Not neutral!
Challenging widely accepted standards that secretly hold up shitty systems of power
What have you stopped pretending is neutral? What’s one thing you used to believe was neutral until you didn’t? We’re taught that “good design,” “professionalism,” “merit,” “truth,” or “reliability” are neutral and universal, but these are all coded, culturally specific, and sometimes quite weaponized.
A widely-shared piece of advice is to “write what you know.” And, yes, that’s a good idea for a number of reasons. But it’s also easy to see how that concept gets weaponized to police certain voices and to narrow the scope of who is “allowed” to write about what. And, you’re likely more interested in writing about what you suspect, long for, or fear anyway.
If you like, you can begin by making a list of all the things you are side-eyeing and questioning as being coded in power tropes in your industry, genre or community… then pick one to address today and save the rest to your ideas file to work on another day.
