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Today in #YouTriedIt: When an unagented Black woman fiction writer responds to an inquiry from a white male nonfiction agent (with multiple cops on his list!) with a respectful decline, this is the response. Writers, trust your gut when it tells you not to take the call.
The audacity of this. The implication that a Black woman should be grateful that he even reached out to her, and that she should compromise what she believes is a good fit for her and her work after a great deal of research, because........ publishing has a lot of white people???
When the majority of gatekeepers are white, this sense of entitlement and frankly disgusting level of condescension is what too often stands between Black writers and writing careers. Agencies, check your agents. Make diversity training an integral part of the onboarding process.
I don't want empty statements about BLM, I want structural, systemic change. I want men like this deplatformed. I don't want yet another one of my Black friends coming to me to say that they feel disinclined to pursue a writing career because this has happened one too many times.
