We Really Need to Talk About the Black Stories Being Co-Authored by White Writers

Peace y’all,

I have struggled with whether (and how) to share this latest newsletter. This subject is one of those things that in the world of book publishing, you're not supposed to talk about, even though it's practically all a small sector of my industry can talk about.

I'm referring to the historic and ongoing prevalence of white writers being hired as co-authors or biographers on the subject of well-known, if not indisputably iconic Black public figures. Said another way, I'm talking about the ongoing practice of people with limited to zero competency in Black culture getting the compensation, credit, credibility, and ancillary marketing opportunities that come with book authorship, to discuss the expansive world of Black identity across food, politics, fashion, music, and entertainment.

If you're not in publishing, you might feel this subject has little to do with you. I hope by the end of this issue I can demonstrate how that sentiment is misdirected. I've been having this conversation with my colleagues and peers for years now, and I've even taken it to social media during the pandy, when companies were claiming to be concerned with equity (hahahaha).

In 2023, I was so outspoken about The North African Cookbook (Phaidon) being authored by Jeff Koehler, a white American from Seattle living in Spain, that I heard from retailers who canceled or did not pursue wholesale orders. I certainly don't begrudge anyone for their cross-cultural interest in cuisines that aren't their own. Many of us are in this intersection of media/publishing/hospitality specifically because of our deep respect for others’ heritage. But being a fan is different from being in a consequential role that defines the future terms for an entire culture you’re not a part of.

I am deeply offended by the dismissal of literally anyone with direct heritage in Southwest Asia and North Africa being assigned to write that book from their own perspective. A book hailed as a definitive regional cookbook, where Phaidon’s version lumps together massively different cultures and rituals based in ethnic and religious narratives that are constantly mishandled by white-led legacy media. So yeah sure, hire the white man from the Pacific Northwest.

I’ve had trouble trying to speak on this to a wider audience. In 2020, I came close to publishing an essay with a large platform on this pervasive issue, but I pulled the piece after the only edits I received (from a white woman) capitalized the term "white." That's literally all she contributed. I felt the essay deserved more informed insight, which instead of admitting to me she didn't have, she gave a remedial overview. The privilege that white editorial staffers have in keeping their jobs when they cannot do their jobs sends me into orbit. I see a lot of this in book publishing. Many times, book proposals are not accepted simply because the acquiring editor doesn't have expertise on the subject, not because the idea isn't good or marketable. Given the demographics of who gets to buy manuscripts and turn them into books, this has a terrible impact on most non-white-centered subject and authors.

My work in this arena has been layered and complex. If you come to TEXTURE by way of my work in food, then you likely know I co-authored chef Marcus Samuelsson's book The Rise, Ghetto Gastro's Black Power Kitchen, and most recently, I worked with the delightful chef Nina Compton on Kwéyòl / Creole. Two of these projects received James Beard Award nominations in the category of U.S. Foodways (we find out next weekend in Chicago if Kwéyol will come home a winner). All of them are critically acclaimed, and I have heard from multiple colleagues of all backgrounds how exceptional my editorial lens was in the interpretation of these various stories.

Regarding Black Power Kitchen, a notable VP at one of the Big 5 publishers told me directly, "I'm not even sure you realize what a tremendous editorial lift that was. You should be very proud." All these projects (and several others I've either shaped or influenced that I'm not publicly credited for) had a common theme. The project had subject matter that was ultimately conceived by people who had lived, studied, and repeated experiences specific to identifying and being socially and politically read as Black in a country that organically made Blackness a crime and insult.

This cultural knowledge is not something that automatically applies to all Black people. I would not want the self-hating Clarence Thomas anywhere near the narrative of African American people, for example. But too often, white people get to write anything they want with a fraction of the capability as Black writers with more demonstrated expertise and cultural nuance. To further the offense, despite the fact that my cultural competency expands to many areas that aren't only based in the African diaspora, I, along with multiple other Black writers, don't get the opportunity to contribute to projects from non-Black cultures the way white people do. We are iced out of the work we’re uniquely suited for, and we don’t get to explore the globe of cultures that we have studied or immersed ourselves in either.

I'm not only offended by this practice as a writer seeking paying opportunities to work and be a part of defining, if not shifting the zeitgeist. I'm upset for what this means for the legacy of Black people in the United States, whose unique culture is one of the primary exports to the entire world. As Denzel Washington stated in a press run, when asked why "color" mattered when thinking about a film director, he immediately responded, "It's culture, not color."

What happens to the full scope of Black American stories in American publishing (and therefore the ensuing panel discussions, book talks, morning shows, and film/TV options that follow) when so many of them are documented and written, then edited, by white people? Why are the paths of Black stories paved with the narrative choices, curation, and influence of white people?

We know what happens to Black people when interpreted by photographers like Annie Leibovitz, who gray-washes richly toned, brown skin and positions history-making figures in seemingly disenfranchised poses. We see what happens in the movies obsessed with Magical Negro and White Savior tropes, like The Blind Side, The Green Book, Driving Miss Daisy, The Help, and Hidden Figures. Here in this newsletter we already addressed how bad non-Black peoples’ Blaccents are. It’s because of a lack of cultural competency in the social relationships unique to Black communities, Africanisms, Southernisms, vocabulary, syntax, and vernacular of AAVE. This ignorance is how you get a Tik Tok fashion creator referring to a red carpet moment centering THEE Dionne Warwick as, “this Bitch,” a misapplication of a term coded in very particular ways within Black communities. Whiteness shows us over and over how little it understands but remains obsessed with and controlling over Blackness. Why won’t my peers get out of the way? You have literally everything?

Why is dominant traditional media still so obsessed with sending out white writers to adopt and editorialize the experience of Asian, Latine, African, and Black American stories? And if we must accept this as unchangeable procedure (which it is not), then why aren't established, award-winning writers from non-white backgrounds—particularly Back people—invited to co-write the stories of the French pastry chef, the Jewish American baker, the white tech entrepreneur, or the chefs whose food cultures come from Korea, Ireland, Denmark, or Japan? Are Black people allowed to experience privilege with anything they create?

Me and my peers are published in the same magazines, we are on the same committees, we contract to write in the same publications, and we see each other’s nominations and achievements. So then why aren't the phones of so many of my Black writer colleagues ringing for book work? Why are editors of all backgrounds—why are Black talent and celebs and their reps—so committed to giving the author slot to white people?

I'm a few weeks off of my latest rejection, or as I like to say, "redirection."

I went up for a collaboration with one of the most famous music acts in recent history, and was passed on because the talent's team went with a writer who was willing to do the project without access to the talent. The writer who was hired is talented, experienced, and someone I personally care about. But they weren't more capable than me for this project. The talent figure has a specific background in American Southern Blackness that the collaborator has merely observed from a distance. Whereas I have direct experience and demonstrated ability in this subject matter. Sadly, this talent figure has a reputation with their fans as someone who delivers the real shit, authenticity, and personal voice. They are now going to outsource their first book endeavor to a cultural stranger who cannot speak the same language this artist does. There is a name for this type of behavior in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.

I am disappointed in the reps (several of whom are Black) who are supposed to be advising the artist. I am disappointed in the artist, who seems to be lost and disconnected from the decisions being made on their behalf. I am disappointed in the publisher (one of the largest on the planet) who should be using their reach to bring in writer choices that are relevant to the book. I am disappointed in the co-writer, someone I call a friend, who is now 7 years into us discussing this injustice and seems to believe themselves beyond critique.

Importantly, I am not mad on my own behalf. So I didn’t get a gig. So I won’t be able to leverage such a high-stakes project for later points of access. I have been rejected for countless book collabs, editorial stories, residencies, and grants. I have grown up around celeb culture, have worked in close proximity to famous people and am mostly unimpressed with what’s behind the curtain. But. I’m mad for the artists’ fans who will be fed BS By Committee through a lens of misappropriation. I am mad about the precedence this will set. I am mad that white writers position themselves for projects they don’t deserve. I am so disappointed. Everyone is disappointing!

I wanna say it was 2018 when the same publisher asked me to read a galley of a book by two colleagues, a Black author and a white author. I was astonished at what I read because the manuscript so poorly represented the voice and perspective of the Black author, who was actually the primary subject of the work.

I was worried about how my notes would be received, so I consulted a literary mentor and my agent about what degree of honest was best. I was new to this world, and needed guidance on what I was risking. My feedback was so critical that the project was pulled from production and the forthcoming catalog, which is a major red flag and disruption in the sale and marketing of a book. The editor gave the co-authors more time to complete the work.

Do you see? They’d been working on this project for over a year, but it was my insight that led to better editorial choices being made before the book shipped to print. The editor couldn’t see what I saw, because I had expertise she didn’t have. The white co-author was indulgent in their own POV, and the Black author had to be encouraged by multiple people to speak up for themselves because they had felt disenfranchised from the entire book process.

This subject is so sensitive to decision-makers in publishing, that when I first started addressing it in 2017, I would have conversations with executive, vice president roles in publishing who would first ask for my unmitigated confidentiality. I won't betray those conversations nor confidences, but I'm here to tell you I am a witness to these chats being the first time folks were asked to reconsider the approvals they give. My emails have been forwarded a lot in the corporate world, doing the work of having hard conversations, over editors taking personal ownership of their roster of writers.

Often editors will say they have to defer to the talent's choice of writer, but I've seen too many deals where the talent’s preferred writer was contingent upon publisher approval. And since when do these folks hand over critical personnel decisions on six-figure productions to publishing novices? They say people don’t read books anymore, but maybe the issue is the books they’re making don’t resonate with the people who want to read them!

Many times, it's the publisher who presents the talent with a shortlist of potential writer options to begin with. What choice does the talent really have, if their team was only presented with white writers, or if there was a bias on the side of the editor due to past exposure to the white writers having more established relationships with the publisher? My point is that these interviews I go up for aren't always grounded in equity and neutrality.

I been passed on for multiple jobs, where the male chef decided he wanted to work with a man who always happened to be white. So what am doing here in this interview I took weeks to prep for, that it took you a year to schedule with me? Why are you bothering me? I’m going up against people who are already determined to be frontrunners. So as my girls in TLC once sang, “Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to!” If you choose white apparently you’re choosing right. I am not the one for you!

Since we forgot all of our 2020 lessons, allow me to remind you: Neutrality isn't a real thing, especially not in the United States. You should know by now that you're absolutely biased, because you (you!) were born in or immigrated to a country rooted in systemic and institutional injustice. There is no USA without theft, abuse, and mass complicity with lies. I am still not sure why people whose lineage has systemically benefited from this construct, but happened to vote for Barack Obama once or twice, think they are immune from this discourse of accountability.

Let's walk through a few projects that did it wrong and right:

I grew up in a house with a fairly robust and rotating bookshelf, and had a tendency to read books that were not appropriate for a child (high-performer issues!). Sometimes this was due to the density of the work (like with Alex Haley’s Roots), or due to the subject matter, as in an unauthorized biography on Michael Jackson that detailed the star’s premature exposure to groupie behavior. My mother caught me reading Tina Turner’s autobiography and took it away from me, but I kept at it when my parents weren’t home.

This book, about the extraordinary life of a Black woman born during the sharecropping era in Tennessee, who became one of history’s greatest entertainers, was shaped by a white guy from Miami. I respect Kurt Loder as the enduring music journalist who broke serious stories on MTV NEWS and wrote for Rolling Stone magazine. But this book was a once-in-a-lifetime project about a singular woman who became a global rock star, against odds that were specific to her gender and race. The racially driven poverty she was born into is directly reflected in her story as an abused wife who was following culturally rooted social cues, and is reflected in her music which exudes a pain, elation, and freedom that Black women uniquely understand! While the manuscript was shaped by her recorded interviews with Loder, the responsibility of a white man to translate and curate her detailed oral history into a cohesive book, hands him a responsibility he was not qualified to take on.

David W. Blight is a heralded historian. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Amherst, and has studied and published books on American history with a particular interest in Frederick Douglass, the Civil War, and the personal accounts of enslaved people.

His 2018 book on Frederick Douglass won the Pulitzer Prize. I do not discredit his CV, and to look at his experience is to see someone seriously grounded in the history of Black Americans. But I must question the industry that allows a white man to become the recipient of the Pulitzer, the Bancroft Prize, the Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize when there are countless Black American academics who cannot secure funding for their research, or secure tenure at the universities that optically and culturally benefit from their presence.

An ethical white historian who understands American history as well as he is acclaimed to, should see the systemic impact of literacy being criminalized for anyone classified as Black, at risk of their life or limb. They would be more interested in creating opportunities for Black professors and writers, than to soak up the spotlight while (ironically?) centering their study on the autonomy of Black people. Henry Louis Gates is not the only one, y’all!

Douglass was the most photographed man of the 19th century. He became famous as a formerly enslaved person and orator who advocated for Black sovereignty, sharing his story along the way. I see the enclosure of Douglass’ legacy within a white man’s grasp with similar distaste to New York Times’ white podcasters describing Blackness as an adornment that white musicians can pick up or put down whenever they feel like cosplaying it. It’s giving cultural grift! My people! Look at the pattern.

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing countless stories about the genius who was Miles Davis, thanks to my aunt, the pianist and singer Patrice Rushen, who played with him. I have also heard tales from other musical giants I met through Patric, who also played with him and admired the innovative trumpeter as he traversed genre, refused to be categorized, and pushed political boundaries. I bring this book to the conversation as an example of what expertise offers a celebrated and controversial figure when shaping their life story for the written word.

Davis’ co-author, Quincy Troupe, is a Back author from St. Louis, Missouri, which if you don’t know, might as well be the South. He heard Davis play in the mid 1950s. He went to Grambling University, an HBCU. After relocating to Los Angeles, he became part of the Watts Writers Workshop, which was heavily influenced by the storytelling and history of Black American music. His peers include the giants Nikki Giovanni and Amiri Baraka. He was a professor of Caribbean and Black American literature at the University of California, San Diego. He later co-wrote The Pursuit of Happyness, which became the blockbuster film starring Will Smith. Troupe’s identity, driven by the experiences he cultivated in his personal life and career, is directly reflected in the voice and construct of this complicated book and the historic impact of Davis.

First, a disclosure. I have briefly been in business with Kwame Onwuachi years ago, and I will suffice to say it didn’t go well, for which he apologized to me directly and made other compensatory gestures. I believe that his apology was as sincere as he could muster at the time. We all make mistakes in business, and he made a big one with me.

The memoir Notes From a Young Black Chef was written with white Brooklyn-based writer Joshua David Stein. During the period I was working on that aforementioned essay that never went live, I emailed Stein to request an interview about his apparent sudden interest in African diaspora narratives.

In researching that essay, I scoured the internet looking for any minute expression in Stein’s decade-plus career writing for New York Magazine, Esquire, and others, in which I could pick up on a pattern of his interest, care, or respect for Black food. There was none. I wanted to know what qualified him to presume this “sense of belonging,” as I put it, in an arena he did not have an established beat for as a journalist. Yet he was coming out of the gate with a very Black book published by Knopf.

Stein’s reply was polite, if politely dismissive, in that he declined to speak with me citing, “I am not sure what I can add to the discussion so I'm sadly going to decline participation in your no doubt extremely interesting and doubltlessly [sic] much-needed story.” No doubt!

Here lies the clarity. Of course, he can’t add to the discussion. So why are we looking at his name on the front of a book about a Black young man of Nigerian ancestry (I also have a Nigerian father), with heritage in Louisiana (my mother’s side has roots in southwest Louisiana), who grew up cross-culturally and was trying to present to the world an updated presentation of African and African American food through his life experiences so far?

I’m not going to go into the flags that arose as many of my Black peers (and some astute white colleagues, too!) tried to read that work, some parts of which continue to be recited on platforms like Netflix’s Chef’s Table to the belief of no one with sense. These are items a Black writer would have called out, but of course, none of us were invited to the party.

When Kwame and I had our come-to-Jesus call, he admitted to me he was friends with Stein, and that he liked to hang out with him. Far be it from me to interrupt the Bromance, which curiously, he never speaks to in regards to making that book, nor the cookbook My America, for which I did formative writing and development on the concept, but was ultimately written by Stein. So what, for what it means to a white person who I watched on a panel in Philadelphia struggle to properly pronounce akara.

Everyone can work with who they want, do not mistake me here. But we are talking about a chef who speaks openly about diverse representation and referencing his Black ancestors through food—this is the story his restaurants sell. I wasn’t the only Black writer who could have worked on these books. Why did no one whose history mirrors Kwame’s qualify for the job? You’ll have to ask him. Aand I hope you do.

The Look (2025), by Michelle Obama is a work about how the former First Lady employed fashion as a tool of personal expression and communication as the first (and probably last, if we’re honest) Black First Lady of the United States.

Former Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Elaine Welteroth’s memoir, More Than Enough (2019) is about claiming space as biracial woman of color navigating leadership at in legacy media.

The memoir Wildflower (2023) is by the designer and entrepreneur Aurora James, the same person whose business platform is the Fifteen Percent pledge, which asks companies to take pledges that ensure products from Black brands comprise fifteen percent of retail space.

All of these works were co-authored by Liz Welch, a white woman who has also been a collaborator to Asian talent and other books on Black subjects. I’m quite sure I don’t have to walk you through the overt missed opportunity here. I respect all of these women, and how profoundly sad to leave their own out of being able to contribute to shaping the manuscripts of these germinal works, discussing themes and experiences so personal and well-known to Black women.

About Baldwin, I can only ask, has anyone here read our dear James? He was imperfect as we all are, and such a complex thinker and advocate for his humanity in a time where the suggestion itself was met with systemic absurdity, terror, and violence.

In this work, Nicholas Boggs details accounts of the mostly interracial relationships that comprised Baldwin’s literary and love life as a gay Black man. I’m at my wits end.

The book won all kinds of awards and was placed on all kinds of lists. At this point, my intrepid reader, I am losing stamina. And Baldwin, who spent his entire life toiling and wrestling with identity, a lack of financial equity, feeling safe with or without his lovers, and feeling jettisoned from his country, receives a white man speaking on his behalf.

Baldwin: A Love Story is the first biography of the author in more than three decades.

David Ritz co-authored works with Ray Charles, Dr. Cornel West, Marvin Gaye, Etta James, Rick James, Smokey Robinson, Janet Jackson, and Buddy Guy. The experience and range of these artists alone (a fraction of his bibliography), comprises hundreds of years of the Black American experience. I am deeply aware of the intersections of identity that make art so great. That is not what’s in question here. My question becomes, why didn’t Black writers get to write with Keith Richards, Billy Idol, Julie Andrews, Julia Child, or Elvis Presley?

In a 2018 interview with the Dallas Morning News, TV host Tavis Smiley described Ritz as "the rare example of a white guy who gets [B]lack culture."

Well thank god that there is someone out there who gets it. ⭑