CONTENT CREATORS AS LEADERS

practical tips for inclusive content

The author crewing aboard AMISTAD, a Baltimore clipper built for educational purposes. Students in the background are attending educational programming stations about African culture and the special place AMISTAD has in American history while the boat is under way. 

By Anne Bryant

Getting Started in Boats is a perforated, newsprint paper section of WoodenBoat Magazine that I edited, proudly, for 3 ½ years. It’s entirely illustrated, geared to newcomers, and is perhaps the most important thing the magazine produces. I was laid off last January, but during my time there, I found that managing and leading the content for that eight-page department would be the most important thing I did.

As an editor, I didn’t expect to be in a position to create real change, but here I was at a well respected publication with the ability to request that our capable, simpatico illustrator put diverse faces, ages, and genders at helms, up in rigging, using tools, repairing engines, and building rowboats. We’ve all felt the empowerment and inspiration that comes from seeing oneself reflected in the media, and I got to do that for people even when the magazine’s glossier pages echoed loudly with older, white, male voices. I wanted people to open the magazine and see a resonating welcome, you belong. 

Recognizing that you’re in a position to lead is not always as apparent as it is when you’re clearly carrying the title of captain, skipper, manager, or owner. If you’re speaking in public spaces via social media, you can lead. Here are a few practical approaches to amplify new or diverse voices that anyone can do in a blog, Facebook page, podcast, or YouTube channel.

Identify the goal and the mission.

Why amplify voices? The answer to this lays out the mission. It’s up to people in places of privilege to actively dismantle the privilege they have if anything is going to get better for marginalized people. As we see movements for real change for those who have been, historically, excluded from sailing and boating for a slew of no-good, deeply-rooted reasons, a majority of maritime media-makers have an opportunity to create a more welcoming environment on and around the water to change it. That’s the goal: To recognize and fulfill the promise of opportunity. To avoid creating content with an air of empty, feel-good/do-good loftiness (search up “virtue signaling”) and work hard in a personal way to foster a genuine state of inclusion and equality in boating as a whole.

Identify ways you can diversify the faces and voices in your feed.

Have a good lookover of what you’re doing and sharing. Recognize that your reach can be used for good, and figure out how and where you can be more inclusive. If you’re traveling, say, in the Caribbean, and you feature other cruisers, that’s probably going to be mostly white and possibly mostly male people. If that’s who you’re seeing, then “no blame and no shame”, as my mentor says, but it’s time to reach out and do more. Maybe there’s a local business you love owned by an indigenous or person of color, and on Facebook, you could share a bit about what they do and why you appreciate them. Follow and then signal-boost (by re-sharing) other, more diverse creators, too. You’ll need some longer-term approaches to make it a permanent change. We’ll get to that below. Before sharing about them, however, see the section below on asking for permission.

If you can, don’t segregate content.

Joan smiles wide in front of some of the many souvenirs she sells. This self-described entrepreneur is a shop owner in and native of Tortola, British Virgin Islands, and is the last vendor there making her own crafts for sale in the market buildings by the waterfront near where the cruise ships used to come in. After talking with her for a long while and exchanging addresses to become pen pals, the author asked if it was ok to take a portrait of her. 

Doing “Women’s Wednesday” or one day a month for highlighting people of color separates that content from your “normal” offerings. In a way, it “otherizes” those people and topics. It’s possible to fold in diverse voices mindfully, perhaps on a release schedule known only to you so you’re on top of it, in a way that normalizes their presence in and among all your content. Before you know it, you’ll have a practice that will come automatically to you. 

Ask permission.

It’s not BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ folks’ job to be examples or samples, to tell their personal stories in a way that defines them only by their unique experience, or to be subjects to fulfill your mission of diversity. If you go to a market in a far-flung place and take photos of people, for example, always get permission before snapping a photo and let people know that the questions you’re asking are for sharing with the public. I saw a woman in St John’s, Antigua politely excuse herself from the conversation she was having with a paying customer to strongly admonish and shake a finger at a tourist for snapping her picture. “EXCUSE ME SIR,” she said in her island accent, startling the man with the giant lens who was about to skip away without a word, “That is rude. Ask permission before taking a picture.” I appreciated her directness and her boundaries, and still honor her today. Your privilege might tell you that you’re doing someone a favor by taking their picture or telling their story—be careful to give people the option of excusing themselves from that work.

Don’t speak where someone can use their own voice; don’t tell your audience what to think.

This doesn’t just go for diversity work, this is an important tenet in journalism of any kind. So many new media-makers are excited to create, and as amateurs, unwittingly dilute the pith of the very story they’re trying to convey by interjecting their judgements and descriptions. Your interpretation of a subject’s feelings or their story will ring hollow compared with a direct quote, recording, image, or video of that person relating their experience. Get small. Let your subject shine. Sometimes it takes an editor to see moments where you stepped in front of your subject, and how you might be able to correct it. 

Two inspiring women sharing a conversation while sailing. Queene Hooper Foster, left, the first woman to own and skipper a boat in the Bermuda race, is at the helm of the 1936 pilot cutter, FLEKKERØY, owned by Klara Emmerfors, right, during a sunny March 2018 sail. Emmerfors arrived in Maine during December a couple years previous to that, after having cruised the northern route from Norway with her partner, Bjørnar Berg. Becoming friends with people whose stories you’d like to tell brings you close enough to capture moments such as these.

When introducing a subject, say, as an interviewed guest or panelist, the same thing follows. Instead of saying, “Jane is a strong woman with lots of experience,” her resume would speak better: Jane has a 100-ton masters license and 40,000 nautical miles under her keel as a delivery skipper. 

Forge deep relationships. Get closer.

When you’re able, invite these diverse faces and voices to connect with you in meaningful ways beyond the content you’re thinking of sharing. What might have been a podcast interview with no follow up, as it is in most cases, could be a long-running series of interviews or even meetups that result in better, more genuine storytelling. Stay with your subjects for the long haul when you can. 

I wish it didn’t take special effort to do these things. I wish it came naturally to me; that people of all walks came easily into my orbit. I wish that where I lived—Maine—wasn’t so damn white or so damn cis and straight. I can’t wait for those things to change on their own, obviously, because I didn’t do a lot of steering in my first three episodes of The Water Society, and the lineup of the first three guests, though lovely and interesting, was pretty predictable. So I’m not pontificating with these points, nor is this a comprehensive plan. But I hope it gets all of us started, leading by way of amplifying the voices of others. 

FROM WOMEN WHO SAIL NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 4. | NOVEMBER 2020.

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anne bryant

Anne Bryant is a writer, editor, podcaster, videographer, and photographer living and sailing in Maine and all over. Check out her podcast at thewatersociety.com and some of her other work at righthandanne.com.