上位 200 件のコメント全て表示する 486

[–]UndeadBBQ 47ポイント48ポイント  (7子コメント)

Wouldn't it be nice if submissions would only every use some randomly generated ID-code?

And then, at the very last second before print/upload, the ID gets changed to the actual names.

[–]teabaggg 15ポイント16ポイント  (0子コメント)

No no no no. That's far too sensible and fair.

[–]3man 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

Really smart idea. It's kind of like how some tests that are being corrected don't have names on the front so teachers can't be biased toward or against certain students.

[–]t0liman 7ポイント8ポイント  (2子コメント)

Your meritocracy is showing.

If we made more decisions with blind, or double-blind testing, we'd lose any sense of being right on instinct or bias, it would be devastating to those people who grew up wanting power, or wanting a progressive society to exist that benefits the disenfranchised, or their particular group/subculture.

sadly, in today's progressive world, meritocracy is the new bigotry.

It's not enough to be good at something, it also has to be acceptable for your position or rank in a social hierarchy as well, a sort of "acceptable" anti-bigotry principle.

The irony might be palpable at a distance ... but merit is no longer the prime factor it used to be.

[–]UndeadBBQ 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have absolutely no problem to admit that I am fond of meritocratic systems and procedures. I made it a point to promote them in my own studio and will do so in the future. Especially when it comes to competitions I find it to be the only way to ensure a standard of fairness towards all. It surely isn't the answer to everything, but it damn well is one of the best working tools we got.

I have to say that I really have trouble following your argument. I mean, where do you come from? Whats your perspective here?

If we made more decisions with blind, or double-blind testing, we'd lose any sense of being right on instinct or bias

Yeah... thats the point. You have no business of being right by instinct. Being right by instinct brought us in the situation we are in now. Being right by bias harmed more people than I care to count. Both are terrible reasons to be right.

I'm not sure if I got your argument right. English isn't my native language and maybe I'm twisting the meaning here, but are you saying that a subjective, biased approach is superior to objective measurements?

Anyway. I get why being objective is not the answer to everything in the business of the Arts. Artists are sometimes just as, maybe even more important than the actual piece of art. But I do stand by this: Having anonymous submissions is a very good first wall of quality that ensures that no bad pieces get elected over good ones because of the writer. Highlight writers who are in some kind of minority or otherwise underprivileged group by doing so outside of any competition, but keep fairness in challenges like being the "Best American Poet".

[–]wolfman1911 52ポイント53ポイント  (7子コメント)

Kind of an odd story to be honest. On one hand, it's pretty jacked up that he would publish under the name of an Asian woman just to get published, but what is more jacked up is that it worked.

[–]liminalsoup 32ポイント33ポイント  (6子コメント)

lots of writers use pen names, its not unusual.

[–]StewthulhuCareer Writer 18ポイント19ポイント  (5子コメント)

The unusual part is a white writer changing nothing in his poem but the name and then having it picked up and anthologized relatively quickly (at least according to this article). Although presumably, he didn't try to resubmit to the same journals after changing the byline, so there's no way to know if it was actually related to race at all or whether the author is insensitive and it was just luck.

[–]liminalsoup 45ポイント46ポイント  (2子コメント)

the response makes it 100% clear they did NOT want to choose a white mans poem.

[–]StewthulhuCareer Writer 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes, that part is clear, but I was talking about the part before that, when it was picked up by Prairie Schooner. Would they have picked it up if he had retained his name?

[–]StephenKong 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

What response? Sherman Alexie's? He said that the anthology was 60% white and 40% male so... not sure I'd go that far

[–]RW_Highwater 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

or whether the author is insensitive

What sensitivity is the author lacking in?

[–]RedeemingVices 281ポイント282ポイント  (43子コメント)

I love how the author's actions highlight immense sexism and racism in the publishing world, but he's the one being called racist. It fucking baffles me how stupid people are.

[–]thespickler 57ポイント58ポイント  (27子コメント)

This is exactly what I was thinking. Hudson is getting shit on for using a pseudonym, but it's the publishers that are the ones who should be reprimanded. They basically flat out even say that they only picked this poem because of the Chinese sounding name. That's blatant racism.

[–]virgineyes09 13ポイント14ポイント  (25子コメント)

I don't think they only picked it because of the Chinese name, I think they probably gave it more attention than the thousands of poems submitted by white dudes. Asian people are highly underrepresented in the arts (except maaaaaybe classical music but I'm not sure on that) so they probably wanted to be more open to submissions from a member of a group that does not normally get published. Without googling, can you name one Asian poet?

[–]Differently 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

Basho?

[–]CantHardly 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote, "A flute with no holes, is not a flute. A donut with no hole, is a Danish." He was a funny guy.

[–]thespickler 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

No I can't. But then I also don't read much in the way of poetry whatsoever.

[–]KeatingOrRoark 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

I can't name any, no, but I can go ahead and recite a dozen poems off the top of my head which I consider great. And then I won't be able to tell you anything about the writer, because I don't consider the writer much more than a vehicle to share the poem.

Because I don't judge poetry/writing off the author. I judge it off its content.

[–]R4dent 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Which is one aspect of literary appreciation. It can be difficult at times to separate the author from the work. Just like being in a bar and focusing on someone you find attractive, a text can have greater allure based upon who is behind it, it can even have deeper meaning due to such implications of context.

[–]makemeking706 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

"wow, these paintings are great. Who painted them?"

"Hitler"

"oh..."

[–]BronzeTrophyWife 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Mo Yan, the Nobel laureate for literature 2012.

[–]R4dent 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Mo Yan is a prose writer, not a poet.

[–]piusbovis 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Bei Dao, Mai Mong...

[–]hugemuffin 126ポイント127ポイント  (6子コメント)

It's that old joke... If I walk in on a woman who is naked, I'm the pervert. If she walks in on me while I'm naked, I'm still the pervert.

[–]arkanemusic 22ポイント23ポイント  (2子コメント)

If you're a guy, simple never walk and never be naked. I think that's the lesson here.

[–]RogueNite 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I find more and more racism is a really problematic word to use. Partly because there are parts of society that like to cover their ears and yell "lalalalalalalalala" whenever people bring up racism in certain contexts. In admittedly, two very different and opposing ways.

Discrimination is a good word. The publishing world is guilty of discrimination. He is guilty of...exploiting and highlighting its failure?

[–]ZenBerzerker 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Discrimination is a good word.

It is also a good thing if it's done on the right criteria. Discriminate between original or derivative works when you pick your anthologies.

But discrimination based on race (racism, in a word), is not a good thing. Unless you're looking for universal blood donors, then you want more native south-americans than other races because they've got that good blood everyone wants.

[–]OfGloriousLife 236ポイント237ポイント  (100子コメント)

Do people get this angry when women publish under male pseudonyms to similarly avoid rejection?

[–]Psyladine 27ポイント28ポイント  (16子コメント)

JK Rowling?

[–]Celestaria 8ポイント9ポイント  (13子コメント)

Initials are pretty gender neutral.

[–]Psyladine 51ポイント52ポイント  (11子コメント)

She was specifically told to use them to evoke the male author JRR Tolkien, and that her name (Joanne) would lead to loss of sales. She didn't even have a middle name, so she used her Grandmother's.

[–]USA-in-NL 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think he meant Robert Galbraith

[–]inkedexistence 199ポイント200ポイント  (74子コメント)

Sadly, I don't think they're that self-aware. For a disturbingly large portion of our population, racism and sexism are crimes only white men are capable of committing.

[–]DeShawnThordason 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

The argument here is that it's acceptable for historically marginalized classes (women and non-white people) to try to better their chances by posing as the privileged class (white men). I'm less familiar with how this idea translates in the art world, but I imagine publishing has long favored and been dominated by rich, white men.

It would be an interesting issue if it were something like a white woman writing under an asian pseudonym, or an asian person writing under a black pseudonym. I'm sure people would argue about "degrees of privilege".

[–]jimrob4 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

"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."

I'm angry that the poem somehow became publishable only when an Asian man woman supposedly wrote it.

[–]serpent-tailed-angel 95ポイント96ポイント  (67子コメント)

Do the people who are upset about the fact that he used a fake name also take issue with the fact that he had a significantly easier time getting published as a result? Ideally, you should be selected based on the quality of your work, not your ethnicity. At least the guy publishing it acknowledged that he couldn't pull the poem without making it look like he only accepted it because it was written by an Asian woman.

[–]ADampDevil 54ポイント55ポイント  (12子コメント)

At least the guy publishing it acknowledged that he couldn't pull the poem without making it look like he only accepted it because it was written by an Asian woman.

I didn't read it like that.

"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.

He's saying he only gave it special attention because of the 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 again making it clear it only got attention because of the Chinese name attacted to it.

[–]FlyingSandwich 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

"I was consciously and deliberately seeking to address past racial, cultural, social, and aesthetic injustices in the poetry world."

What, by committing more? The fuck, man.

[–]thedankening 18ポイント19ポイント  (7子コメント)

I'm not sure I can even handle the amount of white guilt in that second quote. It's ridiculous.

[–]StephenKong 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

Um, Sherman Alexie isn't white!

[–]actionlawyercomics 28ポイント29ポイント  (0子コメント)

Don't worry. Sherman Alexie is Native American.

[–]akaSylviaPublished Author 17ポイント18ポイント  (3子コメント)

The editor's quotes are distinctly bizarre. I have no idea what he's trying to say or how he thinks this helps to clarify what he did.

[–]Bartweiss 10ポイント11ポイント  (2子コメント)

I was completely baffled by Sherman Alexie's comments. Not that I'm upset, or judging him (he's an excellent author), I literally cannot work out what the words mean.

The relationships here seem fairly clear: if he pulled the author's piece for use of an Asian pseudonym, it would be evidence that (rightly or wrongly) he was making an affirmative-action selection based on ethnicity. If he refused to pull the piece, it would be a claim that the decision was author-agnostic and he simply viewed the piece differently than those who rejected it.

He says neither of these things. Rather, he appears to say that he was practicing affirmative action, and the author's decision was objectionable, but now the only way to uphold affirmative action is to keep the white guy with the Asian pseudonym. I think. His comments are supremely unclear.

[–]akaSylviaPublished Author 13ポイント14ポイント  (1子コメント)

Did you read his longer explanation? It's no better.

http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2015/09/like-most-every-poet-i-have-viewed-the-publication-of-each-years-best-american-poetry-with-happiness-i-love-that-poem-je-1.html

As far as I can see, he liked the piece because the poet was from an underrepresented group and yet sounded exactly like a white guy.

[–]Zalachenko 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Exactly - the contradiction intrigued him and he didn't do his research, but he chose to keep it in there because it's a testament to the subjectivity of the powers that be in academia, whoever they happen to be.

[–]hyperboleblues 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I don't know about the word "only" here. Later in the post he says he simply loves the poem.

[–]ADampDevil 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

He mentions he paid particular attention to it as he thought is was by a Chinese person, and the long title. So fair enough it might have got a look in on the long title alone. I doubt it.

[–]rushmc1 10ポイント11ポイント  (12子コメント)

Ideally, you should be selected based on the quality of your work, not your ethnicity.

See, that's an assumption. One that I strongly share with you as a publishing poet, but one with which, clearly, others disagree.

[–]Celestaria 3ポイント4ポイント  (8子コメント)

Quality is subjective. Race is... apparently also subjective?

[–]rushmc1 16ポイント17ポイント  (6子コメント)

It absolutely is. "Race" doesn't even exist as a category in science (What is the standard for determining "black," for example? Used to be "one drop" in the U.S.). Cultural variation is where things get interesting.

Thought experiment: What if a white boy was raised in China from a very young age, assimilated local culture into his "identity," and became a poet when he grew up, drawing on what he knew. Would people still feel that he was co-opting other people's cultural heritage and condemn him? (Answer: Some would.)

[–]StewthulhuCareer Writer 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

It absolutely is. "Race" doesn't even exist as a category in science (What is the standard for determining "black," for example? Used to be "one drop" in the U.S.).

This is somewhat inaccurate, but the spirit of the statement seems to be true. Race does exist in science, but it is considered wholly a cultural construct (outside of some salty old geneticists who cling to racist social Darwinism). Unfortunately, a huge amount of our historical medical data (the type used for epidemiology) is based on self-reported race, so we're kind of stuck with it. There are certain genetic trends associated with various ethnicities, but because those features don't show up in 100% of a given ethnicity and because they are almost never unique for that ethnicity, they're rather useless. One of the best examples is the sickle-cell trait (associated with sickle-cell anemia), which is widely attributed to African race despite also being prevalent in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Turkey.

[–]rushmc1 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Certainly there are genetic clusters and commonality. They just don't translate into something which coincides with the popular idea of "race." But, of course, "I know it when I see it" is good enough for a lot of people.

[–]Celestaria 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Sorry, I was being flippant. The question of "race" is a difficult one, because while it clearly doesn't have a scientific definition, it does have a scientifically measurable effect. Being perceived as white or east-asian does effect the way other people interact with us. Physical characteristics are often easier to see than cultural characteristics, even if they're a completely inaccurate means of predicting behaviour and personality, and while races may not exist as a tangible reality, they still exist as mental concepts. And since we can't point to a universal definition of race, yeah, there's going to be a certain degree of subjectivity involved.

For the record, I'm not ignoring your though experiment. It's just that every time try to respond to it the paragraph gets buried in anecdotes about white expats in China.

[–]Felixader 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

So and this is where we get back to the subject matter of this article:

What would be his name? Since normaly no one sees the author and just the authors name that would be what people go by hence the result wich we can see in the original post.

[–]TOASTEngineer 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'd like to live in a world where "black person" means a human being who just absorbs a lot of light, with no subtext beyond that.

[–]StephenKong 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

When you are reading among the best of the best, though, and reading thousands of poems you have to winnow to 70 or whatever a huge amount of subjectivity creeps in. There are probably 200 poems.... maybe 500... that could have been in the anthology. Dunno, I do not find it offensive to look at those 200 or 300 or whatever and decide you want some racial diversity and a decent gender balance. I'm sure I'll get down voted for that though.

[–]fuchsiamatter -1ポイント0ポイント  (20子コメント)

As somebody who does take issue with this guy's choice of pen-name, actually yes, I absolutely do object to selecting work on the name of the author. The fact that the editor admits that the poem was only chosen because of the name is appalling.

However, I think that that is missing the point: when women take male pseudonyms or Asians white pseudonyms (does that happen?) it is precisely to level the playing field. It is to avoid a prejudice that is well-documented and historically unavoidable any other way. George Elliot did not have much of a choice. JK Rowling was told by her publishers to keep her name unisex. This guy was seeking not to avoid prejudice, but exploit an advantage - an advantage that shouldn't have been there in the first place, just as the advantage male names have over female names in publishing shouldn't be there.

So he still doesn't come out of this looking good to me. He comes out of this looking like he saw an unfair advantage and plunged straight for it.

[–]KingArhturIIAuthor 10ポイント11ポイント  (1子コメント)

How do you differentiate between prejudice and advantage?

[–]fuchsiamatter 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

One is negative and the other is positive? Neither should happen so it doesn't matter anyway?

[–]Jeffbx 13ポイント14ポイント  (4子コメント)

Just playing devil's advocate, but is it just Asian women who have an advantage when publishing poetry? Would it be OK for a black woman to take an Asian pseudonym to get her poetry published?

[–]fuchsiamatter 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

Not in my book. But it would also be rather pointless, since a black women who wants to present herself as a member of a discriminated minority doesn't have to take a different name.

[–]Jeffbx 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

So you think a poetry publisher would give Uneek Jackson or Twylite Williams the same opportunity that Yi-Fen Chou gets?

Not trying to be a troll here, but I think the blame is a little misplaced. He's gaming the system just like JK Rowling & EL James did. If anyone is the bad guy here, it should be the publisher who fully admitted the bias in his selection.

[–]TOASTEngineer 5ポイント6ポイント  (4子コメント)

This guy was seeking not to avoid prejudice, but exploit an advantage

An advantage put in place... by the editor's prejudice. I don't see the difference.

[–]fuchsiamatter 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

You're making baseless assumptions. The editor did not set out to discriminate against white men. I'm 100% sure there are plenty of other white men featured in this anthology, men whose work spoke for itself and who didn't need to pretend to be part of a historically under-advantaged group to get attention.

Instead what the editor set out (albeit very misguidedly) to do is to give an unearned advantage to an Asian woman.

If poetry anthologies were traditionally brimming with the works of Asian women and white men didn't have a hope of gaining attention without resorting to such tricks, then I'd start talking about prejudice against white men. As it is the assumption of this editor still seems to be that Asian women write worse poetry and therefore need a leg up - the prejudice is therefore still against Asian women. This man exploited that prejudice and the rather silly condescension it inspired in the editor for his own gain.

I do not admire that.

[–]hellafun 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Very well put. I am not sure if the editor's prejudice or the author's awareness of it and willingness to take advantage bother me more.

[–]sykeros 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

You articulated very well the idea I was struggling with as I was reading these comments. I agree that this situation is messed up, but many of the comments here seem to ignore the history of racism and sexism. In an ideal world, affirmative action would never be considered appropriate, but our world is far, far from ideal.

[–]AJakeR 76ポイント77ポイント  (11子コメント)

Entire article raged at the white man, totally glossing over the fact (other than a brief comment at the very bottom) about how he was almost immediately published as both a non-white and non-male.

Whoever writes good poetry should get noticed for writing good poetry. I don't care who that is. But, regardless of what was said, the poem was clearly chosen for ethnic reasons, and it was only kept in to avoid a shit-load of hell-fire on the behalf of the anthology.

[–]williamj35 44ポイント45ポイント  (10子コメント)

Whoever writes good poetry should get noticed for writing good poetry.

I agree. Sort of. There is an important nuance to this that some folks seem to be missing. Let's look at Sherman Alexie's Rule #5 for his own selection process for Best American Poetry 2015:

Rule #5: I will pay close attention to the poets and poems that have been underrepresented in the past. So that means I will carefully look for great poems by women and people of color. And for great poems by younger, less established poets...

Alexie's actions were meant as a correction to a history of previous selection. Historically, it has been easier to publish as a white male than as anything else. Alexie saw it as his job as editor to select in favor of women and people of color. So, how did he do?

By his own report:

Approximately 60% of the poets are female. Approximately 40% of the poets are people of color.

He certainly made it easier for women to be published in his volume than men. But even with a selection bias that favored people of color, he still came up with a collection that was 60% white.

Many people seem ready to jump to the conclusion that, because Michael Hudson published more easily under the name Yi-Fen Chou, poetry publishing as a whole must be guilty of some kind of reverse racism.

I personally find it more accurate to say that, in this case, an editor worked hard to include diverse voices in a publishing environment that is overwhelmingly white and where white poets have a distinct advantage. An editor has to actively work against that advantage to create a balanced situation for poets of all races and ethnicities.

Alexie's Rule #5 led to a collection that roughly matches the race demographics of the United States (at least in terms of its white-to-non-white poet ratio). I'd call that fair.

[–]Rhonardo 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thank you for the even handed reply providing context to the editors comments.

[–]fauxRealzy 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

"He still came up with a collection that was 60% white."

The United States is roughly 60% white. Isn't the goal of "creating a balanced situation for poets of all races and ethnicities" to reflect demographic proportions? Or is it to deliberately favor people of color?

See, this is my whole problem with affirmative action. I don't disagree with the diagnosis so much as the prescription. When you start fretting about percentages and perfect demographical representation you distract from the issue at hand. You distract from the art form you're meant to be advancing, and we end up with stupid controversies like this or the recent Hugo Awards, and the art we're meant to be promoting becomes marginalized. It breeds bitterness and resentment in the hearts of those who perceive themselves to be marginalized (whether in the form of JK Rowling adopting a gender-neutral name, or in the form of this guy adopting an Asian name), and it raises suspicions among readers regarding the merit of a given work. Even among those who benefit from the system (be they white males in traditional publishing or asian women in affirmative action scenarios), there's a philosophical question to confront: Do you want your work to be a success because you created something truly worthy of the acclaim, or because a publisher saw your identity as beneficial for some larger demographic agenda?

This reliance on diversity as an inherent credential is an attempt to appropriate the (sensible) reliance on objectivity found in the STEM community. The problem is a) literature was never meant to be objective (which is why I have a problem with the phrase "Best American" in the first place), and b) the gatekeepers end up manufacturing that objectivity anyway, rather than letting it grow from a slow cultural shift in attitudes and biases. It's a spot treatment for a pervasive societal problem.

[–]nae32 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

My issue with this is that it's suddenly not actually about the poetry. It should always be about the poetry. If you want more African American poetry then do readings and seminars, and put resources into the black community. Have an anthology that focuses on issues central to the black community.

I don't think it's unfair to say that it's wrong to judge someone by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. If your method of discerning who to publish is as arbitrary as a name then you're not anywhere close.

[–]virgineyes09 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

This is the most intelligent comment in the whole thread. People are mad at this guy for taking advantage of something that was meant for people who have been historically blocked off from the poetry world. Even when they were trying to have poetry from diverse sources, they still ended up with more White poets than they wanted. Imagine if a wealthy European disguised himself as Nepali to receive food and aid from UNICEF.

The rules clearly state that they wanted diverse poetry representing the different demographics of the US. That means they had white poets, black poets, men, women, Asians, everyone! But this guy disguised himself as a different group so that he could sneak into a spot that was meant for a different type of voice, effectively taking the spot that belonged to an actual Asian American poet. That's fucked up.

[–]Piqsirpoq 47ポイント48ポイント  (3子コメント)

"poetry colonist"

I'm more of a poetry semi-colonist myself.

[–]danmilligan 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'd go with a poetry post-colonist, though I do like what you did there.

[–]Babill 120ポイント121ポイント  (32子コメント)

Of course when it's an old white man who does it, it is racist and possibly misogynistic but, had it been any other arrangement of gender and race, this would have been hailed as an empowered minority gaming the system. A dialog would have opened about why it is so hard for this particular arrangement of gender and race to publish poetry but no, of course no, he's white, he's a man. He was practically given a free ride card at his birth. Sickening.

[–]nonconformist3 41ポイント42ポイント  (25子コメント)

White man here, can confirm, life isn't easy when it comes to being successful no matter who you are. Just makes dealing with most cops a bit easier.

[–]couponreborn 32ポイント33ポイント  (6子コメント)

Well, hasn't it been proven that people with black-sounding names have a much less of a chance being selected for a job interview than someone with a more white-sounding name who has the same qualifications?

[–]funkybassmannick 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

In plenty of outlets, being a white man has a clear advantage from dealing with cops to getting a job or raise or promotion, etc.

What we're looking at here is one specific outlet where it seems white men are at a disadvantage. IMO magazines and other publications are looking for diversity, so if it's between two great poems, one written by a white man and another by an Asian woman, they'll lean toward the latter.

[–]t0liman 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

It popped up in freakonomics the movie.

it's the notoriously well known "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination" myth/study.

Levitt and Dubner have also talked about this, 10 years on, and the resulting problems, especially the more recent online search problems when black names were being added as SEO tactics for delivering search results to their sites, as well as Google AdWords results.

It is a decent, popular example of unknowable bias, as in, people make latent or snap judgements based on emotional contexts, and not rationalism or merit, not being aware of their preferences, inherent biases, or thought process when doing so.

here's another one, along with the freakonomics POV.

Arguably, it's exceedingly hard to remove bias as the majority of people don't have any awareness of their inherent biases unless described or shown to them by merit or results.

[–]Iccutreb 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

Do you have a source on that? I don't doubt it, I just want to read into it.

[–]RexCelestis 13ポイント14ポイント  (2子コメント)

Here's one of the studies: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

[–]Iccutreb 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Thank you!

[–]RexCelestis 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

You may also find this an interesting read: a Yale study that not only revealed gender bias in hiring, but those who think they are most objective are most biased. http://www.socialjudgments.com/docs/Uhlmann%20and%20Cohen%202005.pdf

[–]Fjoergyn_D 3ポイント4ポイント  (7子コメント)

Well, you're a lot less likely to get bludgeoned into coma by drunk racists.

[–]Vaginuh 46ポイント47ポイント  (0子コメント)

Try walking around certain neighborhoods in Philly.

[–]nonconformist3 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

True, I never thought of that one.

[–]Mixxy92 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Although being an attractive woman of any race still trumps being a white guy when dealing with police.

[–]clavalle 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

I love how the word 'colonialism' is used in the article, too. I guess white people are the only people on Earth that have ever engaged in colonization. On top of that, colonization seems like it was all of the white race's idea rather than a few royal families' and all white men are just looking for opportunities to colonize the world wherever and whenever possible and now that the planet is pretty full this guy has decided to colonize mindspace.

Does it seem to anyone else that a great deal of evil in this world is directly tied to the idea that currently living people are responsible for their ancestor's decisions?

[–]Duffalpha 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

They generalize about white men being evil, then call me a racist.

[–]virgineyes09 8ポイント9ポイント  (2子コメント)

I know you meant this as sarcasm but it sounds exactly right to me. The overwhelming majority of poets in America have been and are white dudes. So yes, if were the other way around it would have been an empowered minority gaming the system, but since it's not, it's not. The journal was looking for diverse voices and he disguised himself as someone he wasn't and replaced a spot that was meant for non-white dude poets with yet another white dude. That's fucked up to me.

[–]looler 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

I'm not disputing your point, but I it seems like you and most of the people commenting on this article value different things.

Most commenters tend to think the poem itself should be judged on its own merits without consideration of the author. You seem to think that the author's identity is inherent to the value of the poem, and therefore should be considered with an emphasis placed on less represented groups.

With something as subjective as poetry, it's difficult to say what is universally "better" but the commenters here seem upset because some notion of quality has been sacrificed in favor of identity.

[–]virgineyes09 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I agree and I understand the animosity in that regards. It's a question of whether you value aesthetics above all or not. I get why people are upset but personally I think it's naive to say art has zero implications or responsibilities beyond being good.

[–]wripples 30ポイント31ポイント  (3子コメント)

The Angry Asian Man blog also accused Mr Hudson of yellowface in poetry and predicted that the author wouldn't be enjoying his newly discovered privilege much longer.

That's not an empty threat, by the way. I know for a fact that many a poet has had their career crippled by the literary powerhouse that is the Angry Asian Man blog. Yellowface in poetry is no laughing matter.

[–]Eroticawriter4 13ポイント14ポイント  (1子コメント)

Just try to make millions off your poetry now, racist! Might as well go to that fallback career as a professional lacrosse player!

[–]Jazzspasm 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

He'll have to sell his yacht.

[–]Half_The_Battle 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Jokes on him, this old white dude can probably come up with like 3 completely different names. You'll never catch him.

[–]Werrf 38ポイント39ポイント  (9子コメント)

So, a woman can't get published under her own name, invents a male pseudonym and gets published; searing indictment of the publishing industry! A man can't get published under his own name, invents a female pseudonym and gets published; searing indictment of the writer's racism!

Anyone else seeing a double standard here?

[–]dempseye 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

Is anybody going to post the poem?

[–]jax9999 34ポイント35ポイント  (6子コメント)

i liked how they bandied the world colonial around. as if he as a white male was an intruder on their little peotry world. it was very very telling

[–]BadProfessor 15ポイント16ポイント  (5子コメント)

The were using "colonial" as it relates to post-colonial literary criticism.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/10/

[–]virgineyes09 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

The amount of writers on this sub who have no knowledge of literary theory is terrible.

[–]DeShawnThordason 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

Everyone can write. Not everyone can get a degree that involves substantial literary theory.

[–]lagadonian 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I can't say how easy it is, but anyone can read about these topics on the internet, and they are supposed to be important to the practice of writing.

[–]domdest 17ポイント18ポイント  (8子コメント)

Okay, I read the article, I thought about it a bit, and here's my attempt to deconstruct the issues.

I can see where a problem lies in the fact that if the poetry was about what it is to be Asian, then an Asian writing about their personal experiences with race issues specific to them is important, yes.

But imagine for a moment that an old white dude writes about what it is to be Asian, and a bunch of Asians reading it catch themselves nodding and going "that about sums it up". Doesn't that also have value? For example, Memoirs of a Geisha, written by American author Arthur Golden, has been praised as a great work of fiction about Japanese culture, and has inspired an entire body of work by other artists about same.

[–]Killhouse[S] 28ポイント29ポイント  (4子コメント)

The issue, and the guy who selected them admitted it, was the he was skimming over and tossing submissions by people with white male names, and giving preference to those that didn't. This piece probably wouldn't have even been read before it was thrown into the trash without the name change.

[–]virgineyes09 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Actually that's wrong. Part of the rules of submission for this journal was that they were looking for diverse poetry reflecting the demographics of America. I'm certain there were plenty of white poets in the list. The judges also wanted to include poetry by non-white poets too but this guy faked his name so that he could take the spot that was reserved for other demographics. They weren't tossing white names in the trash they probably just had enough white names in the "in" pile already.

[–]CharlottedeSouza 6ポイント7ポイント  (1子コメント)

But that's BS too - just because someone has a 'white' name doesn't mean they are white!

And a surname like 'Lee' could be either English or Chinese for example. My own surname could be is often assumed to be Brazilian, but that side is from Goa in India originally...

[–]LovableCoward 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Portuguese surname? I make the assumption since both were originally colonies of Portugal.

[–]JulianCaesar 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

But that's racist. If people will only read your pretty because your Asian, then it's racism on their part, not his.

[–]Kittae 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

I would like to throw in that Golden is a hack and that Memoirs is full of orientalism. He interviewed an actual geisha (who took so much issue with his version that Mineko Iwasaki published "Geisha: A Life" in response), and mixed her actual experiences with a shit-ton of myth and mystique that's not there.

[–]domdest 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm not sure if your opinion of Golden is meant to be just an opinion of Golden, or if you're of the opinion that authors cannot successfully write about races and genders other than their own. Can you clarify?

[–]Psyladine 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Except that her memoir (Geisha: A Life) was a narcissistic bag of hot air that called to mind the character Hatsumomo in Golden's Memoirs. No heroes in that war.

[–]TheMightyRocktopus 7ポイント8ポイント  (3子コメント)

Man, Alexie's comments took me on a rollercoaster:

"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."

Come now Mr. Alexie. What was stolen? As far as I know, there aren't many up-and-coming poets named Yi-Fen Chou, and even if there were, it's not a crime to use somebody else's name. This wasn't Best Asian-American Poetry 2015; this was Best American Poetry 2015. He's an American, therefore he should have just as much opportunity to be published as the next writer.

"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.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Alexie. It's good to see someone admit that they were in the wrong.

"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."

That's because, as an editor, it's not your job to address past racial, cultural etcetera injustices. Your job was to select the "Best American Poetry". It's right there in the fucking title. As a poet, novelist, and short story writer (and a damn fine one at that), yes, go ahead and address social and aesthetic injustices to your heart's content, but selecting a piece of poetry, not because the poetry was good or deserving of publication, but because the author had a name that sounded Chinese to you -- that makes you the racist.

Mr Alexie said that in keeping the poem he commit[sic] "an injustice against poets of [colour] and against Chinese and Asian poets in particular."

Yes, and do you know what that injustice was? You held them to a lower standard than their white colleagues. I'm willing to bet that Mr. Hudson wasn't the only white man published in this anthology. Unlike a lot of commenters in this thread, I don't think that you have a hate boner for white poets. You gave the white poets a fare shake, held them to the standards demanded by your position. But for Asian poets, for whatever reason, those standards were too much.

Why Sherman Alexie? Is it that Asian poets aren't as good as white poets by some magical force affecting a few billion people? Were internment and atomic bombs in World War II so catastrophic that they not only ruined the lives of those immediately impacted by them (Japanese people and their descendants), but also a nation of over a billion people who don't even identify as the same race?* And this nightmare of social injustice somehow lead to mass illiteracy, so that we need to lower the bar for Chinese writers? You mean to say that the oldest surviving culture in the world, a culture which has produced a few thousand years worth of fantastic writers and poets, just doesn't measure up, that those poor writers need a handicap in the name of racial equality?

* I'm being overly reductive here for the sake of demonstrating the absurdity of (for one) throwing all people from East Asia into one homogeneous group and (also) suggesting that thanks to some unnamed and unexplained crime against humanity, all people with epicanthic folds are now less competent than their European peers.

(Edit: Asterisk at the end and line edits.)

(Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo: I found Alexie's full comments which are a lot more sensible when read outside of the article. See my reply below for quick and lazy context.)

[–]knownerror 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

So a white dude isn't allowed to write a pretty poem about a tiger?

[–]VedneyBarely working on it 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

This anger against this is guy is just as stupid as the time that that publishing house decided they only want to publish women. Why can't we judge something by itself without bringing the creator into it?

[–]SituationSoap 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Why can't we judge something by itself without bringing the creator into it?

Because "judging" a creative work is a subjective process that's dependent entirely on the person doing the judging, and in a very great many instances, poetry being one of them, who wrote the poem and their personal background adds weight and gravitas to the poem that isn't there if someone else presents it as their own. Context, especially in creative works, matters, and who created the work and the history they bring to it is part of that context.

For instance, consider The Mountain Goats' song "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero". That's a song about a wrestler from the 1970's and on its own is kind of catchy and maybe a bit of fun (if you like the lead singer's voice, maybe you don't). However, if you know a bit more about the songwriter, you know that this song is autobiographical - it references the writer's stepfather, who was abusive during the last verse of the song:

You called him names / to get beneath my skin / You let me down / but Chavo never once did / now your ashes are scattered on the wind / I heard his son got famous, went nationwide / coast-to-coast with his dad by his side / I don't know if that's true, but I've been told / it's real sweet to grow old

Those couplets become much more meaningful in the context of that relationship. The song becomes about much more than just a wrestler on a black and white TV. It also draws references to earlier songs and albums from the band's discography (most notably, "Pale Green Things" from the album "Sunset Tree"). The song becomes better by understanding who wrote it and the history of the person doing the writing. Similarly, a poem about feeling alone and not having someone who can understand you is much more poignant coming from someone who has a history of living in places where they don't speak the language or aren't part of the dominant culture in an area, or many other reasons.

[–]KeatingOrRoark 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

It seems like people are ignoring the idea that all a poet needs to do to be published is be part of a minority or exotic group. Instead of judging the poem's initial worth off its content, the selector judged it based on the name of the writer.

This is not ok. This is not judging people by their content or ability. It is judging them based on race or ethnicity.

While the writer is a sneaky Pete, he has helped bring a very racist matter to light, and it seems like people are choosing to ignore it in favor of political correctness.

[–]sgtoox 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

So he gets rejected based on his race. And then he gets called the racist? I can't believe the article was being dead-serious.....

[–]10tothe24th 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm astonished at people's reactions to this. They act so hurt, like this man has robbed them of something, when all he's done is show what a joke the publisher's submission process is. It's not about racism or reverse racism or quasi-lateral perpendicular racism, it's just stupidity and they shouldn't be defending it, and they certainly shouldn't be directing so much hatred toward the guy whose only crime is pointing out how shallow (and apparently disinterested in poetry) those publishers were, doing the rest of us a huge favor. It's not like he submitted his poem to "Best Asian Women's Poetry of 2015."

And, that stupidity aside, let's not forget that many people of color have "white" names, so by picking names because they sound unwhite, these publishers were also disenfranchising people of color.

[–]flashlitemanboy 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

This makes me think when I get around to trying to publish my work, instead of putting my name as "Billy Bob Jones," I should instead abbreviate it to "B.B. Jones" or something ambiguous where you can't tell my gender. Because if I'm less likely to be published for being a male then that's a buncha bullshit.

[–]Kittae 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think your comment is a better take on this than most peoples'. The issue isn't that the guy just chose a pseudonym to get a wider chance of publishing--that's cool, use your advantages. It's that he co-opted a race, and when he got published "quicker" (no proof that it actually was) then he immediately pulled a "gotcha".

Changing up your name like that to sound more neutral, yes, that's a thing, do that! Make money, get famous! There are indeed problems that can be uncovered here, and if you can stack the cards in your favor then cool.

[–]ethos1983 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

Damn...I always joked about using a pen name, but I may have been on to something...

I love the fact that the editor openly admits to tossing pieces by "colonists", but what's he upset over? His blatantly racist actions? Condemning artistic work based on the gender/sex of its creator?

Nope, getting "fooled".

There is one reason to do what he did (choosing work based on race/nationality): if he was selecting for "the best Asian - American poems". He wasnt.

[–]BadProfessor 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Why do white males dominate literature?

One possibility is that they are inherently better at creating meaningful literature by virtue of being white and male, and any selection criteria emphasizing quality will skew toward them.

That seems highly improbable to me.

However, I also find it unlikely that people are constantly rejecting great work because it's not written by white men. I'm sure it happens (this is obviously one anecdotal example), but without strong evidence, I have a hard time believing it's the norm. So, is it possible that white males, on the whole, are producing higher quality literature than other demographics? Sure it is. But why?

One possibility is that white males make more literature because literature is seen as something that white males do. When women and people of color don't see people from their communities creating literature and don't hear voices like their own on the page, they are discouraged from creating literature themselves. By having more white men writing and writing seriously, you increase the chances of white men producing quality writing. When 90% of white you read in school is written by a white man, and you're taught this is literature, it has to be assumed that a message about who creates real literature is being delivered to students.

Also, look at the achievement gap between white people and people of color. I'm betting we can strongly correlate education with likelihood of publication. It probably helps to have dedicated a large portion of your life to reading and writing if writing is something you want to do with yourself. Submitting work for publication is kind of the last step in a long series of filters during which people of color, women, and individuals from low-income backgrounds have disadvantages.

One way to correct this disparity is to publish more new and alternate voices. Old white men still do well in the poetry world (W.S. Merwin springs to mind). Seeking out non-white, non-male voices is a way of enriching literature and encouraging new voices to take up writing.

[–]fauxRealzy 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

People on here and Twitter complaining that, even with Alexie's diversity scale-tipping, the resulting Best American Poems is still "60% white."

This is my problem with the whole "diversity-first," affirmative action approach to publishing, employment, academics, etc. The United States is roughly 60% white. Isn't the goal of "creating a balanced situation for poets of all races and ethnicities" to reflect demographic proportions? Or is it to deliberately favor people of color?

I don't disagree with the diagnosis so much as the prescription. When you start fretting about percentages and perfect demographical representation you distract from the issue at hand. You distract from the art form you're meant to be advancing, and we end up with stupid controversies like this or the recent Hugo Awards, and the art we're meant to be promoting becomes marginalized. It breeds bitterness and resentment in the hearts of those who perceive themselves to be marginalized (whether in the form of JK Rowling adopting a gender-neutral name, or in the form of this guy adopting an Asian name), and it raises suspicions among readers regarding the merit of a given work. Even among those who benefit from the system (be they white males in traditional publishing or asian women in affirmative action scenarios), there's a philosophical question to confront: Do you want your work to be a success because you created something truly worthy of the acclaim, or because a publisher saw your identity as beneficial for some larger demographic agenda?

This reliance on diversity as an inherent credential is an attempt to appropriate the (sensible) reliance on objectivity found in the STEM community. The problem is a) literature was never meant to be objective (which is why I have a problem with the phrase "Best American" in the first place), and b) the gatekeepers end up manufacturing that objectivity anyway, rather than letting it grow from a slow cultural shift in attitudes and biases. It's a spot treatment for a pervasive societal problem.

[–]GhostFour 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not good enough to be published 49 times, and suddenly the world catches up with the genius that would become one of America's best poems? This just proves that publishers are shit and everything I have written is fucking gold. Just as I suspected.

[–]Katrar 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I love how it's now normal to go from neutral to instant rage, with no settings in between.

It seems a lot of people have lost the genuine ability to communicate, talking at you has completely replaced talking to you.

If I did something like this (without intent to offend), and people addressed me in a civil manner, trying to explain/educate/communicate, I'd be willing to listen and perhaps even apologize. If, however, I did something like this and the response was rage-spittle, threats to destroy my creative reputation, etc etc... well, it'd be less middle ground and more middle finger.

[–]ZenBerzerker 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

the price of having one less white male voice, one masquerading as a Chinese one (for the what? mediocre poetry fame?

He thinks the poetry is mediocre, but he chose it for an anthology because he wanted to promote non-white poets?

That's not just racist, that's racist and stupid.

[–]red_280 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

Hysterical, simply due to what it says about what the real criteria sometimes is.

[–]VaginalBurp 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

"White poet proves he got shit on because he is white. Even when admitting they rejected his poem because he is a white man and then publishing it in the "Best American Poetry" when they thought he was Asian, HE is still, somehow, the one that did something wrong."

[–]WP_Joy 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Affirmative action has two sides, it recognizes that there has been systemtic oppression of minorities and seeks to correct it, and it also sometimes elevates the mediocre. Poetry, probably more than any other literary subgenre, is filled with pretentious navel gazers who don't recognize that their art is dead. I place them with philosophers, QBASIC coders, and film splicing instructors - there's a reason you can't quote a line from a poem written after 1971. Mark Millar is more relevant than Charles Wright.

What we have in the case of Yi Fen Chou is a combination of race tourism and the fact that selecting 75 poems as the best American poetry eventually results in you picking the prettiest turd in bowl around Poem #10, and then throwing darts at a wall for poems #30+. Did using a Chinese name give Yi Fen Chou an advantage? I'd say probably yeah. It's a terrible poem, it was probably selected to fill some quota, whether imagined or actually mandated. The guy who selected it for BAP said that he was "a brown skinned poet trying to give another brown skinned poet a chance." But the editors who selected Chou's work for the Praire Schooner and the Michigan Review and Uncle John's Bathroom Reader may not have had this altruistic racism in mind.

One issue that minorities face is that they are often allowed to be different, but they are not allowed to be great. Minority creatives like Maya Angelou, who is a fantastic writer and pretty much amazing at everything she touches, are famous for their "this is my work about my race. it deals with my race. RACE." books much more than they are for their more "this is a story about people" books. Try and think of a minority creative. The most famous ones are the ones who wrote books about being a minority, not the ones who wrote books about being a person. It's like being a female writer, you can publish books about women under your real name, but if you want to write books about men, you better try a name like George Sand or J.K. Rowling. A minority is forced to write books like The Color Purple to be commercially viable, minorities cannot write books like Moby Dick, Catch-22, Lolita, or Brave New World.

Being a white man gives you the privilege to be boring. You don't have to be Alice Walker and write about black life in the US, you can write whatever you want, whether it's Yiddish Policemen's Unions or considering lobsters or the freedom of suburban life in St. Paul, Minnesota. But whereas whites have the the whole world open to them, there is also a floor of quality that is expected.

For minorities, you are tunneled into a particular genre, almost guaranteed to be about your race. But you're allowed to be shitty at it, some benevolent editor will elevate your work as long as it matches their preconceived notions about what your people should be writing...and also as long as they don't go over quota. Yann Martel, a white Canadian, can write about an Indian boy named Pi, but Junot Diaz, a terrible author, is only famous because he allows race tourism when he writes from the Dominican perspective.

TL;DR: It's a shitty poem that was only chosen because he faked his minority status, but you're lying to yourself if you think white men are discriminated against.

[–]lronhubbardsmother 7ポイント8ポイント  (4子コメント)

I've been learning Chinese for years and have a Chinese name. I'd better not accidentally use it on any writing submissions lest I become a big fat racist who's responsible for all the evils of the world.

[–]EgonIsGod 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Glad this is getting press. For as long as I've been writing, the work submitted under female pseudonyms gets published much more often than under male ones.

[–]couponreborn 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

As someone who just received my English degree, I think there is at least a strong bias that works in racial minorities' favor in literary academia. One issue I have trouble forming a strong opinion about is a sort of affirmative action in any field...at one point can we determine that we're no longer preferring minorities to help conquer a long-held bias against them instead of rewarding solely on merit and talent? It's hard to quantify and to come up with hard evidence concerning the issue. We all have some leaning towards an opinion about it that seems to be rooted in emotion rather than data. I don't even know if it's possible to prove either side of the argument.

[–]DunkeyKung 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Hi there, I've written a response to another comment that engages with this a bit. Find it here. Regarding your last point, the historical social oppression of non-white and non-male authors for hundreds of years is pretty convincing empirical evidence of a need to expand our literary standards. The emotion this gives rise to, a need to find new voices, is a justified result of what we know about the past. Nor does it imply we should "under-privilege" white authors in response. I have no doubt in your degree you studied plenty of Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Conrad, etc. But perhaps you also read some Austen? Woolf? Morrison? That's a good thing!

[–]WhisperAzr 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

I was consciously and deliberately seeking to address past racial, cultural, social, and aesthetic injustices in the poetry world.

This annoys me more than anything. People looking for equality are always trumpeting equal representation, saying we need more women CEO's, gay/trans people in games, or colored people published as authors and that's just plain wrong. What we need is equal opportunity. Nobody should be denied the chance to be published in an anthology based on their race, gender or sexual orientation. That goes for straight, white men too.

Give everyone the same opportunities and reward those who deserve it, not just those who fit a certain bill.

[–]SituationSoap 3ポイント4ポイント  (2子コメント)

What we need is equal opportunity.

I agree. What you seem to be missing is that people who are historically excluded from places don't have equal opportunities to join those spaces (sometimes explicitly, sometimes due to subliminal bias). Standing where we are today, and saying "we just need to give everyone a fair chance" ignores centuries of deck-stacking by powerful people in certain spaces, and is intellectually dishonest.

Equality of Opportunity in today's society is eroded by existing prejudices based on race/gender/sexuality and attempting to create a fair playing field without adjusting for those biases isn't going to do anything more than reinforce existing social structures.

[–]WhisperAzr 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah I have to agree with what you're saying. We do need equal opportunity, but as you've said that's simply not the case in a lot of fields due to pre-existing bigotry. I'd like to think the world has come a long way in addressing this, but despite our best efforts it still exists. Still, when I read articles that tell white authors to stop writing because there are too many white people published, I can't help but think people are addressing this the wrong way. Say what you will, but refusing to publish a white man's poem based on the fact that he's white is bigotry. It's replacing discrimination against black people with discrimination against white people, and that's just moving backwards.

Some demographics do need help to even out the playing field as you stated. But that is not the way to do it. We need to try and foster growth in colored, female, or LGBT writers. Try to encourage more people to take an interest that aren't simply white, straight males. We need to do something to level the playing field, short of replacing discrimination with discrimination.

[–]lagadonian 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's like if you had a glass of lemonade with just a splash of tea but wanted a glass of half-and-half. What do you do? Pour in more tea or start pouring in half-and-half? I think people disproportionately favoring identities that were disproportionately disfavored in the past are doing the right thing for the time being. But I think it will be time to take a fully meritocratic approach sooner than people think, or that we could start thinking about one sooner than people think: the structures disproportionately favoring white writers are located in the past and are simply dying off as we speak in an atmosphere that is now consciously attempting meritocratic equality (albeit through, at the moment, non-meritocratic measures).

[–]liminalsoup 1ポイント2ポイント  (4子コメント)

The anthology's editor Sherman Alexie responded to his critics in a lengthy blog post. He explained why he chose to publish the "poetry colonist" after he discovered that the author was a white man.

Huh?

"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."

When was China a colony? China is, if anything, a colonist itself (Taiwan, Tibet, and now recently expanding into the south east Asian seas to take over the fishing territories of its neighbours).

[–]Omnipolis 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is historically incorrect. Read about Britian and their meddling in china.

[–]tehbored 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

China was never fully colonized, but it was subject to partial European rule for a while after the Opium wars and the Boxer Rebellion.

[–]sykeros 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not sure if you are asking a real question or not, but some examples if you're curious: the unequal treaties, the Opium Wars (Hong Kong wasn't "returned" until 1997), Sino-Japanese wars (there's a reason Chinese people are always upset at Japanese people). if you wanna go way back you could start talking about the Han and non-Han control of "China," but it gets real confusing.

Anyway, you could always assume it's been colonized by Britain at some point :P I don't think your last question is exactly related to the use of "colonist" in the quotes/I'm not sure?

[–]crowqueenSelf-Published Author / Tales of the Insulan Empire 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Taiwan was a part of China prior to the revolution. But yeah, ask the Uighurs and Tibetans what they think of the Han domination of that part of Asia...

[–]DunkeyKung 2ポイント3ポイント  (20子コメント)

r/writing's response to this has led me to question the subs value as a place for discussing writing. Is it really that difficult to imagine this man's actions are problematic or unpleasant? The uniformity of opinion here suggests this sub suffers from reddit's typical problems of demographic representation, and by extension so does its writing advice.

I would like to gently suggest something to explain why people might be upset about this man's behavior. It is perfectly valid to define "racism" as social/political/economic power being exerted over an underprivileged group. When feminists say that misandry does not exist, or racism against white people does not exist, it is because they are using this definition. That racism can only be labelled as such when it accompanies privilege does result in an imbalance. ex: If a white man appropriates an asian identity he is being racist, if an asian man appropriates a white identity he is manipulating the privilege associated with it. But it is not unreasonable to define racism in this way despite the imbalance it produces. If society remains extremely unequal in the opportunities afforded to a white male versus the challenges faced by anyone who is not, is it wrong to define racism in a way that directly counteracts this? Is it not problematic to claim the only way to be "not racist" is to treat everyone perfectly equally, but then put people in a society that is inherently unequal? And somehow suggest that the people at the bottom are just as morally reprehensible and unjustified in their gendered or racialized complaints as someone saying or doing the same things at the top?

Admittedly this premise relies on people acknowledging this imbalance in the first place, and accepting the fact that it is easier to be a white male. I'm sure many here would disagree with that, but that alone is enough to tell me that someone is inherently limited in their writing. If you can't be self-critical of your own position and life, how can I expect you to engage with anything outside of it. How can you write a female or non-white character with any kind of depth if you see no difference in your respective life experiences and the challenges they face that you don't? I look at these comments and i see a lack of empathy and an inability to undertake thought experiments. So I've unsubscribed because I don't want or need your advice.

[–]Killhouse[S] 14ポイント15ポイント  (1子コメント)

Racism relates to race, so no. Racism and gender discrimination come from making assumptions, usually wrong, about people based on their perceived race or gender.

This guy didn't do anything racist. He used a pseudonym, which is perfectly fine. If the person on the other end used that pseudonym to make a judgement on the ethnicity or gender of that person, that's stereotyping. That person was committing racism and gender bias.

The problem is equality, and how people define it. Most people on Reddit believe that equality means everyone should be treated the same. But some people who are fighting for equal rights think that there's systemic oppression and preference, so for equality to happen some people have to be treated better to make up the difference. Having two completely diametrically opposed definitions to the same word is why people argue about it, not because anyone disagrees that equality is a good thing.

[–]Iccutreb 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

That last paragraph is perfect.

Because it's not an opinion, or a belief, it is fact. It is unbiased, it list the two main sides of an issue, and it sums up the biggest issue on reddit extremely well.

I want that paragraph splayed across reddit.

[–]Kittae 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, my reading of the article is that the guy did something pretty appalling. If you find another writing sub that's less of this wank, could you let me know? I seriously can't believe that there's so many comments on a -writing- sub that are refusing to look at this from a different point of view.

[–]SorceressFane 8ポイント9ポイント  (6子コメント)

So I'm guessing that you see no problem with judging an author's work based on their race? Is that really the road you wanna go down? How about judging an author based on their talent and abilities to tell a good story or write a good poem? I certainly don't want to be judged on either my whiteness OR my femaleness. Either one would be unfair just as judging based on blackness or transgenderness is.

[–]DunkeyKung 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

But what happens when our understanding of "a good story" or a "a good poem" are a product of literature focusing exclusively on an upper-class and exclusively male voice for hundreds of years? I am currently finishing a PhD in early modern literary history, and it is difficult to fully appreciate how systematic the denial of literary merit was to anyone who was not a rich white man. It was social oppression on an utterly total level.

A thousand years of racist and patriarchal literary culture, and the standards it produced, does not simply vanish over the course of a few decades. The drive right now to expose the world to serious literary attempts from non-white or non-male authors is to seek out voices that have been neglected, and if they do not necessarily conform to typical standards of writing then that's great. It is an attempt to compensate for this history, to take a few steps to set the record straight. Even if these voices are not fully developed it is important that we encourage them and seek them out. Hence why this man's actions are problematic, he is undercutting that development and using it for his own ends.

And here's a key point, an awareness of this history does not invalidate the beauty or importance of well-regarded literature from the past. This need for change does not entail a need to discard our standards, but rather expand them. When I think about our literary past all I can see are the beautiful poems and prose that we might have today if only we'd been more understanding and encouraging of different voices. Men and women who might have been another Shakespeare have been buried without ever being allowed to go to school, or taught to read.

I'm reminded of Virginia Woolf's essay "The Leaning Tower" that discusses the first big revolution in Western writing, the breaking down of class barriers. I encourage you to check it out and read it through. Try to draw a parallel to our present concerns with breaking down racial and gendered barriers to authorship, especially her points about class and money. In particular, her description of the angst of those class of Oxford and Cambridge educated men who must now be critical of themselves and their own upbringing. "We must become critics because in future we are not going to leave writing to be done for us by a small class of well-to-do young men who have only a pinch, a thimbleful of experience to give us.” (page 124 of "The Moment and Other Essays")

[–]crowqueenSelf-Published Author / Tales of the Insulan Empire 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Yeah, same here. There is value in the promotion of marginalised voices, but the whole tenor of some of these posts just becomes patronising (said as an autistic woman here, just in case anyone wants to assume I'm a bloke).

[–]Katrar 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I completely agree: there is value in the promotion of marginalized voices, but in reading many of these comments you'd think Asian women have had zero creative impact where poetry and writing are concerned - all at the hands of the evil white man. In reality there have been many powerful female Asian voices, especially during the past 40 years. They have been historically silenced not by the evil white patriarchy, but by the gender expectations of their own cultures. Especially over the past 20 years or so, white men at the top of the literary world have been far more solidly in the Ally camp then the Obstruction camp when it comes to empowering minority voices. Of course, that's not a popular narrative among those that harbor real hatred towards white authors, and white male authors in particular.

[–]nikolasdrury 5ポイント6ポイント  (4子コメント)

define "racism" as social/political/economic power being exerted over an underprivileged group

That behavior would qualify as racism but not exclusively so. My definition of racism is any behavior that would involve treating someone differently based on their race, which would make the editor the racist (at least by my definition), even if it is shady/unethical for the poet to manipulate the selection process.

Otherwise, most of your points are on-point. As a white man, the imbalance is there, white people have it easy and the rise of specific political movements such as the tea party or Donald Trump prove that the majority of the group doesn't want things to be equal, viewing any adjustment to the status quo as "losing America"

[–]rushmc1 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

white people have it easy

Nonsense. EasIER, in some cases, inarguably, but nothing is easy in this world.

[–]nikolasdrury 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

All things are relative.

[–]FuzzyLoveRabbit 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

So none of these poets have anything to complain about while there are children fending off starvation, disease and warlords daily.

[–]UptightSodomite -3ポイント-2ポイント  (40子コメント)

This is why I hate the literary world. Not because Asian women are enjoying a temporary preference in selection, but because you assholes are offended by it and think it's ok to fucking pose as an Asian person to get what you want.

The reason Asian women authors are being given preference now is because historically we have been silenced. We have been locked in our homes, held back from school, kept in our kitchens, bound by our feet, abandoned in rice paddies, sold or captured as slaves, locked out of politics, locked out of men's spaces, and locked out of literature.

There is little to no precedence set on what our literature should look like. How our voices should be heard. How our writing should be powerful. You think it sucks that shitty poetry from an old white man can only get notice if it's posing as the penning of an Asian woman? I think it's shitty that his pretentious piece of crap passed as a great piece of writing for an Asian woman.

If his shitty writing can only pass as good if it's being written by an Asian woman, that means they're not taking us seriously. They're not even bothering to read for the difference. They want our names on the cover and they don't care what we write. It means that shitty writing will pass for the voice of Asian women, Asian authors, Asian girl authors, me.

The only plus side is that any voice is better than no voice. Even the immature scrawlings of a college freshman would honestly represent one facet, one stage, one version of our existence and capabilities. It would be something, a scrap to add to our pile of little more than nothing to go on.

But you guys think it's somehow ok to take that away too. As though literary biography isn't a thing. As though we're writing into a vacuum where all writing is equal no matter where it comes from. Who it comes from. Who is saying something for the first time, and who has already said their piece a hundred times.

It does matter. It has always mattered. And for a long time, what mattered was that it had to be written by a white male, following the conventions of white male writers, telling the stories that white men think up or steal. It was the same people with the same experiences and ideologies talking to themselves.

But now we've finally moved on to something else. I am the great granddaughter of a woman whose feet were crippled as a sign of her family's status. I am the granddaughter of a woman who was rejected by her in laws on the suspicion that she might be "tainted" with another race. I am the daughter of a woman who was pulled out of middle school to cook in her family's kitchens, because that's the sacrifice that the older daughters must make. I am the first daughter to go to college and graduate. I am one of my mother's daughters, that spent the summer in a steaming kitchen learning how to make her dumplings. That taught my mother how to sign her name. That got a replica knife of the one that noble Korean girls used to kill themselves after they'd been raped. Themselves, not the rapist.

If you think my background doesn't matter, that the writing of Asian women should be measured against yours according to your standards, or that you're somehow eligible for ours, you are wrong. We are a different color, a different flavor. We are as comparable as white bread and tteokbokki.

[–]Rktdebil 30ポイント31ポイント  (15子コメント)

Equality doesn't mean a better treatment of those who used to be unprivileged. It means holding everyone to the same standard. If we want to compete, we need a standard to choose who does it better. Whites, Asians, Blacks, women, men, Muslims, Christians - this shouldn't matter at all. Only the quality of your work should matter.

Asian women had it shitty. Nobody in their sanity would deny that. But it doesn't make it right to treat them better because of it. You're people as much as the rest. I'd be offended if I won because I was Polish, not because I nailed it. Because it is blatant racism.

[–]OpinionGenerator 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is why I hate the literary world. Not because Asian women are enjoying a temporary preference in selection, but because you assholes are offended by it and think it's ok to fucking pose as an Asian person to get what you want.

It's not really about it being "okay," it's about the fact that what it means to be "okay" (i.e., moral) doesn't serve a certain group or individual (in this case, a white male) and so you're naturally going to get people not honoring those rules.

It may not be "okay" to steal, but if you're struggling to feed yourself and your family, "okay" becomes moot.

I get why we have things like affirmative action, but it's really easy to sit back and be okay with it when you're not individual who gets passed up because you happen to be part of the privileged group.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying we shouldn't, as a society, try to balance things, but you'd have to have a really poor understanding of morality to not understand not only why a guy like this would be annoyed and behave this way, but why, in SOME cases, it's rational for him to do it.

If his shitty writing can only pass as good if it's being written by an Asian woman, that means they're not taking us seriously.

Or it means you're dealing with a medium that's highly subjective. Maybe you wouldn't be calling it shitty if it really were written by an Asian. It doesn't even matter though... LOTS of "shit" (totally subjective, btw) gets published and produced in the art world from music, to film to literature even when we know it's coming from a white male.

[–]SorceressFane 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

Me and other white people are not responsible for Chinese women having their feet bound.

And I personally don't even notice the race, gender, or sexuality of authors that I read because it is totally irrelevant. You're basically saying that Asian women's writing is more important than say, my writing as a white woman due to the circumstances of birth, that no one has control over.

[–]Kittae 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

She didn't say white people were responsible.

What she was saying is that co-opting an ethnicity is awful, because the experiences differ. That this article is evidence that efforts that have been made might be false, because there's still no respect at the heart of it. Is that tl;dr enough?

[–]FreeGiraffeRides 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

Do you suppose Best American Poetry sells more or less copies as a result of this policy? Do readers share their interest in exotic bylines, or would they come out ahead by picking the best poems anonymously?

[–]cubitfox 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

What I don't understand is the assertion of by the blogger of the writers white privelage. Didn't this whole thing prove that his privelage didn't exist simply by him being accepted more with a non-white name?

[–]rushmc1 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

So the same people who tell us we must view gender as a fluid spectrum are saying that racial identity must be seen as determined and absolute? Does anyone else sense some cognitive dissonance (and self-serving stacking of the deck) at play here?

[–]liminalsoup 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I disappoint that he used Yifen Chou instead of Qifen Chou

[–]wanderjahr 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

We publish Asian poetry. We have binders of Asian poets.

[–]rushmc1 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Appropriated culture becomes culture. Some people have a very limited and naive sense of identity and self. Tribalism writ personal.

[–]klitchell 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

"If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print"

Maybe there was a lot of shitty poetry this year.

[–]tehbored 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

He should have used something more ambiguous like Lee or Lang with just a first initial.

[–]dancebeats 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

What some of his Asian critics are oblivious to the implication this has highlighted; Asian female writers are being published at a much lower standard than their white male counterparts. This in turn contributes to dumbing down literature of Asian writers.

That's what's they should really be outraged about.

[–]larksinmyhead 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Some professors make you write your student ID number instead of your name so they can avoid bias in marking. Should publishers try something similar to eliminate bias?

[–]heavyprose 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I just want to read his poem.

Forced multiculturalism never works. We always end up with egg on our face, somehow.

[–]TheMightyRocktopus 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I finally found the text of the poem. It took some work, but Buzzfeed's endless need to publish complete works without permission hasn't failed me yet.

Yi-Fen Chou (Michael Derrick Hudson)

 

The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve

 

Huh! That bumblebee looks ridiculous staggering its way

 

across those blue flowers, the ones I can never

remember the name of. Do you know the old engineer's

 

joke: that, theoretically, bees can't fly? But they look so

 

perfect together, like Absolute Purpose incarnate: one bee

plus one blue flower equals about a billion

 

years of symbiosis. Which leads me to wonder what it is

 

I'm doing here, peering through a lens at the thigh-pouches

stuffed with pollen and the baffling intricacies

 

of stamen and pistil. Am I supposed to say something, add

a soundtrack and voiceover? My life's spent

 

running an inept tour for my own sad swindle of a vacation

 

until every goddamned thing's reduced to botched captions

and dabs of misinformation in fracture,

 

not-quite-right English: Here sir, that's the very place Jesus

 

wept. The Colosseum sprouts and blooms with leftover seeds

pooped by ancient tigers. Poseidon diddled

 

Philomel in the warm slap of this ankle-deep surf to the dying

stings of a thousand jellyfish. There, probably,

 

atop yonder scraffly hillock, Adam should've said no to Eve.

&nbsp:

 

Apologies to Yi-Fen for any mistakes in my transcription.

[–]DidiGodot 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Is this from the Onion? How can these people be so stupid? If it's a Best American Poetry Anthology, it shouldn't matter what name someone uses, as long as the poetry is deserving. All of these people scrambling to publicly position themselves as politically correct, while simultaneously being racist, should pull their heads out of their asses.