Let me some up a recent controversy: Leonel Shriver’s gotten in some trouble recently for this article, originally entitled ‘When diversity means uniformity’ as you can tell from the URL, but recently fuzzily renamed ‘Great writers are found with an open mind’, which is bitterly critical of the publisher Penguin Random House’s new diversity policy. The policy aims to make their staff and published authors reflective of UK society by 2025 by ‘taking into account ethnicity, gender, sexuality, social mobility and disability’ – quelle horreur. As a result of her article, she’s been jettisoned as a judge in Mslexia’s 2018 Short Story Competition, who in a tweet quoted their editor as saying Shriver’s comments ‘are not consistent with Mslexia’s ethos, and alienate the very women we are trying to support’.
To my mind, Shriver’s tone in attacking the policy and an accompanying questionnaire used to survey the publisher is almost as offensive as her content. For example, her oh-so-coy complaint that ‘the old chocolate-or-vanilla sexes have multiplied into Baskin Robbins’, and that trans identity ‘merits a whole separate query’ separate to the question on gender. Of course, she could easily defend herself in the first instance as merely using a metaphorical description, as ice cream is frivolous and the disdain is so lightly shaded, but this dog-whistle-inflammatory-language tactic is popular with the Spectator and other reactionary writers and publications for riling up lefty readers and fuelling the stereotype of oversensitive lefties for those who perhaps don’t understand what all the PC hullabaloo is about.
And then we get to the substantive argument of her article, which you can read yourself or allow me to oversimplify as “diversity is the wrong criterion on which to hire staff and choose which manuscripts to take to print”. But diversity not being the only criterion on which we hire or choose by no means suggests it shouldn’t be highly important among the other criteria. This is the point at which we realise her comments about a ‘gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter’ being published are not only offensive but also wrong. Her defence here to accusations of a host of discriminatory –isms in that one terse phrase will undoubtedly be the caveat she gives that their manuscript is an ‘incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling’, again obfuscating a reactionary disdain. But it nontheless misses a crucial point: isn’t the idea of a text from a more diverse array of perspectives actually exciting?
As she explains herself in a Guardian article, her problem is with ‘statistical targets’ and the ‘unfortunate consequences’ of affirmative action in the US. Are numerical targets a problem with society or a problem with publishing companies? This is something we’ve also seen with Oxford University also trying to redress historical imbalances in the composition of its student body – the problem of disparities in pre-uni academic attainment isn’t theirs, it’s racialized poverty, a crap state-school system, etc., but instead of passing the buck certain institutions have started to look at where they can help in areas where government and society have failed, thus, conscious efforts to improve diversity. Not that one needs to make a pro-corporation-self-determination argument against a self-confessed Libertarian.
As for Shriver’s other gripe with the policy, removing the necessity of a degree to work at PRH, as a university student, I selfishly don’t want to do myself out of a job by suggesting we remove degree qualifications from previously graduate positions. However, it may level the playing-field some to allow people to apply based on merit and if someone has demonstrated the single-minded hard work required of a good degree qualification to take this into consideration as a bonus to some CVs rather than a barrier to others.
If we really need to talk about lacking relevant qualifications we don’t need to be talked down to by the novelist roped in by the Spectator as the gun control expert to talk about more liberalisation after the Texas massacre. It perhaps seems rich for the Farages, Youngs and Hitchens’ of this world who act go-tos when publications who pride themselves on that disastrous approach to “even” reporting need any old reactionary complain about box-ticking diversity. It’s a two-edged sword – let’s just say diversity of opinion and perspective is good in all contexts for now, and you’ll allow us to seek to elevate the works of underrepresented groups if we keep interviewing the likes of Steve Bannon on Channel 4 News.
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