for me to exist in this world I have to have a radical agenda because the world has got to change in order for people like me to be able to exist...I… - Nalo Hopkinson

I think inserting yourself into a place where you are told you don't belong, when you know quite well you do, is important work. (2017)

What's needed instead is to state up front at submission time that you want to see submissions from authors of color; to include people of color in significant positions on your staff (editorial, marketing, etc.); to educate yourself to the ways in which cultural specificity results in stories being told differently, signifying differently on race, culture, fashion, language, you name it; to recognize that "not seeing race" means that they also can't perceive structural racism; to grasp that racism isn't just a stoned white male musician ranting at his concert that all people of color should be kicked out of the UK. I suspect that only if you do that groundwork will you be able to assess submissions from authors of color on an equal footing with white authors. The Anglophone market is still hugely skewed in overwhelming favor of straight, white, male authors. There are still nowhere near enough translations from other languages into English. (2021)

Children were pack animals; let any one of them act different from the group, and the rest would bring him down.