Two kinds of controversies often pop up in matters of literature and racial diversity.
The first kind is manufactured by readers who want to police who gets to tell whose stories and whether a book is appropriate according to the prevailing liberal moods.
The second occurs when businesses, hoping to exploit the virtue-signaling capital of promoting racial diversity, do so in a way that is offensive to pretty much everyone. Barnes & Noble has just plunked itself right into the middle of one of these latter controversies.
For Black History Month, the bookseller decided to republish classic novels with covers featuring protagonists, historically depicted as white, as black instead.
That’s right. Instead of pushing works by great black artists such as Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, or Alexandre Dumas, the bookseller decided to slap black faces on the covers of old books and call it a day. What could go wrong?
Quite a bit, it turns out.
“They could have Googled, chosen a dozen books by actual Black authors that are classics & sent those out with fresh covers & a big event,” author Mikki Kendall tweeted. “Add in bringing in contemporary Black authors to discuss these works & the whole thing is a win. They didn’t do the easy or logical thing.”
Others accused the marketing ploy of “blackface.”
Following the backlash, Barnes & Noble announced on Wednesday that it would suspend the rollout of its “Diverse Editions.”
“The booksellers who championed this initiative did so convinced it would help drive engagement with these classic titles,” Barnes and Noble said in a statement. “It was a project inspired by our work with schools and was created in part to raise awareness and discussion during Black History Month, in which Barnes & Noble stores nationally will continue to highlight a wide selection of books to celebrate black history and great literature from writers of color.”
Those in charge of the “Diverse Editions” said that they had chosen the titles — books such as Romeo and Juliet, Frankenstein, Treasure Island, The Secret Garden, Moby Dick, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — because artificial intelligence determined that the lead characters’ races were not mentioned in the novels. Sadly, however, many of these titles would tell different stories if their protagonists were nonwhite. Characters in novels with historical settings — The Secret Garden vs. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, for example — might have faced prejudice from their contemporaries that aren’t reflected in the texts.
Plus, characterizing Frankenstein’s monster as a black man isn’t exactly a win for diversity.
Barnes & Noble’s mistake here isn’t merely running afoul of the liberal crowd. It’s that the bookseller hoped to capitalize on a positive trend without actually participating in it. Barnes & Noble simply tried to monetize wokeness.
