There’s a big feeling of whiteness coming from everything in Minnesota. It’s a challenge that every publication somewhat passively experiences. How do we be less homogenous? We’re a state that is 85% white, a state that sometimes feels segregated in its own way. But there is often a tacit agreement that that’s just how it is, let’s carry on. But maybe that’s not the right approach.

We try to be a national publication and we’ve published people from all over the world. But we still feel Minnesota-level homogenous.

In my time writing and reading, I have come to observe that there is still a lot of discomfort around people sharing the perspective of what it’s like to be different. The world is, despite the progressive progressiveness of the 21st century, still somewhat eager to slap people down for saying something that disagrees with the status quo. Maybe because the status quo is dissolving, slowly but definitely surely, people are even more eager to cling to it.

In 2013, a lot of a hard conversations were had. GIRLS forced us to examine how often different types of people are left out of our stories. Paula Deen’s racism actually brought down her media empire. Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson made us realize that post-racial and post-homophobia America are still a long ways off. People with different perspectives spoke up, and people listened. The internet has furthered the instances of that happening. But Phil Robertson got his job back, and it showed that the Sarah Palins of the world are still doing a good job at telling people that the voices of power will still be protected by the media, and everyone else can just deal with it.

Part of the reason that our culture – by that I mean books, TV, movies and music – still feels so homogenous is that we live in a country that still makes it scary for different people to talk about being different. I’m not just talking about internet commenters bullying people. I am talking about the lack of empathy that permeates our conversations.

There aren’t a lot of media outlets sending out the signal that they care. And maybe we live in a time when that needs to be something that is said explicitly, not tacitly with what you choose to publish. So in 2014, we want to be a publication where people can feel comfortable submitting stories about what it’s like to be different in any way. Those stories are not told enough, especially in Minnesota. So please do tell them, and consider us one place willing to use as a platform.

–Becky Lang