aka, second verse, same as the first.
I wrote this over a month ago, but didn’t post because I felt it wasn’t polished enough. I’ve decided to go ahead and post it now, anyway, as a kind of point of reference.
If there are things here that are out-of-date I welcome updates or corrections; I haven’t been able to keep abreast of recent developments as much as I’d like, due to dealing with personal matters. But I think in general it still stands as a useful overview.
Plus, I’m still quite fond of the footnotes.
Background reading:
- About Lin by Stuart Cooke, with publisher’s note and preface by the author, published on Verity La, retrieved via Wayback Machine. Content notes: sexual exploitation, racism, colonialist perspectives.
- This is not a critique. This is a condemnation. by Likhain in response to About Lin, published on Djed Press.
- Twitter thread by Eileen Chong regarding communication with Verity La on About Lin. Eileen has also posted a follow-up thread.
- Letter to Verity La by Filipinx-Australian writers in response to About Lin. Abridged version posted to Twitter.
- Verity La’s statement on About Lin, published on their website.
- Stuart Cooke’s statement on About Lin, published on his personal Facebook page. (Note: comments to this post are closed except to the author’s Facebook friends.)
I have read the statements posted by both Stuart Cooke and Verity La in response to recent criticisms of Cooke’s creative nonfiction piece About Lin (as I wrote in my response, it is a racist, misogynist piece of writing that perpetuates exploitative power structures that get Filipinas killed). As a member of the community that was harmed by this piece, I do not accept these “apologies”. As a writer and a Filipina, I find these statements sorely lacking. The contexts in which these statements were posted, and the subsequent behaviour of the parties involved, especially the publisher, demonstrate that these statements were not made in good faith.
I do not believe either statement sufficiently addresses the harm done by Stuart Cooke’s piece About Lin and Verity La’s publication of it. On the contrary, I believe this is another case of furthering harm by ignoring or silencing critics, minimising the damage done, and evading accountability.
On Verity La’s response and statement
I first saw people on Twitter[1] criticising Stuart Cooke’s piece About Lin on Friday, 26 June 2020. Among the people criticising the piece were Filipinx-Australian writers Eunice Andrada and Gemma Mahadeo, as well as other Filipinx-Australian, Asian-Australian, and Australian writers and the editors/social media managers of Australian literary magazines.[2] These criticisms were directed at Verity La, the publisher of the piece, as well as Stuart Cooke, its author. At this stage, About Lin was published on the Verity La website with a trigger warning, a statement from the Verity La board, and a preface by the author.
In response to these criticisms, Verity La did the following things:
- On 26 June, Verity La posted a tweet from its board (archive.org: 1, 2) and removed About Lin from its website.
- From 26 to 27 June, Verity La began deleting tweet replies from its critics and blocking several critics, including Eunice Andrada, Gemma Mahadeo, Shu-Ling Chuah, Leah Jing Mcintosh[3] of Liminal, and Djed Press, a literary magazine run by and for people of colour.
- During this period, Verity La also responded to several critics on Twitter in defensive and ad hominem language. In response to writer Panda Wong’s tweet, for example, Verity La wrote: “Hectically? Are you an actual writer?” Note: these tweets have since been deleted from Verity La’s Twitter.
- Verity La’s responses to white people’s tweets were markedly more courteous than its responses to people of colour (see: its response to Alison Croggon). This pattern was pointed out by several people on Twitter (some examples: 1, 2).
- On 27 June, Verity La posted an apology for its previous tweets and said it would post a statement on its website on Monday.
- On 29 June, Verity La posted a statement on its website regarding About Lin and its Twitter responses to criticism.
Despite its statement of apology, I do not believe Verity La’s statement is adequate in addressing the harm it has done. It has not acknowledged the people of colour that it directly attacked or blocked on Twitter. It has not responded to my piece regarding the harm caused by About Lin nor acknowledged anything I have said. It has not addressed the accounts of Eileen Chong, who worked privately to convince Verity La to take About Lin down and was instead gaslit and asked for exhausting emotional labour[4]. By using a general “particular writers of colour” blanket phrase, it erases the personal injury it has caused to individual writers, from the people who criticised it publicly to the people who worked to prevent it from causing harm.
Verity La’s attempt to disappear the most egregious of its faults speaks clearly of its lack of accountability. It has not named Stuart Cooke, the author who wrote About Lin, nor the piece itself; in so doing, it minimises the nature of the racism and misogyny centered in that piece. It has not named the editor who accepted the piece and, as detailed in Eileen Chong’s account, chose to keep the piece up on their website despite the concerns that people raised. It has not named the person responsible for its offensive tweets, and in so doing continues to shield a white person from the consequences of their actions. It has deleted its offensive tweets, a clear sign it would very much like to pretend that it never questioned the quality of an Asian-Australian writer’s English or talked down to people of colour as if we had no understanding of the issues at stake.
The way in which Verity La has responded to its critics is a literal enactment of white privilege and racism. It is able to make glaringly racist editorial choices and ignore (and, in fact, gaslight!) the people of colour attempting to communicate their concerns. It is able to talk over the people of colour who criticised it and make appalling insinuations about their prerogative to criticise its work. It is able to protect its staff and withdraw from public discourse without consequence. It is able to paper over the harm it has caused. I want to point out that all the while it is being funded by a government grant through Create NSW. Is this complete abrogation of responsibility what the taxpayers of New South Wales are paying for?
In the meantime, the people of colour who have spoken out against it will bear the cost of speaking out: being tarred as “Difficult To Work With” and losing opportunities and platforms; struggling to lift our voices in an industry prevalent with racism that boxes them in stereotypes and judges us more harshly than their white counterparts; continuing to deal with these aggressions both macro- and micro- while knowing that white people will never face the consequences of their racist actions.
Some people may point to Verity La’s promise of commissioning Filipinx writers as evidence of its desire to make amends. One of the authors of the initial complaint letter to Verity La has raised the very salient point that this step was taken without consultation (or, indeed, acknowledgment) of the Filipinx-Australian writers who raised the complaint in the first place. To this I add: reparations require visible, concrete proof of accountability as well as a thorough accounting for harm done. Verity La’s promise is not credible, because Verity La itself is not credible; it has shown no understanding of the harm it has done, nor any intention of actually taking responsibility for its actions and editorial choices.
As proof, I point you to what Verity La is currently doing, which is asking people to communicate with it privately in response to their questions. This is not the behaviour of an entity that is sorry for what it is done and is committed to doing better going forward. This is the behaviour of an entity that wishes to evade accountability altogether by shying away from transparency and open, honest dialogue. Verity La committed public harm and damaged members of the community; the absolute minimum it can do now is to communicate openly with the community.
To make things even worse, Verity La has asked a writer who emailed them to discuss her concerns via phone call. This betrays a complete lack of understanding of the harm it has caused, as well as a disturbing lack of consideration for the writer’s well-being and a continuation of a pattern whereby white people require people of colour to bear the burden for the former’s own racist actions. If you are truly sorry, why continue this pattern of silencing the voices of your critics by choosing a medium where they cannot document your conversation? If you are truly sorry, why ask people of colour for more emotional labour, and why put the onus of correcting your mistakes on the people you harmed? If you are truly sorry, why all this evasion instead of focusing on your wrongdoing and the actions you can take to help mitigate and heal the damage you have caused?
If this is Verity La’s idea of “doing better”, it is not only inadequate but insulting.
This shows the true face of Verity La, and it is a hideously racist one. Perhaps to Verity La’s editors, people of colour do not have our own faces nor our own names, and therefore do not merit the dignity of individual response. Perhaps to them, our voices are as insignificant as the wind: easily ignored at their leisure, easily silenced. Perhaps to them, the nature of their wrongdoing does not matter as much as their capacity to walk away from the harm they have caused, facing no consequences and leaving us to deal with the damage.
On Stuart Cooke’s statement
Stuart Cooke posted a statement regarding the public outcry against About Lin on 30 June 2020. This statement was posted on his personal Facebook account, and while the post itself is public, commenting is disabled except for Stuart Cooke’s Facebook friends.
I am wary of the way this statement was posted. Facebook is not an easily accessible platform for many; it is easy to lose track of where posts are. Furthermore, the statement should have been posted in a space that has the same visibility as the original About Lin piece, e.g. a standalone site, or at the very least a public blog[5]. Lastly, and most importantly, disabling public comments is a disingenuous way to control the narrative by allowing only supportive feedback and denying critics an opportunity to respond in the same forum. You will note that the only comments on the statement are positive ones praising Stuart Cooke’s apology.
While the statement acknowledges some of the ways in which Stuart Cooke’s piece caused harm, I find myself asking the following questions:
- Why does Stuart Cooke imply that he asked Verity La to take the piece down? (Verity La has denied this.) Who is telling the truth here? If Stuart Cooke is misrepresenting events — and please don’t say that the wording was an accident; he is a writer and should know how words can be misconstrued — then doesn’t this render his entire statement untrustworthy? Isn’t his very first obligation to tell the truth?
- Where is our clarity regarding the context in which the piece was written? As it is a “creative non-fiction” piece whose narrator is a white Australian man engaged in a sexual relationship with a Filipina woman in the Philippines, I am concerned not merely about the writing of the piece itself but Stuart Cooke’s actions during his time in Manila. Certainly one has a right to engage in sexual relationships freely, but given the unequal power dynamics involved — and Stuart Cooke’s alleged awareness of these nuances (as he argues in his author’s preface) — at best he is a hypocrite; at worst the ethical choices surrounding the writing of this piece are deeply, deeply flawed. I am also concerned about the well-being of the Filipina woman about which this piece was written.
- Where is the acknowledgment that the piece contributes to systemic injustices that see Filipinas killed and abused by domestic partners both in Australia and in other Western countries? Where is the acknowledgment that the piece causes harm to a larger sphere outside members of the Australian literature community? Why does the statement focus only on mental and emotional harm and gloss over the real-world consequences of the stereotypes it perpetuates? For context, in Australia the homicide rate for Filipina women (who were 20-39 years old, and born in the Philippines) is almost six times the national average.[6]
- Why does the wording of the apology mirror the letters of complaint written about this piece? This is a pattern that others have also noticed.
- Where is the acknowledgment of the faults in the author’s note, where Stuart Cooke clearly admits that he is aware of the “risk [of] perpetuating … [racist and sexist forms of] power” but believes that the importance of his “trying” outweighs said risk? Where is the acknowledgment that his attempt to demonstrate his goodwill and “long interest in [the Philippines]” is an extremely problematic defence that minimises the knowledge and lived experience of his Filipinx critics?
- Where is the commitment to reparations and ensuring that he does not harm others again? We have been given that vague favourite of people who have done wrong: “I have taken the criticisms very seriously.” There is nothing to indicate that he has taken action to address the damage done. There are no concrete steps outlined to show that in addition to trying to learn from this experience, he has committed to ensure he will not repeat this mistake going forward.
- Why does he ask the people harmed for further emotional labour? Why does he not acknowledge that his invitation for further engagement requires the people harmed to compromise their safety and well-being by interacting with him?
I think it is important to ask these questions. Other people have been asking the same things. We have not been met with answers, only silence.
I continue to wonder about how Stuart Cooke came to write that piece; I continue to wonder about how he came to my country, and how he conducted himself while he was in the Philippines. I want to believe — I truly do, so badly — that he did not come to my country as yet another white man seeking to sate his sexual appetites, or to buttress his fragile self-esteem, using my people as discardable tools to satisfy his needs.
Stuart Cooke came to the Philippines on the back of a 2012 Asialink Fellowship. He is a senior lecturer at Griffith University. When I think of these things I must ask: is this what Asialink is for, to fund white people to be tourists of our countries and our lives, to pillage our realities for their art and exploit our bodies for their entertainment? Is this the kind of expertise and knowledge that enables someone to teach the craft of writing at a respected Australian university?
What is this if not an expression of the same colonial and imperialist ethos that sees the women and children of my country as easy prey for sex trafficking and sexual tourism? What is this if not the consumption of my people for the benefit of a white man’s advancement? I want to say, he was not meant to come to my country to fuck my sisters, to exploit their bodies for accolades and stories.
I think of how I and other people of colour must behave so that we can move forward in the arts. Our work is denigrated and boxed in and prejudged. We are meant to write without mistake or fault; we are meant to satisfy the white gaze and perform according to its expectations; we are meant to explain everything and nothing while adhering to duplicitous standards of authenticity, depth, tone. Through all this we must work without complaining or making trouble for others. So much is asked of us, and we are required to put our skin on the line, again and again, proving that we deserve to write. That we deserve to be here.
And in the meantime Stuart Cooke travels to the Philippines, gains enough “expertise” in Philippine literature to write about Filipino poets in the same breath as his admission of ignorance prior to his stay in our country[7], and is lauded for his work. In the meantime he writes about his experiences with Filipina women in the “hideous night of neon and diesel” that is my city. As if entire histories of colonialism and the bloody abuse of power, as if the yawning chasm between the experiences of a white male Australian academic and a disadvantaged Filipino woman struggling to make ends meet, can be bridged with mediocre, disingenuous prose.
I wonder.
[1] I know there has been criticism on Facebook, but I’m focusing on Twitter because that is where I participated in the discussion. I haven’t read much of the criticism on Facebook because I keep my social media activity separate for different spheres.
[2] These criticisms may be found by searching for the Twitter usernames of the users involved, and following the threads. I don’t have the capacity to document all these tweets, but searching Twitter for @VerityLa is a good starting point.
[3] As of this writing, Leah has closed her Twitter account, but you can read Melbourne City of Literature’s tweet for context.
[4] In contrast, note that Eileen raised concerns with another piece in March, and her concerns were heard and taken seriously. I would also like to point you to what an unnamed editor said to Eileen regarding her concerns about Stuart Cooke’s piece. I would like you to compare the difference in these reactions, and consider what may be responsible for this difference.
[5] The statement notes that Stuart Cooke has asked Verity La to post the statement on their website as well. I don’t have proof that this note was absent from the first version of it I saw, and not taking a screenshot is my negligence. Nevertheless, I believe my point regarding visibility and accessibility still stands. I also note that we only have Stuart Cooke’s word that he made this request to Verity La. Given the inconsistency in these parties’ accounts of whether Stuart Cooke insisted on keeping the piece up or not, I find this assertion highly suspect.
[6] The rate of homicide for Filipino women in Australia is 5.6 times higher than the national average, per research in Migration, Political Economy and Violence Against Women: The Post Immigration Experiences of Filipino Women in Australia by Chris Cunneen and Julie Stubbs. Also see: Violence Against Filipino Women in Australia: Race, Class, and Gender by Cunneen and Stubbs.
[7] “I’m ashamed to say that prior to my Asialink residency I knew next to nothing about the Philippines, let alone Filipino poetry. I had some extraneous ideas floating around to anchor my imagination…” — from Stuart Cooke’s feature article on Cordite Poetry Review.