When I spoke up about this to #VerityLa, the editor did not see the problem with the piece. It had been already been published & distributed in newsletter. I caught it in one day. I had to undertake the labour of explaining why the piece was problematic to editor on email + call. https://twitter.com/eileenchongpoet/status/1278155332741558273

I had checked with the white woman poet misrepresented in the piece around what she felt before speaking up.

She, an established, well known, successful, award-winning white poet, did not feel safe enough to speak up directly to the editor. Digest that.

I mediated for her.

I had to break it down to the editor, & what got through was this: ‘how would you like it if someone posted an unflattering picture of you on Facebook? You’d want them to take it down.’

It took that analogy to get my point through.

Digest that.

I left it with editor after that. The author of that piece revised it & sent revised piece through which I forwarded to the poet who it was about.

I read it. The piece was still problematic. The edits missed the point entirely.

I forwarded it to the poet in question. We discussed it.

We were both in shock.

They didn’t get it. They still didn’t get it.

The poet wrote a short statement which I forwarded to editor, indicating her preference to not have the piece republished.

VL respected that.

When the Cooke piece came out on 18 May I was busy editing my book + we have a terminally ill family member I am helping to care for. I did not read the piece until early June. I did not speak up until 13 June when I was contacted by another poet with concerns from her community.

When I spoke up to editor, I was asked to undertake the labour of explaining why the piece was problematic.

I tried, but I did not have the energy to break it down like I did with the previous piece.

I was asked why I did not speak up immediately when it was first published.

I was told by editor as a woman she saw that the Cooke piece might have been sexist, but of course, she doesn’t see it from the race perspective.

I was speechless.

I did not know you had to be the same race as someone in order to see that something might be racist.

I think I understand why the reaction to my feedback on the Cooke piece was different to the other piece.

The answer is empathy.

The editor could see herself in the position of the white woman poet who had been misrepresented.

She could see & feel the pain it caused.

She could not seem to identify with the Filipino women in the Cooke piece.

She could not see & feel the pain it caused, & continues to cause.

@likhain has shown this pain in her powerful essay. Many of us have spoken about it.

But if we do not look, we cannot see.

The editor wanted to know why I would not undertake the same process of labour towards the Cooke piece as I did with the previous problematic piece.

She could not see that previously I was fighting for someone else, someone who already had credibility & relative power & status.

This time, I was fighting for not just a vulnerable, marginalised, relatively disempowered community.

I was fighting for myself.

I did not have the strength to simultaneously suffer the pain of racism & to explain it to the editor & board.

My emails to the editor & the board were formal & clear, & I provided links to resources on systematic racism, & asked them over & over to think hard about their role in it.

It doesn’t seem like they read those resources. It doesn’t seem like they get it.

In other words, I could not lead them, step by step, to the source of the issue this time around, so they could understand.

I only had the energy to point the way, but they would not listen, would not follow the directions.

& this is the real work.

If you do not authentically, sincerely examine the role you play in a system that is fundamentally flawed, you will continue to be part of the problem.

You can choose to be part of the solution.

But first, you must be able to admit & acknowledge you are part of the problem.

This is what ‘wokeness’ means. It doesn’t mean performing empathy & understanding.

It means really seeing that you, consciously or unconsciously, have benefited from a system that is unequal & unfair.

It means waking up to your own complicity & responsibility.

I have learnt all this, the long & hard way.

I grew up in Singapore as a member of the majority ethnic group, the diasporic Chinese.

Singaporean-Chinese are basically the whites in that society.

I have benefited from that privilege.

It took moving to Australia as an adult migrant to realise that I was the Other.

It took choosing an industry where white people are often the gatekeepers to see the structural barriers in place for people who are different from the majority.

My lessons have been hard earned.

& so I share my journey with you.

Because it shouldn’t take moving to another country, becoming an Other, being hurt yourself, to understand that racism, & other barriers such as gender, class, sexuality, ability, is systemic, institutionalised, & seemingly insurmountable.

TL;DR

De-centre yourself.

You can be a Good White & still cause pain by your participation in a racist system.

You can be part of the solution if you acknowledge you have, consciously or unconsciously, been part of the problem.

Acknowledge it. Apologise. Don’t do it again.

To continue with my spirit of transparency: here are emails I sent to VL over the weeks. Only mine, not their responses.

More emails. Names have been redacted except for the editor on the masthead who I wrote to.

Final screenshots of emails.

All they had to do was listen, read, think, & do the work.

I really don’t know what more I could have done. Truly.

Want to remind everyone the issue are hand is accountability with #VerityLa so this doesn’t happen again, there or anywhere else for that matter. Let’s not have this pain happen with no restitution & learning, or happen again at all. Thank you for keeping the focus on processes.