“We do not publish “reverse discrimination” stories. ”Reverse discrimination” stories are single issue stories that follow a predictable premise: what if [privileged real life group] was actually discriminated against/oppressed/un-privileged? Examples: what if most of society was gay, and straight people were the discriminated minority? What if most male babies were killed and men were kept just for breeding? What if everyone was intersex, and cis-sexual people were considered “freaks”? Etc. Not only are these “single issue” stories about discrimination (usually by authors with no real life experience with the forms of discrimination described, it’s just made up), these stories do not further our mission of promoting the inclusion and representation of real life minorities in spec fic. In fact, these stories do exact the opposite — they pretend that privileged, majority authors can understand and write about the dis-privileged/minority/oppressed perspective if they just turn the tables in a simplistic, linear thought experiment. These stories also often frame the real-life oppressed people as the new oppressors: violent, insensitive, bigoted, etc. We believe the spec fic world does not need more “Poor oppressed men! Poor oppressed straight people! etc.” stories. These stories only marginalize already marginalized people even more. Please let minority/dis-privileged authors speak for themselves.”

excerpt from the submission guidelines for Expanded Horizons, a magazine that has the goal of expanding diversity in speculative fiction.  

The editor of the magazine writes:  

“I’ve been REGULARLY getting plots pretty much like this in the Expanded Horizons slush pile for the four years we’ve been running the magazine. They’re standard fare, even though we have several explicit guidelines telling writers not to send them…which is less a “guideline” and more of a “no really, don’t send us this crap” rule…

“These stories are a dime a dozen. I’ve seen it with LGBT issues, with racial issues, with gender issues, and with other axes of identity. The concept is not new, not creative, not original, not fresh, and not clever. For any axis of real-world privilege, there are sci fi authors (and would-be authors) who think they are so clever for making themselves (as real-world privileged people) the “new oppressed people, oh woe is us!”

“…The sad truth is that this is the status quo of the slush pile, even for a magazine that explicitly demands that these stories not be sent to it. Usually, in my opinion, the authors are not explicitly setting out to be -ist, but they really misunderstand very basic things about How Oppression Works, and it shows, and it hurts.”

“Not too many years ago, I can imagine that this story might have generated heated comments about the sexualized fantasies about black men. And yeah, there was one. And having checked out that blogger, I strongly suspect that he belongs to a much older generation than young adults. Otherwise, I'm happily surprised to say there has been not a blip of protest. So what does the lack of any racial outrage or puzzlement or fervor amidst the tremendous rain of positive reviews possibly say? Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash. The first young African American reader who responded to me loved the book. But then, she's the kind of free spirit who would eschew limiting herself to a single category. Or perhaps -- and this is what I hope -- the YA generation sees race in a way that is unique to them, unique in our history. After all, they have arrived on the scene decades past the integration of schools and Jim Crow, even well past the days of The Cosby Show. Soap-mouth-washing words that were forbidden in my youth now populate rap songs so often I wonder if, happily, they have lost their vile connotations. I have endeavored to raise my children with a color-free mentality. My son once mentioned that his color was white while mine was tan. This was said with no more feeling than if he'd been describing the different colors of our bedrooms. No doubt most kids today would laugh at or find puzzling an incident that I now see influenced the way I thought about race in a blink of an instant.”

Victoria Foyt, excerpt from Interracial Relationships Seen Through Eyes of Young Adults.

She seems to be operating under the misconception that racism and races are a thing of the past. This new generation does not understand racism and that colorblindness is a way in which we can move forward in this racism-free future.

Racism does still exist. Colorblindness is simply a tool that erases the idea of racism and the experiences related to it. You’re not helping, Ms. Foyt. You’re a part of the problem.

And your friends, your editors, the people who did not stop you from doing this are too. You should step back and listen to the people who are telling you this is racist and you should not dismiss them as ‘too old to understand this new generation’ or ‘too closed minded for the genre’.

The way this book is described, it sounds like you’re allowing us (white people) to perpetuated damning stereotypes and racist fears about a world run by people of color. 

You CANNOT turn racism on it’s head and write about the experiences of racism from the white perspective because you DO NOT know those experiences. We’re white. We never will. We cannot understand them because we will never suffer through them. 

We can pretend to be colorblind because the effects of racism don’t hurt us, but they’re still screwing over everyone else. That’s privilege—our inability to see how we benefit, harm and affect things like this because they’re not immediately visible to us as white people. 

And if I’ve said something wrong, someone call me out. Similarly, I’m sure someone more informed and articulate can tackle this.