Ethical publishing, and the bleach-blond elephant in the room

Roxane Gay, the author of “Bad Feminist,” is someone I greatly admire—both as a writer and as a person. She was recently set to have a book published by Simon & Schuster. She decided to cancel the deal upon learning that TED Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint, is going to also publish a project by Milo Yiannopoulos. In her words, “I can’t in good conscious let them publish it while they also publish Milo.” (While her book wasn’t going to be published by the same specific group that published Milo, there is a company link. TED is a Simon & Schuster offshoot that publishes works by conservative authors.)

I have heard of other authors making similar decisions. There are Thought Catalog writers who have pulled their work from the site because it provided a platform for some sexist, homophobic, and otherwise bigoted perspectives.

This is a decision I respect, and I understand the reasoning. This is a self-sacrificing choice for an author. They’re losing exposure and sometimes money for the sake of their principles. Roxane Gay acknowledged that she is financially comfortable enough to do this. She said she is “in a fortunate enough position to make this decision, so I’m putting my money where my mouth is.” Her ideals, combined with her understanding that not everybody can afford to make monetary decisions based on ideals, is one of the many reasons I respect her.

And if I were in that position, I am not sure I would make the same choice.

Part of this is because I am financially dependent and have nearly no income. I’m also an unknown writer with very few platforms. However, there’s a second reason I might make a different choice.

Milo Yiannopoulos is a thoroughly repugnant person who is not just an irritation, but a danger. He is a spokesman for the neo Nazi movement. If every author who stands against his beliefs were to pull their books from a publication, one of two things would happen.

Scenario one: The publishing company will stop selling his writings, and the writings of any of his peers. They will cease to give him a platform, and he will receive no more money from them.

Scenario two: With all progressive (or at least not regressive) voices gone, what will remain of that company’s clientele will be hateful, bigoted perspectives. They will become the voice of the company. In order to keep their business afloat, they will cater solely to that crowd and seek out more far-right extremists. Far-right fanatics who were previously obscure will then gain more publicity and a bigger following. It will become an expanding alt-right echo chamber.

Hopefully Scenario One would be the result, but I would be too afraid of the second scenario to risk that. If Scenario Two were to happen, I don’t believe in any way that the authors who pulled their books would be at fault. It is not their fault that there are scary hateful extremists in the world, and it is understandable they would want no affiliation. This is more than understandable; it’s ethical.

We would be hard pressed to find a company that has never published anything offensive, no matter how many forward-thinking authors they also include. Regardless, there’s a difference between publishing a garden variety “family values” crank, and publishing a Nazi sympathizer. Unfortunately, a company could point to their progressive authors whenever they want to evade responsibility for Milo. They could say, “We’re not sexist or racist or anti-Semitic; we published Roxane Gay!” Roxane Gay was most likely aware of that, and chose to circumvent the possibility.

It is also possible that a far-right author could refuse to publish with Simon & Schuster because they publish liberals. They could just as easily say, “I won’t work with them, because I want no affiliation with leftists.” The more outnumbered they are, the less comfortable they feel in that space.

I commend Gay for that value judgment, as well as anyone else who would share that conviction. Notwithstanding, I wouldn't fault a person who said, “I’m not going to take my voice away from this company. It contains a regressive voice, but it can also contain mine. Mine will counter the ignorance. And hopefully more voices will join my own, so my peers within this company will outnumber the bigots.”

Either decision can be based on honorable principles. I just hope the people with those principles win out, wherever they choose to publish their work.

Remixing

Surgeons, tailors, deejays, filmmakers, writers, and painters
all do the same thing
which is editing
Nip-tucking sentences
Operating on colors
Making musical patchwork
And remixing bodies
Fixing, making
Cutting and conjoining
all the different worlds
into one.

Another playlist poem

Under the bridge, Jane says
“You don’t look back in anger
if
the nature of reality
is nothing to believe in.
I prefer wonder
the waiting for the good life
black snow
and
learning to fly
underground.”

Song titles: “Under the Bridge” and “Snow” by RHCP; “Jane Says” and “Underground” by Jane’s Addiction; “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “The Nature of Reality” by Oasis; “Nothing to Believe In” and “The Good Life” by Cracker; “Wonder” by Natalie Merchant; “The Waiting” and “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty; and “Black” by Pearl Jam.

Playlist poetry

Today I came up with a game: Writing poems made almost entirely out of existing song titles. 

It could be a poem, or a statement, or a short story. It can be as serious or as silly as you want. It's okay to use your own words to connect the song titles when you construct the sentences. Don't use the same title twice in one poem. If you don't keep playlists, just write a poem/short story/sentence using the names of whatever songs come to mind and would fit together.

Here's mine. I capitalized the first letters of the song names.

"Today, us New Years Saints
Stutter a Connection,
a Whirring Holy Touch.
Welcome to the Church of Rock & Roll."

(Titles: "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins; "New Years" and "Saints" by The Breeders; "Stutter" and "Connection" by Elastica; "Whirring" by The Joy Formidable; "Holy Touch" and "Welcome to the Church of Rock & Roll" by Foxy Shazam.)

Here's another, from the same playlist:

"Graveyard Girl, the Initiator
cordially invites you
to Come Join the Murder
of American Society."

(Titles: "Graveyard Girl" by M83; "The Initiator" by Fefe Dobson; "Come Join the Murder" by White Buffalo & The Forest Rangers; "American Society" by L7. Yeah, my musical taste is all over the place.)

Feel free to try this.

Online conversations are unique in the way that so many of them can take place at once, so your entire frame of mind can change by the second depending on who you're talking to and what about. Sometimes this creates shallower emotions during those exchanges, because it gets draining to become fully invested in multiple intense discussions.

Written discourse in general is also unique in the sense that the words hang in the air, existing at all times. So you can be thinking or feeling something strongly, write about it, and then hear others respond once you're no longer so engaged. But to them, the time hasn't passed. This can result in fixating on something you might not otherwise; the opposite of what happens with multiple conversations. Online exchanges can do one or the other.

Both in-person and written communication have an important place, and I can't say one is superior. It just interests me how they bring about such different interactions and thought processes.