Letter from the Editrix

by Latoya Peterson

So, here we are. Another editor’s letter. And wow, how things have changed in such a short period of time. Since I have a lot to cover, I’m going to go into the semi-bad stuff first, then flow into the good, and then flow into what’s coming up.

(This is a long one, grab a snack…)

The Semi-bad

I will get everyone on the bus

Recent comments have prompted me to remind everyone that reads here that if your racial/ethnic group is not represented, I am working to fix that. If you want to volunteer, drop an email to team@racialicious.com and let me know what you want to do. In the meantime, I am following about 26 bloggers who I would eventually like to invite to write here. Some of them I am currently trying to entice over. Some you will start seeing more of in a few weeks. But I know that black and asian issues are overrepresented here, that Latin@/Native/Indigenous/South Asian perspectives are underrepresented. I know that queer perspectives (from all angles) are drastically underrepresented. I know that there are many different things we do not discuss enough (issues of ability, class, etc.)

So here’s something you’ve heard before: We’re working on it.

And here’s the follow up to that statement: It will be done. It will not be instant. And it may not be in the way that is expected. But hopefully, by the time this year is out, we will be up to about fifteen regular contributors and have a contributor network that is 100 strong. We already have six, and I am hoping to add two more very soon.

A note about the writers

This brings me to the *why* it is so difficult to find new, regular writers for this site. As you all look around Racialicious, you should notice something – aside from Carmen’s New Demographic pop-up, there are no ads here. No one is paid to contribute here. But what my correspondents are looking for is community. Which they find in the comments. A lot of the writers I like to approach initially write for Racialicious because they like the blog and our readers. Whether they choose to continue to contribute is really a function of the comments section.

Now, I work with writers to make sure that (1) the information they present is factual and correct, (2) easily understood, (3) accessible and engaging. They bring to the table their own experiences, ideas, and news from their communities. However, what no writer wants is to feel unfairly attacked.

The Memin Penguin thread got really ugly for those of us on the back end here. One of my writers was accused of not knowing anything about a subject, and making up a factual and well documented event. These kinds of accusations are easily dealt with, but they tend to make writers wary of covering something they see outside of their own community – even if their information is correct and they present a very honest take.

Another contributor was called “self-hating” though she was not even the author of the piece. That was unnecessary and uncalled for. I am not sure if that contributor even read that thread (and I am damn sure not bringing it to her attention) but I would be concerned that that person would no longer want to contribute here because of those kinds of comments.

Think I am overreacting?

The Interracial Dating series is four pieces short. There were four separate contributors I approached to handle pieces around very provocative topics of conversation and they turned down the opportunity. Why? Because they didn’t want to deal with people in the comments. And that bothers me because those are four conversations that we will not have. And since these pieces relied heavily on personal discussion and personal anecdote, they ultimately chose not to share.

Which is a pity, because so much of racial interaction happens between other people, in the conversations we have and how we relate to each other. If we can’t share these things, our conversation will be limited.

To illustrate this, let me go to a piece that I wrote way back when, where the comments made me re-evaluate how much I wanted to share here:

Race Preference or Race Fetish

In this piece, I explored a lot of different dimensions of preferences versus fetishes in sex and dating. In one example, I used the example of one of my good friends, who revealed to me he had a slave fetish. I asked him if this, subconsciously, was why he tended to prefer white women. Then I went on to another example.

The comments section for this one was interesting, as commenters had a lot of opinions on his proclivities.

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