Our 2' Cents

This summer has been a doozy. Was it just me or did you also feel like every single company you’ve come into contact with needed to tell you where they stood on racial inequality? Spoiler Alert: They’re all publicly against it. They are also fans of a black instagram posts in which they used some version of the phrase “We stand in solidarity, blah blah blah.”

Publishing was no different. The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, which are still sweeping the country, hit the publishing industry like an earthquake. We’ve yet to see how far and wide the trimmers will go.

As a reminder, American Publishing is 76% white, 74% Cis women, 81% Straight and 89% non-disabled meaning it is nearly entirely straight white women. Yup, you read that right, every white girl from your English 101 class now works in publishing. And they’re all collectively confused on how to address the racial inequities and biases within their own staff and authors-ship. 

There have been a lot of memos flying around, plenty of D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) meetings, bias training and company town halls all trying to answer the age-old white liberal conundrum of “What can we do?” Publishers have generally answered this with the vague “More.” They’re going to publish more BIPOC authors, hire more BIPOC staff, and do more for BIPOC readers. I hate to say it but I’m not holding my breath. In the past four years, there has been nearly NO discernible change in just how white publishing is. I will be very happy to be surprised though!

In its current state, American Publishing is a capitalist institution. There are only five major U.S. publishers, all based in New York City, and they hold what has been estimated as 80% of the market. At this point the inequalities, biases, and greed are baked in. They do not require a racist or sexist or homophobic or ableist employee to do anything at all, except follow the rules. A book agent doesn’t need to be sexist to mainly work with male authors. An editor doesn’t need to racist to only acquire white authors. A book marketer don’t need to be homophobic to mostly work with straight influencer. But patterns tell stories - and the patterns of publishing are, if you are white, middle class, straight, able-bodied and cis, your words are more worthy of print than others.

Publishing reflects, normalizes, and magnifies the biases they were built on, those of straight cis white men. And it doesn’t matter how progressive a CEO is, how many entry-level POCs an imprint hires, or how many POC authors they acquire. Institutions don’t change on their own; they require specific, radical, uncomfortable shifts. There can be nothing gradual about it. 

It must be radical. And while we’re at it, let's take a note from the protestors marching down our streets. They are not asking for reform because it has failed. They are demanding sweeping changes, abolition. Publishing has tried, and failed, for years to diversify its workforce. It’s time for readers and publishing employees to re-think what it means to acquire a book, what it means to publish and sell a book. It’s time for us to demand our publishers to be actively anti-racist. Their compliance with the current state of the industry is not only stifling the diversity of their workforce, but that of our literary culture. And during times such as these, in the middle of a global pandemic and racial uprising, I’m honestly just over it ya’ll.

Thank you for coming to my TEDxNONAC talk.
#BuyBIPOCBooks