Illustration by Alex Abadjieva
It's no secret that English Literature curricula are a haven for books written by Dead-White-Straight-Cis-Men, enemy of the modern feminist and antithesis of diversity.
That's a little hyperbolic. Still, many of us will be well acquainted with the Of Mice and Mens and the Tess of the D'Ubervilleses of this world - or 'classics', the exam boards call them - as they eradicate diversity from our reading lists. No books by people of colour, no stories about LGBTQ+ characters. No, if we want diversity, we have to look further afield and find it ourselves. Question is, why is consuming literature written by and about marginalised groups of people actually important? Other than having that oh-so-sweet Goodreads clout, why should we be consuming media about people different from ourselves?
Literature is a way of understanding other people, but only if you expand your consumption of literary worlds beyond what you see in the mirror. In an increasingly diverse and changing society, then, literature becomes a way of understanding the world around us. It places us somewhere in between reality and imagination, a safe place to learn and grow and understand the plight of others with absolutely no strings attached.
The ability of fiction to take us into a new world is called experiential placement; through nothing but words we can find ourselves experiencing and understanding the lives of others who are very different from ourselves. We identify and empathise with characters in a way that is startlingly difficult to do with real people. Most protagonists are written for us to root for. We want to support them, even if we don't always like them. We want to understand them when they make choices we disagree with. I think deep down we feel that way about real people, too. But it can be difficult to truly comprehend and empathise with real-life atrocities that are outside the scope of our daily lives; real stories, to the average reader, are a stark reminder of our privilege and of our inaction.
So, when we consume literature or film or theatre written by, or starring non-white, non-cis, non-straight or non-male people, we are able to set aside any difficult emotions and be drawn into a new world, into the minds of characters that exist only in our heads. We understand them - because we made them.
I first realised the power of experiential placement when I read James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, a 20th century American novel about a young man, David, living in 1950s Paris and exploring his sexuality with an alluring stranger he meets at a bar and eventually moves in with. All the while he is engaged to an American woman who is on her own travels in Spain, who has no idea about David's infidelity in her absence. It is a powerful story of self-exploration, self-loathing and personal struggles, beautifully articulated if not a little outdated. It is a perfectly executed study into the tempestuous mind of a closeted gay character trapped by social conventions and his own expectations of himself. Most importantly, it is a window into a world that so many would never comprehend without peering through. And although I am most decidedly not a gay man living in 1950s Paris, Baldwin's novel resonated with me, and the story he told brought me a little closer to the very real modern world of LGBTQ+ folks. He showed me how to empathise with a particular struggle I have never had to face - fear in the face of my own sexuality. Because no one - not even myself - has ever treated me badly for mine.
There is no better time to remember the power of fiction than now, mid-2020, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter uprising crossing the globe. White privilege can make it hard to know how to respond and be a good ally to people of colour. My advice to you, reader, would be to read, watch, consume all the cultural media you can until you understand the world of others around you. That goes for fiction or nonfiction. But remember that if you're struggling with perspective, there is no better way to insert yourself into the narrative of another than through their story. Place yourself within their experience and you will learn - even if you think you already know it all! You might be surprised. You might be shocked. But most importantly, you will find that every human being has more in common than they thought. We exist in a liminal space, somewhere in between race, sexuality and gender binaries. I truly believe it is fiction that can take down those boundaries and bring us together into a place in-between, a space of mutual understanding and respect for our individual experiences.
Petition to make GCSE reading lists more racially diverse: http://chng.it/BxjQt2rvxf
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