the problem.....is all of this
Twitter this week has just been this epic conflagration of everything your BIPOC mutuals have been tweeting about for ages, except now it’s happening ALL AT ONCE in a way that I’m sure makes it seem “new” if your name is Roger Lynch (the writers room is a little on the nose with the name but okay), but that is assuredly not.
But while it’s not the first time these assertions about pay inequality, workplace mistreatment, and tokenism (amongst many, many other issues) from Black media workers are being publicly aired — the mood finally feels receptive, like there’s been some massive lightbulb moment of like oh so this really iS a problem huh??? Shit are WE the problem?? It’s equal parts galvanizing and also maddening to see the dams finally bursting from the force of this focused attention, and no title or industry gets to sit out. Especially not publishing, which came to the forefront in the past few days under the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag started by L.L. McKinney, which compares how paltry advances for Black authors are compared to white authors. Kate McKean does a good breakdown of the trend here in her Agents and Books newsletter, and in case you need to experience even more fury right now, someone by the pen name of John the Correlator connected the dots on the New York Times Bestseller List on Medium just in case you thought it was ever just some regular ol’ list.