Following up on this post:

Racism is a system. What Bloomsbury did was engage in a system of racism and it is possible to engage in that system while still being pretty liberal, and being anti-racist, and being an advocate for diversity. I think what’s going to get lost here is that they engaged in this system, and people will call them on it, and others are going to defend them with sweet and cuddly anecdotes.

They shouldn’t.

Why? Because the defenders are going to make engaging in the racist system and the entire debate about who they are instead of about what they did. Disclaimer: I’m not trying to pick on Sara Zarr. I just don’t want to open my feedreader to see this entire debate made worthless because we’ve stopped having the “what they did” conversation because some well-meaning white folks just wanted to make sure we all knew that these are people, not monsters. Yes, we know. Monsters eat people and are imaginary. People do racist crap that destroys hopes and dreams. Example:

There is a lot of outrage, and I think for good reason. Though, some of the comments floating around the o’sphere indicate a belief that the publisher is evil, bad, calculating, etc. Here’s what I think: it’s not like editors and marketing people are monsters. I have met a lot of people in children’s publishing over the last few years, and almost to a (wo)man, they are great, smart, hardworking, passionate people who wants to get books into readers’ hands and to be able to keep doing that by staying in business. I think this was simply a bad decision symptomatic of a larger, mostly hidden problem that we need to talk about and it’s good we are doing so.

This claim that there are conversations about how Bloomsbury is evil and making calculated, racist decisions isn’t cited, and it should be, number one so we make sure to tell people to cut that shit out because it’s wrong (I will even volunteer), and number two because in the very next moment there’s a nice example of derailment taking place, when we bring in the fluffy stuff about how the people in children’s publishing work so hard, and they’re this trait and that trait and it was just a bad decision, and did I mention they’re hard workers?

I spoke out to bring light to this issue and I only ask my white cohorts one thing: don’t derail the conversation. It poisons the discourse and can eventually create an environment in which the people who are angry and trying to hold someone or a group accountable for what they did are being shouted down by the people going “but I’ve met them! They’re nice!”

I’m sure they are. I’m a pretty easygoing person, but I spent the first 19 years of my life as a racist douchebag white person and if I make a racist douchebag comment I don’t want people to defend me by saying “But she’s a great person!” as loud as possible to cover up the noise people I offended are making. I want to be held accountable for the racist comment I made so I can learn because being held accountable is the only way to do so. Bloomsbury screwed the pooch, you know, like white people will do. It’s not the first time and it most certainly won’t be the last. People who are racist will take the “who they are” tactic and run with it, as far and fast as they can and there goes our useful debate. That’s why we need to leave the “who they are” out of this conversation. It doesn’t belong. If what happened to the cover of Liar ticks you off, say so, but avoid derailing. Bloomsbury should have to own their decision and face their white privilege if they’re ever going to stop white-washing covers for the sake of marketability—if they’re ever going to stop assuming white is better.

This entry may require you to, like me, chomp on a rag so you don’t chew your own tongue off in a rage!

The other day I posted about wanting to read Liar by Justine Larbalestier because I like unreliable narrators and to be on top of possible brouhaha in the YA sphere because it seemed odd that a book with a character that was black had a cover with a girl who has white features (I’m not speaking to the model’s ethnicity). Larbalestier finally weighed in on the issue and I am kind of heartbroken and want to buy all her books so she will have the money to buy comforting chocolate, or perhaps a punching bag (I would choose the punching bag, but I have rage issues and she might not). Now here’s where I get torn. Do I buy the book to support a classy author whose work I enjoy, whose publishers have made a racist marketing decision or not buy the book because of that decision? I don’t care how nice they are, I don’t care if they rescue puppies and bring lunches to senior citizens, this decision was skeevy. It’s tough, though. I don’t want to support behavior like this, or this publisher to think it’s okay and point to their sale numbers to prove they’re right, but I do want to financially support authors writing about non-white characters. Maybe I could just buy the Australian version.

Publishers Weekly has an article about it, and this part got me:

And yet, some readers—and Liar’s editor—are defending the cover, noting that Micah, the unreliable narrator, could have fibbed about her own appearance. “The entire premise of this book is about a compulsive liar,” said Melanie Cecka, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA and Walker Books for Young Readers, who worked on Liar. “Of all the things you’re going to choose to believe of her, you’re going to choose to believe she was telling the truth about race?” …. “Clearly, our striving for ambiguity with this cover, and for it to be interpreted as a ‘lie’ itself didn’t work for everyone. But again, if this jacket proves a catalyst for a bigger discussion about how the industry is dealing with its books on race, that’s a very large good to come of this current whirlwind.”

Please! Give me more of your delicious excuses as to why this decision wasn’t filled with gross, slimy stuff covering the underside of a racist publishing system. I am all ears! Man, it is totally fine if feelings were hurt, or non-white people felt badly, or white allies felt angry, or the author was disappointed and let down. It’s all okay because it was a learning experience! People will learn and that makes all the bad feelings all right! Except…not the people who need to, apparently. What have you learned, Bloomsbury? Clearly nothing, because instead of reading “we’re sorry for pretending that this book cover exists in a vacuum of perfect happy fun times race relations” I just read “it didn’t work for everyone”. Hell yeah! Pass the buck to the angry, disappointed people. It didn’t work because we didn’t get your ~~*amazing vision*~~.

To quote KJ who I frothed about this with in IM:

“Would they ever, in a million years, have put someone non-white on the cover when the main character describes themselves as white, unreliable narrator or no?”

Here’s a hint: if the author says, “you’re doing it wrong!” then you know, you’re probably are doing it wrong. It’s a wild theory but I think it has teeth. Bloomsbury is acting like we’re in some post-racial America where this decision doesn’t come with a ton of baggage even beyond erasing the Other; I also wonder how many nonwhite people were involved in making it. Way to go, Bloomsbury. Way to go.

OR SLJ says: Screw You, Girls! Boys Are More Special Snowflake Than You!

Over on School Library Journal, there was a post. I read this post around the day it was published. I got so angry I wanted to throw my computer at the wall! I am not sure what to do with my habit of getting rip-roaring, expletive-spewing, I-cannot-respond-because-when-I-type-all-that-comes-out-is-;SLdjflsjhdfsdas,das,dd angry, but it is my habit to walk away and come back later.

I tried this! It turns out I am still pissed. Let me quote the section that makes me want to punch myself in the face from frustration.

I’m afraid this won’t be popular, but I need more books for boys—as do most librarians who work with young people. I’ve noticed that lots of books with female characters aren’t really about being female. In fact, in many cases, the main characters could just as easily have been males—and that would make my job a lot easier. … Am I being silly? Probably, but some of our boys have never read a complete book in their lives. It’s important to offer them good, appealing stories, and, sad to say, that means stories with prominent male characters.

Wow! Damn right it’s not popular! This has gone past not popular into mind-bogglingly offensive and epically short-sighted. Hello, this is a woman? Oh, wait, like that matters, women can spew sexist crap, too. The solution to making boys read is to…make sure books not about “girl stuff” or about being female have male narrators? I read that and I am fairly sure I lost about 17,000 IQ points and somewhere, a few feminists woke up from nightmares. Am I dreaming? Did a librarian actually suggest that books should only have female narrators if the book is about, what? Bleeding from the vagina? Making babies? Cooking? [Insert female gendered activity here]? Because it would make her job easier?

Why yes! Girls should have to read about boys because you know, they’re used to it, but boys shouldn’t have to pick up a book with a female narrator, because they might get cooties. It’s not like girls need to see people like them in situations other than female-gendered ones. On and on with the “male is default” meme, and I’m tired of it! Oh so tired, I cannot even express the depth of my exhaustion. Boys need books with male narrators because they can’t see themselves in a female perspective, because they’ve been trained not to by a society that is hostile to women and girls. The answer is not to cater to this hostility, it is to come up with creative ways to make the books appealing. I cannot believe this that I’m reading, that a librarian, who might serve girls like me, who likes to read about adventures and magic and male-gendered things, would suggest erasing the female to comfort and entice boys into reading. Hells yeah! That’s exactly the way to make boys more likely to grow up and not care whether or not the books they’re reading have women as the main charac—oh wait.

Fuck that noise, and it is noise, and it’s ridiculous, and why is no one else enraged. Why I am the only one over here steaming from my ears?

Girls should not be invisible or shunted to the background. Books with girls should be everywhere. Books about and with girls in main roles, doing whatever it is they’re doing in the book. Librarians shouldn’t advocating invisible and background girls because it would make their job easier. You know what would make my life easier? No more sexism. How awesome would that be!

Pretty awesome. Too bad it’s not possible! Too bad we have to work for the hard wins.

We’ve been shoved to the background and hidden long enough: it’s time for the culture to stop actively treating girls in such a way that asking boys to read about them is asking them to do something horrific. “Here’s this book with a female MC,” and a boy hears “Here’s this awesome ROOT CANAL!” or “SURPRISE CASTRATION!” or the zinger “All your friends think you might actually respect girls—run!”

Yes, it takes teaspoons to swim against the tide of sexism and the never-ending push of the patriarchy. It takes teaspoons to fail again and again and again with boys who probably will shun all attempts to convince them that a book is awesome because the main character is female and everything else in their life is telling them that they are better than girls. Who said it should be easy? It’s not easy to maintain and advocate for the presence of girls in literature, or the authors who write for girls, or about girls—but we should. We shouldn’t give up and throw in the towel and actually advocate the erasure of the female to publishers!

NO. NO.

This quote is asking us to actively harm our girls for the benefit of boys. 2009 and we’re still seeing this mess. Our girls deserve better and our boys do, too.