The Elephant in the Room
No matter how hard you try to ignore it, it just won’t go away! It’s time to do something about the appalling inequity in US (and Canadian) publishing. Elizabeth Bluemle has posted a fantastic essay over at her Publishers Weekly blog, Shelf Talker. It’s filled with important insights, links, and illustrations by artists of color who know all too well just how exclusive and tight-lipped the publishing industry can be. I particularly like this one by Jerry Craft—I’ve BEEN to a book fair with Jerry before, and this is pretty much how it works…folks stroll by, smile politely or avoid eye contact altogether, then zoom off to buy books that aren’t by or about PoC!
I hope industry professionals will step to the plate and join Elizabeth’s group; we need to establish a publishing equalities charter of our own here in the US, and I think the ABA, AAP, CCBC, CBC, and ALA should take the lead—organizations that are involved in the children’s literature industry, and invested in truly serving our kids. What do you think? I can shout til I’m blue in the face, but when white allies speak out, more folks tend to listen…
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