Introduction
There is a question George Sully kept asking while his memoir, Designing in the Dark, was finding its way into the world. He had written the first memoir by a Black male fashion designer in Canadian history. He had built Black Designers of Canada from nothing into proof nobody could argue with. He had a book, a story, and a publisher. So he asked the obvious question: how does a book get onto the shelf at Indigo? The answer he kept hearing was the same every time. Nobody knows. It is staff's pick. It is staff's choice.
Why This Conversation Matters
This is not a story about one book and one bookstore. It is a story about who gets to decide what counts as history, and who gets to make that decision. George Sully's memoir is not only a personal story. It is a first. The first memoir by a Black male fashion designer in this country's history. When something is a first, it does not belong only to the person who lived it. It belongs to everyone who comes after, especially the kids watching to see whether it is possible. That is what makes the question of who chooses so important. If the choice falls to people who have never seen themselves in the story, the story can be kept off the shelf without anyone meaning to keep it there.
The Shelf Is Not Neutral
George went to Indigo and said, in effect, let us do book signings all over the place. The response was not a no. It was a mystery. Getting onto the shelf, he was told, is a kind of magic. Nobody knows the answer. The last explanation he heard was that it comes down to staff's pick, staff's choice. He described it as a spaceship with only about a hundred seats left for the whole planet, and the people already on board deciding who gets on next. That image stayed with me because it is honest about how closed systems work. The door is not locked with a sign that says keep out. It is locked with a process nobody can explain, and the people inside the process decide who gets through. A shelf looks neutral. It is not. Every book on it was chosen, and every book missing from it was not chosen, by someone.
You Don't Know What You Don't Know
George's question was simple: who is the staff, and what does the staff look like? If the choice belongs to the staff, and the staff in one place all look like the people from that place, then the choice will reflect that place. He put it plainly. If the staff does not look like him, he does not have a chance in the world. He was careful to say this is not an accusation. Nobody is being called ignorant, and nobody is being called racist. It is simpler and harder than that. You do not know what you do not know. If you have never lived a story, you may not recognize its weight when it is placed in front of you. That is why representation among the people who choose matters as much as the work itself. The gatekeeper does not have to be hostile to keep a door closed. They only have to be unable to see what is on the other side of it.
“The person who is the first ever in the country’s history to have a memoir as a black fashion designer, black male fashion designer, I don’t have a prayer in the world. But the thing is that this is where the difference is of being a person of color in this space. Because it has to be treated differently. If it’s history, then it can’t be just that it’s just gonna fall on a person who doesn’t know the wiser.”
Everyone Is Watching
The stakes are not abstract. George said it directly: everyone is watching him, whether they know it or not. There are kids behind him asking whether this is possible. If he has done this much and still does not make the bar, even with history on his side, not enough for a staff member to say this history has to be shown and put on this shelf, then what are we doing this for? That question is the heart of the conversation. It is not about one man's book. It is about whether the future gets to see what was done and be inspired to continue it. If the history is not shown, the next person has to start from zero, in the dark, the same way George did. The shelf is not only a place to sell books. It is a record of what a culture decided was worth remembering. When a first is left off it, the record has a hole in it, and the kids looking for proof that it can be done find an empty space instead.
Lessons for Living Audaciously
Notice who is making the choices in the rooms you want to enter. If the decision makers do not reflect the people the decision affects, the process itself is the barrier, not the work.
Do not confuse a closed door with a verdict on your work. When the answer is staff's choice and nobody can explain the choice, the system is opaque, not objective.
Remember that someone is watching. The work you do in the dark becomes the proof the next person needs to believe it is possible.
When you get a seat, use it to open the door wider. The point of breaking through is not to be the exception. It is to change who gets to choose.
Conclusion and Call to Action
George Sully designed in the dark for years, outside the house, on the lawn, never let in. He built the proof himself, counted the designers nobody would count, and wrote the memoir nobody had written. The question he is asking now is not whether his work is good enough. It is whether the people who decide what gets seen are ready to see it. That question belongs to all of us, in every room where a choice is being made about whose story gets told.
Hear the full conversation on The Audacious Living Podcast.
