>>It was pointed out that, particularly in the US, people are told that their individual sacrifices are the solution. <<
That is abusive nonsense. Individual solutions cannot solve such problems, or indeed, even lessen them very much. That is because individuals are not causing those problems. Household use of water in California is only a tiny fraction of the total. You could remove all of it and not make a meaningful improvement. The lion's share of the demand comes from agricultural, business, and municipal uses in roughly that order depending how you classify things. The plain fact is, California has a water shortage because people are growing things they shouldn't grow in a desert, and they're spending water they don't have to do it. But nobody wants to talk about that, because farming and business are powerful lobbies.
>> Which is a long winded way of saying, I think a lot of the calls for diversity are mistakenly calling for an individual solution to a systemic problem.<<
There are two aspects to this one, individual and institutional. At the individual level, you CAN solve "There are no good stories about X" by writing a good story (or several) about X. But you can't solve "Publishers won't buy stories about X" from the writer or reader end, only from the publishing end; that's institutional.
>> No one story or even creator should be required to tick off all the boxes.<<
Agreed. Not even a publisher should be, because many of them like to specialize; there are black presses and women's presses and those are valuable. For a big publisher, though, I heartily encourage the use of lines so they can cover different interests.
>> If publishing houses, just as an example, did a better job of seeking out, accepting, and promoting diverse creators and stories, people could have their choice. Then creators could pick and choose what issues they want to deal with. No need to hit everyone with the mallet of "but you didn't include X, you must hate them." I know some houses are working on this, with mixed results.<<
When I was running magazines, I did my best to promote diversity. It was hard! I really had to hustle for male writers in PanGaia, because Paganism leans female. Finding writers of color was challenging too. But I wasn't satisfied with a more homogenous table of contents.
Re: Individual solutions
That is abusive nonsense. Individual solutions cannot solve such problems, or indeed, even lessen them very much. That is because individuals are not causing those problems. Household use of water in California is only a tiny fraction of the total. You could remove all of it and not make a meaningful improvement. The lion's share of the demand comes from agricultural, business, and municipal uses in roughly that order depending how you classify things. The plain fact is, California has a water shortage because people are growing things they shouldn't grow in a desert, and they're spending water they don't have to do it. But nobody wants to talk about that, because farming and business are powerful lobbies.
>> Which is a long winded way of saying, I think a lot of the calls for diversity are mistakenly calling for an individual solution to a systemic problem.<<
There are two aspects to this one, individual and institutional. At the individual level, you CAN solve "There are no good stories about X" by writing a good story (or several) about X. But you can't solve "Publishers won't buy stories about X" from the writer or reader end, only from the publishing end; that's institutional.
>> No one story or even creator should be required to tick off all the boxes.<<
Agreed. Not even a publisher should be, because many of them like to specialize; there are black presses and women's presses and those are valuable. For a big publisher, though, I heartily encourage the use of lines so they can cover different interests.
>> If publishing houses, just as an example, did a better job of seeking out, accepting, and promoting diverse creators and stories, people could have their choice. Then creators could pick and choose what issues they want to deal with. No need to hit everyone with the mallet of "but you didn't include X, you must hate them." I know some houses are working on this, with mixed results.<<
When I was running magazines, I did my best to promote diversity. It was hard! I really had to hustle for male writers in PanGaia, because Paganism leans female. Finding writers of color was challenging too. But I wasn't satisfied with a more homogenous table of contents.