I can’t believe I have to fucking say this, but no one, in the history of writing books, has ever suggested that white people are not allowed to write thoughtful portrayals of Indigenous people or people of colour, namely in fiction. Frankly, we encourage it. But remember how fucking mad all of you got when you found out there’d be a black Stormtrooper in Star Wars? Remember when some of you got hot over the suggestion that Santa Claus, a literal figment of children’s imaginations, could be black?

Promoting the work of white writers who use another culture for profit isn’t trying. It’s meeting the laziest kind of diversity metric, one that doesn’t actually shift power balances or change the status quo. Abstaining from cultural appropriation wouldn’t stop you from writing thoughtfully about people who aren’t white. It does, however, stop you from ripping off people of colour, or pretending like you understand their stories intimately. It does preclude you from taking a culture that was never yours to begin with — a culture that might have made the lives of the people born with it harder in white Canada, or might mean they don’t get the same opportunities and privileges — and turning a profit.

Canada publishes a laughably low number of books by people of colour, namely black and Indigenous writers, and the discrepancy is just as bad in journalism. You don’t get to check off a box for diversity for allowing your white writers to invent the lives of POC people. That’s not enough. You have to actually find people who write and speak and live from different perspectives, and promote them. And pay them, because historically and currently, they’re not getting work, and they’re not getting money. White writers using their very histories and cultures, naturally, get their dues.

Did these prominent Canadian journalists and media executives think we wouldn’t see it? Twitter is public! It’s public!!!!

It was such a warped blessing to watch the conversations unfold, in real time, on a public platform. Writers are already insecure people — about their work, their connections, their personal interactions. Writers of colour are often told to chalk it up to paranoia. But we know this is how white editors sometimes talk about us, that we’re aggressive, or irrational, that we ask for too much or we’re SJWs trying to maintain PC cultures. (Mostly a lot of acronyms, I guess.) This Twitter thread, though possibly glib, told all of us that we were right the whole time: They do talk about us like this when we’re not listening. They don’t give a shit. They’ll ask about how to hire diverse voices all the time, they’ll jump on one of the very few black columnists in the country when he becomes available for freelance work, but when you’re not looking, they’ll put you last — and fall over themselves to fund a cultural appropriation prize. What do they say when we can’t see them?