We Need Diverse Books: Reclaiming Time on the Page Part I

Jason Tougaw

The fight for diversity in publishing is happening on social media. On April 24, 2014 Aisha Saeed one of the founders of We Need Diverse Books tweeted:

The groundwork for We Need Diverse Books was laid well before this tweet and others like it heralding a new literary movement. It began as most movements do, at the grassroots level, but has become a coalition of change. Writers and allies work to promote and celebrate books written by and for readers of all backgrounds and creeds. Their mission: “Putting more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children.” Their vision: “A world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.”

As a bookseller, I worked so hard to highlight books with diverse protagonists and perspectives, hand selling Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore and Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, displaying copies of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican American Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez even though the corporate plan did not require it. But much of the most effective work in service of this cause is being done online. Passionate bloggers and writers tackle inequality in every level of the book publishing process. These social movements are bigger and reaching farther than book publishing, they’re advocating for social justice.

But every social justice crusade has its detractors. In August, Kat Rosenfeld wrote an article for Vulture entitled, “The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter.” It dominated the Twitter discourse for days after it was published. In the article, Rosenfeld decries the toxic call-out culture on Twitter, Goodreads, and other platforms and mobilized to destroy the reputations of well-intentioned authors (mainly white women) and the cabal of bloggers (mainly women of color and queer writers) who won’t rest until they censor voices they disagree with.

The “censorship” in question isn’t coming from the government or private organizations with legal injunctions and cease and desist letters but in the form of Twitter threads and Goodreads reviews written by teenagers and marginalized voices with no financial stake in “censoring” anything. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Meaningful critique does not equal censorship. We Need Diverse Books is run by authors and publishers committed not to censorship, but broadening the possibility of every child seeing themselves in a book. Intentionally mislabeling criticism as censorship is a common tactic now used by people resistant to diversity and equality in publishing. Pushing back against that resistance requires equal and opposite force.

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