stated, I was more amenable to the poem because I thought the author was Chinese American.  

Here, I could offer you many examples of white nepotism inside the literary community. I could detail entire writing careers that have been one long series of handshakes and hugs among white friends and colleagues. I could list the white poets who have been selected by their white friends for each of the previous editions of Best American Poetry. But that would be just grandstanding. It's also grandstanding for me to accuse white folks of nepotism without offering any real evidence. This whole damn essay is grandstanding. 

So what's the real reason why I'm not naming names? It's because most white writers who benefit from white nepotism are good writers. That feels like a contradiction. But it's not.  

And, hey, guess what? In paying more initial attention to Yi-Fen Chou's poem, I was also practicing a form of nepotism. I am a brown-skinned poet who gave a better chance to another supposed brown-skinned poet because of our brownness.  

So, yes, of course, white poets have helped their white friends and colleagues because of nepotism. And, yes, of course, brown poets have helped their brown friends and colleagues because of nepotism. And, yes, because of nepotism, brown and white poets have crossed racial and cultural lines to help friends and colleagues.  

Nepotism is as common as oxygen.  

But, in putting Yi-Fen Chou in the "maybe" and "yes" piles, I did something amorphous. I helped a total stranger because of racial nepotism.  

I was practicing a form of literary justice that can look like injustice from a different angle. And vice versa.  

And, of course, I know many of you poets are pissed at me. I know many of you are screaming out a simple question: "Sherman, why did you keep that poetry colonist in the anthology even after you learned of his deception?"  

Listen, I was so angry that I stormed and cursed around the room. I felt like punching the wall.  

And, of course, there was no doubt that I would pull that fucking poem because of that deceitful pseudonym.  

But I realized that I would primarily be jettisoning the poem because of my own sense of embarrassment. I would have pulled it because I didn't want to hear people say, "Oh, look at the big Indian writer conned by the white guy." I would have dumped the poem because of my vanity.  

And I would have gotten away with it. I am a powerful literary figure and the pseudonym user is an unknown guy who has published maybe a dozen poems in his life. If I'd kicked him out of BAP 2015 then he might have tried to go public with that news.  

And he would have been vilified and ignored. And I would have been praised.  

Trust me, I would much rather be getting praised by you poets than receiving the vilification I am getting now.

But I had to keep that pseudonymous poem in the anthology because it would have been dishonest to do otherwise.  

If I'd pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I gave the poem special attention because of the poet's Chinese pseudonym.  

If I'd pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I was consciously and deliberately seeking to address past racial, cultural, social, and aesthetic injustices in the poetry world.  

And, yes, in keeping the poem, I am quite aware that I am also committing an injustice against poets of color, and against Chinese and Asian poets in particular.  

But I believe I would have committed a larger injustice by dumping the poem. I think I would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen for BAP. It would have implied that I chose poems based only on identity.  

But that's not what happened. In the end, I chose each poem in the anthology because I love it. And to deny my love for any of them is to deny my love for all of them.

Frankly, I am surprised that Alexie felt the need to apologize at all. This is, I think, exactly how affirmative action is supposed to work. We should pay special attention to people who belong to groups that have been historically discriminated against in order to give them an opportunity that might otherwise be denied them. But having ensured that they receive an opportunity, we then proceed on the basis of merit and merit alone. If it turns out that the poem has merit, it should be published regardless of whether it received attention for affirmative action reasons, and whether or not those reasons were justly applied. In my opinion, everything worked out just the way it is supposed to.

As for the actions of the author, I am in two minds. On the one hand, misrepresenting yourself to obtain an advantage seems like something we should obviously condemn. On the other hand, affirmative action is intended to offset other disadvantages, and not to create new advantages of their own. If it is true that affirmative action is overcompensating for these disadvantages—and this case does not prove that it is—then perhaps it is time to scale back our affirmative action efforts?

As we have seen in earlier posts on this blog, many male authors are adopting female or gender neutral pseudonyms to obtain an perceived advantage (or remove a disadvantage) in publishing caused by the fact that more readers are women than men. At the same time, some women are reporting that they still find it easier to publish under a male pseudonym. If both men and women are equally unhappy, then perhaps the balance of affirmative action on the basis of gender is just right.