Avoiding Self-Censorship in a Censoring Age
Feeling like my lips are taped shut
Author’s Note:
This is a replay of an essay published earlier this year. Censorship—whether self-imposed or externally mandated, in the form of book bans—remains a serious and disturbing trend in literature. I continue to support and participate in anti-censorship activities sponsored by Writers for Democratic Action and the Authors Guild.
A few years ago, I began working intensively on a contemporary novel tracing a disastrous feud over property rights between a wealthy, white American family and a local Indigenous family with centuries-old ancestral claims to the white family’s land.
I was in love with my story and all its characters in what I intended to be a multi-POV story, giving the reader a Rashomon-style perspective.
And then I abandoned the project, broken-hearted but also resigned.
The Indigenous characters in the story belonged to a fictitious tribe with a deep and complex history that, for verisimilitude, traced its roots to real tribes, including the Lumbee who actually, to this day, live in the community where the story takes place.
I ferociously researched Indigenous tribes, customs, and symbols to lend an air of reality and authority to my fictitious tribe.
But no amount of research can paper over the fact that I am a white person with no real connections to Indigenous communities. I am a total outsider who believed, for a moment, that I could skate over this by turning to fiction to build the world of these characters. This approach, I thought, would inoculate me from accusations of cultural appropriation and writing well outside my lived experience.
While working on this piece, I was also following the loud and voluminous public conversations in the publishing world on this very topic. The controversy over Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt (a white American author writing about Mexican immigrants) erupted around this time, and it wasn’t the only one.
I couldn’t see a way forward. I imagined working so hard on this book, only to find that no agent or publisher would touch it for all the reasons I just mentioned. I didn’t stick with it long enough to find out if this was true—but the prospect of automatic rejection felt so real, I lost the heart to continue.
"I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases..." ― Kurt Vonnegut
Sadly and ironically, my self-censorship reflects the excessive politically correct impulses coming from the liberal left, not from the right-wing, book-banning zealots on the far right.
Of course writers need to be well-informed, thoughtful, and careful when writing characters far outside any race or culture they know from the inside. That said, I’m in the camp that champions writers’ freedom to write anything and about anyone. Take your best shot: if the book stinks, or it’s offensive, someone will be sure to let you know.
There’s a difference between censoring from a position of fear (fear of offending someone, anyone, which is where a lot of the publishing industry is coming from) and censoring from a position of hatred (hating anyone not exactly like you, e.g., Moms of Liberty).
Self-censorship is an unfortunate casualty inflicted by pressure from both sides. We’re living in a moment where many different kinds of people are afraid to speak out through art either because their liberal credentials will be assaulted or their conservative, lock-step community will ex-communicate them. (I’m not forgetting all those living in literal fear for their safety right now. Sending you virtual hugs.)
It’s harder than ever to speak truth to power across the ideological perspective. And harder than ever for artists in every medium to power through and make their truth uncensored, and damn the torpedoes that may seek them out.
“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.” —George Bernard Shaw
As for censorship’s effect on a writer’s (or any artist’s) existing doubts: It can certainly fan the flames. Why did I stop writing the book about the land dispute?
Because I doubted it would be evaluated on the merits.
Because I doubted whether I had to courage to work long and hard on a book that may be unwelcomed.
Because I doubted my ability to do justice to an Indigenous world I was trying, in good faith, to build from scratch.
Self-doubt—if you obey its big red STOP sign—is a form of self-censorship. I’m wrestling with that, and I suspect you may be too.
Let me know if, and how, your doubts are at the root of any self-censoring you’ve been practicing lately. You may not even realize the connection. Now is the moment to dive in and find out.
Buy this book. You won’t regret it.
WRANGLING THE DOUBT MONSTER: FIGHTING FEARS, FINDING INSPIRATION
“I loved Amy Bernstein’s Wrangling the Doubt Monster so much, I had to buy five more copies to give as gifts! The wisdom in this lovely book applies to artists and creators of any kind who come face to face with doubt. That’s why I’m giving copies to some amazing entrepreneurs I know. Getting your voice, your work, and your unique perspective out in the world matters now more than ever. Don’t let doubt stop you. Thank you, Amy, for this treasure of a book. It will help so many people transcend doubt and create possibility.” —Mary O'Donohue, Oprah Show Veteran, Media Coach for Disruptive Women Nonfiction Authors, and #1 Bestselling Author