As always Teed you come in with some good points, but I think the very issue with Ms Stevens is that she is great at capturing the specific nuances. She's an excellent writer, she's compelling, she's clickable and she has a wide audience base. Many of the very popular BIPOC writers ont his site hail from the middle class and above - but Ms Stevens is likely a whole other economic class above that.
Where we fundamentally disagree is on the usefulness of her writing. I do enjoy taking verbal potshots when I read something ridiculous and on this occasion she jumped the shark. The inherent problem with the monetisation of black suffering is that an opportunistic and talented writer like Ms Stevens can find examples of racist abuse in absolutely any interaction she has. I'd argue what is being learned by her readers is simply how confirmation bias works.
These stories, and stories like them serve as a handy distraction around economic issues and as a post for self-flagellation of white people who are thus inclined. Her stories are usually peppered with 'aren't you brave!' and 'keep speaking your truth to power' in the comments but rarely do they make any wider political or social inference. Taken across the entire sum of her work it would seem every person she has ever met has done little more than drive her into the ground and yet she emerges as the hero of the story at all times - in this way she reminds of Shannon Ashley. Compelling? Yes. Readable? Absolutely.... but creating a narrative of perpetual struggle for digital seratonin. Every individual piece by these writers might be a masterclass, but taken as a whole their work is a more interesting psychological pattern. That is why I think there is very little to learn from Ms Stevens.
And you're right, Stephen is young but he's on his way up and I have a thing for the underdog writer - and yes I do agree with him, but I think the Steve QJ style voice is underrepresented on Medium - in the same way that I think the Ms Stevens voice is over-represented. Many BIPOC writers who began their journey on the back of white guilt amassed large audiences which means a year and a half on, they're still writing the same thing even though the conversation is moving on around them. Steve QJ is an example of the conversation moving on into something more practicable - and I hope Stephen reads his work (I pointed him that way) and lets it inform his own.
Everyone has to start somewhere.... and yeah, British people do love taking potshots. I think if you're prepared to put your work out there, you should be prepared to have it ripped apart, dissected and mocked.... perhaps not if you're a newbie, but certainly if you've been here a while. This place is an eco-system of ideas and only the strong survive.
As always thanks for keeping the discussion open - lots of people enjoy a good back and forth when reading the comments. That's what the Medium life is all about.
