Some Old White Guy, by Josh Stallings

Q: Your thoughts on authors asked to write Content/Trigger Warnings for their novels?

A: Old school Josh used to think these were silly. “Come on man, they’re just words.” The title of my first book was Beautiful Naked & Dead, if that title doesn’t upset you the content shouldn’t. That’s what I thought then. I also thought if I’m not afraid walking anywhere in the world you shouldn’t be either. 

I’ve grown up some since then. Here are a couple of events that helped me.

In the early part of the Tump presidency my wife and most of my closest female friends were universally pissed off at men. I took it personally. Hell I was often the only man in the room where they were railing against men. So taking it personally seemed logical. Ultimately I was forced to either believe all these smart wonderful women were trying to hurt me… OR, I needed to do some deeper learning. It always comes down to learning. Luckily as an autodidactic I have spent my life taking deep dives to eradicate my ignorance on a wide range of subjects. 

When asked, my wife put it like this; when America elected Trump, she realized that  she knew some men in this country viewed her gender with disdain, and as prey. She didn’t know enough people hated her gender to elect a proven misogynist rapist. Misogynist rapist is my term, she would point out that the statement is redundant. Rape is about power and anger. All rape is misogynist by definition.The women I know feel unsafe in most public places and have since they were young girls. They don’t get into their own car or any car without checking the back seat, and immediately locking the door once inside. If Trump’s position as the Republican nominee in 2024 made them feel vulnerable, his choice of J.D. Vance as a running mate made them feel even more unsafe. It isn’t because they’re fearful people. It is because they have had to live with these realities from early childhood.

Here are some facts from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, facts my wife and others knew and I being a 6’4 white male had to learn: 

One in five women in the United States experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime.  

Nearly a quarter (24.8%) of men in the U.S. experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetime. 

Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. 

About one in four male victims of completed or attempted rape first experienced it between the ages of 11 and 17. 

One in three female victims of completed or attempted rape experienced it for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17.

The numbers are actually higher, these are based on people willing to admit to sexual assaults. And with the way our culture blames victims I can see why many would lock what happened deep in their psyche.

When ONE MORE BODY, the third and final Moses McGuire book came out I did an interview with Amber Love on her podcast Vodka O’clock. When posted she added, “TRIGGER warning because of the discussion we have about his research in guerrilla prostitution which means raping kidnapped girls/women until they comply.” 

Vodka O’Clock https://www.amberunmasked.com/?s=Josh+Stallings

Although I wouldn’t have thought to do this, I was glad she did. I carefully research what I write, BUT I don’t research who might read it. I never want stories I tell to trigger an unwanted emotional reaction. They used to say about PTSD that the best medicine was to walk through the trauma again and again. That is turning out to be false. Unless someone helps guide you through it with loving and gentle kindness you are more likely to re-traumatize the person than to help them. So I guess I come down on the side of, if anyone thinks there should be a trigger warning, we as authors need to look deeply into it. I’m not saying we should always put them on our work just because someone says we should, but we owe it our readers to investigate the why of the matter.

Multiple paragraphs ago I said there was more than one event that helped me grow. When the BLM movement rose up, I was excited. I was raised by civil rights activists. I was taught early about how our country treated its citizens of color. And yet when angry voices yelled about those fucking old white men, I took it personal. I admit my public face was, hell yes! While privately I thought, hey I’m one of the good guys, and isn’t it a little ironic to yell about racism while attacking all us white men like we are a monolith? What I hear is all humans have inherent dignity and worth, except you old white men, you? not so much. Listening as my better self, I see that the folks who say these things are more nuanced in their thinking. They aren’t saying all old white men are the root of their problems, the term Old White Men is shorthand for anger about a certain kind of person. I’m not egotistical enough to think they meant me directly. I also know I have a part to play here. I have worked hard to understand white privilege. And I needed to dig deeper. 

People love nonviolent activists in part because they are nonthreatening. It took Malcolm to open a door, and armed Black Panthers to keep it open. After the murder of Harvey Milk gay men and allies rioted in San Fransisco. By smashing glass and topping cop cars they made clear they were done taking it. It has taken authors yelling, tweeting, and threatening to walk away from writers conventions and organizations to see change. It took anger to get the MWA to see why the DA who railroaded the Central Park Exonerated Five had no place at the Edgars. It took the same noise to convince Bouchercon that Otto Penzler had no place on our stage. It should have been obvious. But many of us old white folk need to educate ourselves.   

It took removing Otto Penzler as editor of Best American Mystery Stories to discover there were in fact lots of great stories being written by both women and writers of color. Otto Penzler said he’d publish women if any were good enough writers to be published. Yes that is crackpot looney tunes crazy. But the fact a powerful man in publishing said it out loud tells me how deep this shit runs.

Steph Cha is the editor of Best American Mystery Stories. Award winning best selling author S. A. Cosby is the 2024 guest editor. S.A Cosby is an amazing man, kind and generous. I am glad we live in a time where he is recognized and held up for his work. Things are changing. Too slowly. But changing.

If my small part in bringing true equal rights for all citizens of this world is to educate myself, speak about what I learn honestly, and be supportive to those struggling, I can commit to that.

I realize as a big old white viking I have gone through life without much worry that what I said, where I went, or how I looked could get me assaulted or killed. I don’t need trigger warnings. But I’m aware enough to see that many others do. We mostly put these trigger warnings on abusive sexual content. I would like to propose we think about doing the same for gun violence. It is the number one killer of young people in the USA. Given that a generation of readers are likely to have been traumatized by firearms, we may want to warn them if they show up in our work. What about trigger warnings for writer’s racist language? 

We have the right to write about anything we want, and readers have the right to not be hurt by reading our words.

Need some good news? It is getting better all the time. A woman of color is waging a battle for the soul of America in the 2024 presidential election. She has fought for prison reform and bail reform. She has fought for women's reproductive rights. She truly is the best person for the job. And we all must do what we can to see that she is elected.

“I WILL NOT GO BACK.” - Another Old White Guy for Kamala Harris.