#Op-ed “Selling #Diversity to the Reluctant” published @medium – people are scared about being cancelled

Recently I finished an op-ed piece and sent it around to major media outlets. It wasn’t picked up by anyone. Naively I thought that since the piece was about a small press publishing a book by Asian writers and finding it difficult to gather in-depth book reviews, this would be an interesting read since a lot of diversity articles only talk about the good things about why it’s needed or negative experiences. The experience I had was a good one, but in the op-ed I wanted to highlight the fact that people are scared about being cancelled, so they can’t comment on anything, which makes it difficult to move forward. Everyone says they want diverse books, but is this really true? Or are they saying this because it sounds like the right thing to say?

The link to the op-ed piece is here: https://jfgarrard.medium.com/selling-diversity-to-the-reluctant-ce80b5e0ccd8

I emailed The Idea Shop and Josh (One Man Podcast) to make sure they were ok with me mentioning their names in the op-ed and they were both cool. I spoke to Josh on his One Man Podcast about a bunch of stuff and when COVID restrictions are lifted more we will meet in person!

As a writer, I wonder about why this piece was rejected. If you are a successful op-ed writer, perhaps you can send me some tips!

Generally, the message in this piece was: sometimes it’s best just to sit down to have a cup of tea and eat together to build relationships going forward. Basically instead of preaching diversity, let’s talk about what we have in common and be friends!