The following is a letter I sent to my subscribers in response to the Courtney Milan RWA suspension, which RWA rescinded a little too late for my tastes. I feel this issue is important enough to post the letter here as well, just because I think Courtney Milan deserves serious support from the romance community on this. So here’s the letter:
Dear reader,
You may or may not be aware of the recent scandal involving Romance Writers of America (RWA). Recently, however, RWA voted to suspend author Courtney Milan in response to complaints filed against her by authors Kathryn Lynn Davis and Suzan Tisdale. The complaints related to Milan’s criticism of a book Davis wrote in the 90s. Milan’s criticism was that Davis’s book was racist. And RWA apparently decided that it was acceptable to suspend a member for calling out racism.
In response to the suspension, RWA has since faced a major backlash and has also rescinded the vote. An excellent compilation of the facts can be found here, and I encourage you as readers to look into this. I am not qualified to explain further because I’m not an insider to this situation. I’m not even a member of RWA.
However, RWA is a major influencer in the romance community, so I do feel that it is my responsibility as a romance writer to take a side in this situation, and I want you to know that I stand with Courtney Milan. I don’t know what policies and processes RWA uses to handle ethics complaints. I don’t know all the facts. I do know that it is never appropriate for an organization to suspend a member for calling out racism.
I also find it appalling that Davis and Tisdale filed ethics complaints at all. Davis, in particular, could have reacted to Milan’s criticism in a number of ways that would have been appropriate and acceptable. Namely, she could have apologized.
As a writer, I feel that it is extremely important to perpetuate thoughts and ideas that are inclusive and open-minded. I hope that “race” is one day an obsolete word, because I can’t understand how we are still classifying people by a socially constructed system that has no biological basis. I also recognize that in the meanwhile, racism is real, prevalent, and damaging in our society, and it may never disappear.
Therefore, I believe that we all need to work to combat it when we see it. From a writer perspective, this means that I should try not to be racist in my books. If I mess up and inadvertently write something racist in one of my books, I expect to be called out on it and I will certainly apologize.
If you want to take a stand with Courtney Milan and against racism, here is a link to her books on Amazon. I’m planning to start reading The Duchess War immediately. (Hey, bet it’ll pass the Bechdel test!)
Love to all of you, and may your new year be blessed with many inclusive romance novels.
Weslie Ashe
#istandwithcourtneymilan