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Confessions of a Race Writer

Steve QJ
LEVEL
Published in
4 min readDec 31, 2021

Photo by Kenex Media sa from Pexels

To be a race writer is to be a fraud. It is, as Olúfémi Táíwò put it, “to be given authority regardless of what you do or do not know, or what you have or have not experienced.”

It is to inherit the struggles of millions of people, not because you were elected to do so, not because you struggle in identical ways, but because you share a bond that is literally skin-deep.

And so, to be a race writer is to be tempted to perform “blackness.” To mine your life only for the moments in which you were mistreated or overlooked or wronged. To edit your humanity for fear of tarnishing your victimhood.

It is to risk playing this part so convincingly that you begin to believe it.

And yet, by any reasonable definition, to be a race writer is to be privileged. It is to have escaped the impoverished schools that leave 85% of their Black eighth-graders functionally illiterate. It is to not be among the 31% of Black households that don’t have reliable access to the internet.

It is to have the ability and the opportunity to say something valuable about these people. To be one of the few people, of any colour, with the power to make their voice heard.

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Steve QJ
Steve QJ

Written by Steve QJ

Race. Politics. Culture. Sometimes other things. Almost always polite. Find more at https://steveqj.substack.com

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It is to wonder whether police reform would come more quickly if we stopped framing it as a “black” problem.

I wonder about this too. There was something of a growing, bipartisan consensus around CJ reform a decade ago. Radley Balko's fantastic 2013 book "The Rise if the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces" had all of the critiques…

Part of me wonders whether you deliberately structure your pieces for the standing ovation or whether it comes naturally. Great article - though I do feel this sort of thing should be kicked at the people who need to read it. I’m sceptical that…

Hey Steve, i am giddy to be the first one to comment on another fantastic piece from you, to quote your eloquent words 'to choose not to do so' and instead to 'choose healing over resentment' is the example that MLK and Nelson Mandela set for us all to follow