Edit as of Dec 12: Just putting it out here that I have not received any form of public apology or social media acknowledgment from Discorder Magazine about the censorship that happened to our interview. It has been one full week. I am waiting and I will not wait forever.
At the request of Discorder Magazine, I recently invited a friend and fellow Chinese Canadian writer to interview me and two other Asian Canadian writer friends about the context behind why I started the #RacismInCanLit hashtag and about our upcoming literary reading. The resulting interview, “Writerly Asians & Allies Against #RacismInCanLit,” which shares the same name as our event, appears in the winter 2018 issue of Discorder Magazine.
Its final version has been revised and censored, without any input or approval from me, our interviewer, and the two other interviewees. Most significantly, a large portion of my answer to the question “What do you hope will come out of the upcoming reading?” has been cut, with my sentences chopped up and many words omitted. In the censored part of the interview, I share that we will be accepting donations for the Galloway Defense Fund at our reading and express gratitude for defendants I know personally, who have supported the #racismincanlit hashtag, and who I care deeply about. My answer does not discuss anything else about the situation. If Discorder had reached out about their legal concerns behind this part of my answer, I would have been more than happy to revise my answer collaboratively with them.
However, rather than talk to me and those involved, Discorder never informed us about this censorship until the piece has gone to print. This happened despite me requesting from the very beginning that the editor-in-chief handle this interview sensitively and despite multiple rounds of communication/proofreading. In the original email informing me of this censorship, there was no apology and I was not given with a copy of the revision; I had to request a digital copy and have yet to see a hard copy of the magazine. Based on the digital copy I was later given, I see that my answer to that aforementioned question has undergone heavy editing that turns it into an incomplete and insensitive representation of my original answer. None of this is acknowledged in the interview text.
Due to the fact that Discorder and CiTR were at the time event partners with us for the upcoming Writerly Asians reading, I saw this interview as a part of that collaboration. I trusted those at Discorder and invited others to join me in entrusting them with our words, stories, and experiences. It was so disappointing to be let down by the betrayal of that trust. To me, the lack of consultation with any of us involved in the interview suggests a lack of professionalism, editorial consideration, and sensitivity. It was an especially difficult and traumatic experience for me to see how my words have been cut and censored. It has opened up old wounds about how my experience has been gaslit, misrepresented, and appropriated by others throughout this year.
In response to what happened, I have ended our event partnership with Discorder/CiTR, requested that Discorder refrains from posting our interview online, and asked them to issue a public apology in the magazine as well as on all social media platforms. The art director and editor-in-chief have apologized to me about what happened in emails and agreed to issue a public apology. I truly hope that they and Discorder can learn from this experience, so this never happens again. I hope they will commit to working harder to make Discorder a safe and supportive space for Asian Canadian writers and writers of all marginalized backgrounds.
I see this statement not as a call-out, but as a call-in. I understand that we all make mistakes, and I have made them too. I share this statement with three main intentions—to make it clear that the final interview was not approved by me or any of the others involved, to disclose the reason for the ending of our event partnership with Discorder, and to make this a learning experience for all of us, especially editors working with marginalized voices and stories of trauma. Finally, I want to thank everyone who worked on this interview with me, and to express gratitude and support for defendants affected by the SG case.
Our event will still take place in the new year. We are currently searching for a new venue and may have to reschedule the date. You can donate to the Galloway defense fund here: https://www.gofundme.com/galloway-suit-defense-fund
