2020 Panel: That’s Enough Diversity

Marines 0:22
Hello and welcome to BookNet Cast and BookNet Fest 2020. My name is Marines.

Samantha 0:27
And I’m Samantha Lane and we are the co-organizers of BookNet Fest, an event that invites readers who typically gather online to Orlando, Florida every year. Due to the global pandemic in 2020. Our in person event was canceled and moved completely online for 2021. We’re hoping to meet again in Orlando on September 3 and fourth Thank you to our sponsor of this panel, Little Bee Books. Little Bee Books is a children’s book publisher dedicated to making high quality, creative, and fun books for busy little bees ages zero through 12, offering an inspired selection of early learning concept books, board games, novelty books, activity books, picture books, chapter books, nonfiction, gift sets and more. On August 25, 2020, Little Bee released The Riverdale Diaries Volume One: Hello Betty. Kirkus Reviews said this graphic novel series breathes new life into old characters. Betty Cooper and her buddies from Archie’s Riverdale series are reimagined for middle grade readers in this full-length, full-color graphic novel written by rising star Sarah Kuhn and drawn by critically acclaimed artist J. Bone. You can check out the Riverdale Diaries at your local library or wherever books are sold.

Marines 1:27
Today, we will be talking about the many facets of the conversation that kind of surrounds diversity in the publishing industry. And we’ve got some amazing guests joining us.

Adri 1:38
Hi, my name is Adri and my channel on YouTube is perpetual pages. I am a queer, trans non binary Mexican American book reviewer and I have been on booktube for almost seven years, which is absolutely wild. And that’s where I mainly shout about books on the internet.

Paige 1:54
And hey everybody, I’m Paige you can find me basically anywhere on the internet as minimal bookie. I am a bisexual biracial person. So all the bias basically. And I’m also a publishing professional.

Marines 2:04
The idea for this panel basically came from, I can’t say specifically, but one of the many times that I probably felt like some pushback while I was talking about anything that kind of falls under the umbrella of diversity when we’re talking about diversity within publishing or reading. And so one of the things that you often hear is kind of this idea that, you know, like, “that’s enough”, like “we have enough now” “we’ve gained ground” or, you know, “haven’t you talked about it enough.” And so that’s kind of like the hazy idea that I had when it came to assembling this panel. So I kind of want to start there. We are all people that represent like various backgrounds, and we talk about books online. And this is something that we are passionate about. So when you are talking about representation, or diverse books, or inclusive spaces or or inclusive stories, what are some of the things or what are some of the ways that people push back on you, or some of the things or counter arguments that you hear often?

Paige 3:06
Speaking from the Canadian industry, and like from Canada in general, because that’s where I live, we have a separate issue compared to like the US where you guys are because Canada really views itself as a post racist society. They think there are no problems here. So a lot of the pushback that I see when I’m trying to create more diverse spaces, is a lot of “well, that’s not really a problem here like it is in America.” And that is the struggle is sort of trying to prove first that there is a problem and then getting to the solutions of everything.

Adri 3:36
I feel like I still hear people saying stuff like, “I don’t look into who the author is when I pick up a book.” And “I don’t care about diversity, I just want to read good books” which has to be my favorite because it functions on the assumption that books that are quote unquote “diverse books are not good”, or that they have to meet a certain threshold of goodness before they’re even read to qualify as being worthy of someone’s time. At the same time, people who claim that they care about quality over diversity tend to be the same people whose reading history consists almost exclusively of the widest quality books imaginable. So that always leaves me thinking, Okay, you say you care about quality, but you’re showing me that your definition of quality is severely lacking. And frankly, I have no interest.

Samantha 4:23
I definitely feel like when I get push back it’s around two things. One, if I mentioned sexuality of any kind people are like “why do you have to mention it” or they say that it’s a spoiler which we’ve had this conversation over and over again, like sexuality is not a spoiler, please kindly shut the fuck up. So that happens a lot as well as triggers even though triggers aren’t always necessarily part of the diversity conversation. They kind of are especially with like mental health and stuff. So I feel like I get pushback sometimes there I overwhelmingly do get positive feedback for that. But that is still something I think the biggest part of this is because at least from what I I joined booktube back in 2014-2015. We didn’t talk about it at all, like diversity was like barely ever a conversation. And so I think people have this false idea that since we talked about it so much more like, it’s we’ve solved it, and it’s like, no, we went from zero to like a little bit more, we have not like solved racism and like, you know, any kind of oppression, like, we still have a lot of work to do. And that’s, I think what’s so frustrating to me about the conversations that we do tend to have is that they’re so repetitive, because we just keep having the same ones over and over and over again, and covering the same basic information, and then still getting pushed back on the basic information.

Marines 5:39
I think, for me, the thing that, you know, kind of frustrates me the most is this pushback against like my content, specifically. And so it is this like, I don’t know, weird thing that if you are out here trying to have these conversations and trying to be mindful about what you’re reading and create your own inclusive spaces, then it becomes this weird thing where people either pigeonhole you or they like this whole idea of like, oh, if I’m saying something on Twitter, like I’m doing it for the likes and retweets, or I’m doing it for the views, there’s also this false sense that there is like more of a like, I don’t know, monetary or whatever, or clout that you get for being quote, unquote, like woke, I don’t know, where people get this idea of it, like I’m swimming in a tub of cash, because I’m talking about racism online. Like, I don’t exactly understand what the thought is there. But there is always very much that pushback of Oh, well, she’s just doing it for the whatever likes or social interaction, it’s a, it’s a very weird thing. And I wish that, you know, in the middle of having these conversations, and often having to deal with like, the bad side of that, you know, to also have people assuming those sorts of things wrongly, assuming those sorts of things is very frustrating.

Samantha 6:59
That whole conversation is always so annoying to watch, too, because it’s like, we have a separate conversation all the time about like, oh, some of the biggest channels like don’t talk about any of this kind of stuff. And it’s like, because that is more palatable, supposedly, to like, sponsors or whatever, more palatable to like a larger audience. But then we also have some of the same people being like, but you’re just talking about it, for clout, and it’s like, um, these both things can’t be true. Like, if these things can overlap like that. And also, like, people just don’t seem to understand. And as the only white person on this, like, I’m not obviously getting the amount of like, harassment that you guys get. But like, the amount of just harassment you can get, and like the emotional energy that goes into some of these videos, both making them and then having to respond to the bullshit, you get on them. And I’m a white person. So like, just the little things that I mentioned, I’m obviously not going to get the same kind of pushback other people are, and I still have that like, Oh, my God, I can’t do this kind of video this month, because it would be too exhausting.

Paige 7:57
I wonder if part of it is as well, because a lot of like white people when they’re responding to this kind of stuff, if we’re talking about like people of color, or straight people when we’re talking about queerness, if it’s because they show their support through this supposedly clout by giving us likes, by getting on as follows without actually engaging with any of the content. And I wonder if like, that’s where all of the idea that we’re doing this for less stuff, it’s like, No, it’s just that this is all you can give us because you don’t really want to engage with us right now,

Marines 8:24
That is such a, I had never really thought about it in that in those terms. But it’s really interesting, because, you know, a lot of different things start to get conflated here. And I think that people hear this idea of like, you don’t have to have an opinion on everything you need to know when to pass the mic. And I 100% believe that, like, I know, there are people whose opinion on racism, I don’t want to hear Please take a seat, like this is not your moment, pass the mic to other people who are doing the work and who are affected. And that is 100% true. But I think that that is also an easy way out for some people. And so you do get into these situations where the only way that some people support and we’re speaking within the reading community, not even like outside of this, but inside of the reading community inside of BookTube, you do see that the only way that certain people support or add to the conversation is throwing their cloud around. And so then you I think, really do start to get this messed up idea of Okay, well to get somebody to our TV, or to share my channel, like literally, I don’t know, black people have to be dying in the street, or I have to call out some racism. So I understand, I guess now through like viewing it there, why those two things get completed. But at the same time, like no, it was the actual thing that I get out of talking about or championing more diverse and inclusive spaces is not like a happy fun time. On my timeline, okay

Adri 9:51
To kind of speak to what Sam had mentioned, I don’t even make videos on my channel anymore that hat sort of pinpoint that. The content has been about diversity or like why I read diversity, you know, I feel like, that’s like, you don’t want people to type that into the YouTube search bar, like why I read diversity and then find your stuff. Because that makes you like a target. I feel like I’ve stopped talking about it explicitly, but I let my actions and my readings do the speaking for me. So I feel like it’s just something I’ve integrated into my channel more organically. So I just feel like if you watch my videos, you know what I’m about. And that’s how I go about it.

Marines 10:28
That idea is really funny, because I remember when we started talking a lot more about Black Lives Matter within the reading community. There were certain people that were talking about, like, Oh, I lost so many followers. And I was like, guess what, I haven’t lost any, because anybody who’s here knows what I’m about. Yeah, like, if I tweet right now, Black Lives Matter, nobody’s gonna like bat an eyelash and be like, from you. I think another thing that we hear a lot about, and maybe from a publishing perspective, Paige has some ideas on this. But this idea that like diverse books, quote, unquote, are like a cash grab, or like, sort of like a passing phase or something like that. And even, you know, I’ve seen complaints about how, you know, it’s harder now to be a white person who’s writing a white story, or like a straight person writing a straight story, because diversity is in So do you have any thoughts about that?

Paige 11:23
Yeah. So the problem with that is because there’s a couple tentpole titles now that everybody can point to and sort of be like, Look, we’ve fixed the problem, because we’ve given like marketing to these titles, and now everybody can name them, or like these specific authors. But it’s worth noting, like, there’s only certain genres and certain kinds of stories that publishing is getting behind right now. They really like to promote traumatic narratives, because they’re comfortable with them, because they’ve realized that those are proof of concept like they make money. And the work is really being done by such a select group of people like one world in the US, and like specific editors, who work with authors and people, because publishing is so opaque, and you can’t really seen into it, people don’t realize like how far the problem is, within just the industry itself, that the titles are actually reflecting the industry itself. And just the systemic way, they’ve really pushed people of color out and are just still continuing to do that.

Samantha 12:20
I think there’s something to be said to for the fact and we come back to this a lot when we’re having discussions, but like, the online book, community likes to think that like, they’re representative of everybody. And it’s like not the case, like, like, the mainstream reading community has no idea what the hell we’re talking about, like, so these really popular like diverse books. And I don’t mean like saying diverse books, but you know what I mean, like really popular books that people are like, Oh, look at these so popular, it’s like, they’re popular within the niche of the online book world that like everyone knows them, but like walking into a store, not really, like you have those very few that are bestsellers, like, you know, we could name probably the three that like come to mind with that. But just because the book community is talking about the brains of titles, and we’re aware of a lot of them, I wouldn’t say that that’s true of like the general population.

Marines 13:05
I think I feel this even more because of you know, we’ve created and curated our spaces in such a way online, that you hear about certain things over and over again. And it’s because of the way that we have curated these spaces. So I think, you know, like, yeah, everybody’s in the know, or like, yeah, we all cancelled this thing. There’s no way it’s gonna be a best seller. Until like, next week, it comes out and it’s a best seller. And I have to like remind myself, okay, this is just me. And my couple hundred, like people on my Twitter timeline who were talking about this, like the world at large, has no idea, like these things are still being marketed and pushed and promoted and finding audiences out there. So this idea that, you know, because we are making it a priority within our spaces, or that we’re promoting them and things of that nature, that there this is like reflective of what’s happening, large scale or systemically, I want to be like, nope, and we see that too, like when the stats come out every year, you know, like people run stats about how many like children’s books were written by, you know, different races and ethnicities, and it’s always so abysmal.

Paige 14:16
And just like, look at the stats of the publishing paid me hashtag that happened on Twitter, and how disproportionate the salaries like were between authors, even like successful ones, like nk jemisin, didn’t get paid as much as like a white author who had failed with their first book, and we’re given a second chance. And it’s the smaller parts of like that system that are broken and need to be fixed before like, even though those books are popular. And we point to them and we say like, oh, look how great these books are doing, what behind the scenes and these authors and how they’re being treated by the industry and the people who work on the bugs and how they’re being treated as well. Exactly.

Adri 14:51
I was actually just talking to some authors before this and they were voicing their concerns about how they see more of a bump for support. For books written by marginalize authors or Own Voices, authors, but they have a fear that it’s not going to be sustainable in the long term because there’s not enough resources behind the scenes like with the agents and the editors and the publicists and the marketers to help ensure that those books are actually going to be a success.

Marines 15:20
Yeah, we’ve already been talking, like within the industry itself about the idea of I think they call it like the pushback, we’re right now we’re allowed to discuss these issues and sort of try to find ways to fix them. But soon people are going to get tired of having these discussions, and what are we going to do to navigate the space after that happens? And that’s like entirely where this panel came from. And, you know, what I see sometimes just even making my own content with my own small community is that idea of the pushback. And I think you kind of have to get over the idea, kind of like Audrey was saying that you have to keep making this content in a certain way. And if it’s important enough to you just like organically in including it in your content, and it is what it is the people who find me will know what I like and will appreciate that. And they’ll find me because of that instead, instead of you know, having to constantly like assert the Okay, guys, here’s the books that I read.

Adri 16:14
Yeah. And I feel like that was a big thing in our community, when, you know, with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and all that we saw a lot of response videos where people were saying that they had not done enough to support black book tubers, or read black authors and sort of like outlining their plan or their just general assertion to do better. And it’s like, instead of talking about it, I wish you would just do it.

Marines 16:41
Another thing that we kind of hear often or that I do, I’m this is all based on me. Experience. But it sounds like we all have experienced some of this too. But how do you kind of approach reviewing or talking about or critiquing books that have representation that you were excited about? Whether it is you know, something that you identify with or not. And this idea that Diverse Books get kind of a free pass from reviewers, just because that they include some of this representation,

Samantha 17:14
I definitely don’t think diverse books get a free pass at all, if you actually look at reviews, and again, like more broad reviews than just people, you know, like us who curate our channels more to like, some of that content, but they’re the ones that get the most sort of like flack for not being like universally true. Like, people get really up in arms about like, well, this wasn’t my exact experience, because we have so few in the grand scheme of things, books that feature different kinds of diversity. It’s like one of those books are released, there’s this like expectation that that has to be like the pinnacle of representation. And that’s a false, you know, rule to be putting on these books, because obviously, no one author or even character can be like the monolith for that group. But those are the books that tend to get all this criticism of like, Well, this was an accurate representation. It’s like, well, who really gets to determine that you have the whole issue of you have people not even have that marginalization saying it’s not accurate. But you also people, other marginalization, but being like, well, your experience isn’t the universal experience, either. You know, you had that a lot when books are coming out, like Paige was talking about with the more like tragic experiences, and it’s like, well, this was more of like a happy narrative. And people are like, well, that’s not accurate. It’s like, Well, some people do have a happy narrative, like, it’s not, it’s not like, every marginalization is like just full of pain all the time. Like, we can be happy too. So I feel like this idea that like, Oh, these books get a free pass, because they’re diverse is just again, really silly. And from something you know, someone looking at almost from the outside of reviewing, it’s like you do realize that like these books tend to get much more criticism because they have like, more to live up to in the community for some reason.

Adri 18:52
I definitely don’t think that marginalized books or diverse books, on voices, books, whatever you want to call them get a free pass, because a lot of people still go into them with the assumption that they’re going to learn something about that experience, or like they want to walk away from it, feeling like they’ve learned so much, or they want to claim that they’ve learned so much. I think it’s because people still don’t understand that not every experience is monolithic. And that when these stories are getting published, it’s because we want to share all the different nuances of our experiences, our cultures, our backgrounds, not because we want to say this is the experience.

Paige 19:30
And it’s like the idea of who you’re centering when you’re writing the book, like does the audience still expect to be centered even though the book isn’t about their experience, specifically? And how are you going to critique it? Are you going to say that you can connect with the characters because they weren’t writing with you at the center? I feel like a lot of people are so used to being centered in stories that when for the first time they experience they’re not the center, and they have to learn to empathize with the characters and perhaps put themselves in a different perspective. They have a difficulty doing that and like as somebody who grew up not seeing themselves in books just second nature to me, so I never really have that sort of difficulty. So I wonder if that’s part of it, because I’ve seen a lot of conversations coming up about critiquing, and like saying that it wasn’t well written because the characters weren’t relatable.

Adri 20:14
Yes. Oh my god. relatability is like the noise that we keep constantly hearing, it’s like, well, maybe you don’t need to relate to this thing. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something that you can pull from it. Like we’re all humans, there is commonality in our experience. It’s just been such a big preconception for so long that whiteness and straightness, able bodied Enos, all of that is universal, that it’s hard for people to break down those barriers, I guess it’s absolutely wild to me. And it comes from that place of having, you know, had this experience be so normal to me, that even now reading about people without sometimes even acknowledging that this is what they’re saying, in so many words, that if something doesn’t center them, if they can’t relate to something, they don’t know how to process it,

Marines 21:04
Because that’s all we do. That’s all we’ve done all of our lives with media that is white centric, and Western centric, and all of the, you know, straight, all of that. So you you learn how to consume those stories, because that’s all there is. So to see the flip side of that, and see that even just a portion of what we’re getting now, in terms of representation means that people are so thrown off balance, because they are not centered. It’s like been very, very weird for me to process like, even so much as like, I’m first generation American. So my parents are immigrants. And so we spoke Spanish in the household primarily, don’t ask me to speak Spanish now. Please don’t. But even so much as like reading and not understanding English words, because it wasn’t my first language. And you know what I did, I looked it up. And then I kept reading. So to now see somebody be like, ah, too many Spanish words, or too much HIV in this book. I’m like, look it up. I don’t understand why this is a complaint. But it’s because that has been my experience of reading and consuming media for so long. Yeah. And people just need to, I think, kind of unpack that and sit with it a little bit, especially if they are saying that it is important to read more diversely for them.

Adri 22:17
To kind of go back to the question. I think the key to good reviewing in general is just transparency. So if I’m very close to a book or a certain character, I’m going to say so and I’m going to qualify my analysis by making it clear that my opinion is being informed by my experience that I’m understanding the text through the lens of my own experience, which is valid and kind of to go back to what we were saying earlier. It’s also important to frame it as being the character’s experience not being something that’s supposed to be representative of every single person in the community because that’s still very much the expectation for some reason.

Samantha 22:55
I think it’s really bizarre to this whole not centering, you know, the majority conversation because I’m kinda like, barnshaw bored. Like, like reading the same damn story over and over. Like, I’m really bored. Like, yes, do you? Are you seriously just gonna sit here and want to read the same? Like, I don’t want to read about myself. Like, I don’t I don’t want to read about my exact experience. Like I live that I don’t want to do that necessarily. Like sometimes I do you know what I mean? But like, as far as I’m talking, like, race wise, like, I don’t want to read about white people all the time. Like, we’re pretty boring. We’re like the, you know, unseasoned chicken breast of the world. Like, we don’t need to do this. Do I want to read about like, my sexuality, because I don’t really get to see it all the time. Like, yes, cool. But like, as far as like the white, straight sis experience, I’m like, we’ve had so many opportunities. Give me something else. Aren’t y’all bored? So like, the idea that people are like, Oh, my God, it’s not relatable. I’m like, how do you? How do you just like interact with media that you need everyone to be like it like if that actually, that argument, like, constantly boggles my mind.

Adri 23:56
And it’s also so weird, because that sort of critique or complaint never translates to any other sphere of anyone’s life. You know, it’s never like, Oh, I don’t want to talk to people who aren’t relatable to me. I don’t want to listen to music. That’s not relatable to me. It doesn’t translate to any other aspect of your life. It’s always media, you know, there’s always like a barrier there, like it has to be exactly relatable to me, or else I don’t know how to empathize. And I don’t know how to care, which is wild.

Marines 24:23
And I think that it might be also that this is not entirely true that people do know how to consume media that they don’t exactly relate to. But this is the language that comes up when we’re specifically talking about people consuming media that represent identities that are different than theirs. For some reason, that becomes a shorthand of either one, like I didn’t know how to read or process this or two. I didn’t understand it or three. This made me uncomfortable because there’s something here that I’m not familiar with. And I think that that all gets boiled down to this is not relatable when you know as We’re saying we interact with things that are not exactly our experience all the time, you know how to process those things, this relatable thing I think is just like, I don’t know, a bandaid on sort of like the gaping wound of what is actually happening.

Paige 25:14
And I feel like some of it also is people, when we’re talking about books that feature some kind of representation, it just comes down to this book features this representation. And that’s the only thing they feel they can talk about, about the book, no matter like the plot, if it’s a fantasy, it’ll always come back to this was the representation, instead of just stepping back and actually critiquing like the story itself. And I feel like people have to just be more comfortable in admitting when they don’t know everything, because I’m always whenever I’m talking about a book that doesn’t feature any representation. I’m close Smith, I’ll say sequel on voices reviews, because I am not all knowing, and I’m going to miss things. And they’ll seem obvious in hindsight, but never to trust my own opinion, like my only opinion, because we’re all like valuable as humans.

Marines 25:55
I think that that’s really important about approach to so when I’m reviewing or critiquing a book that has representation or you know, something that I I don’t have any knowledge of, I think I try to approach it that way. Like I talked about the things that I do know how to talk about, you know, plots, and characters and pacing. And then the things I don’t I can say, I try not to comment on that thing. Like, I can’t say, this was a great book about x or represented it well, if I can’t speak to that. So I try to avoid that. That’s not something I always did. That’s something I’ve learned through being on BookTube. And on book, Twitter is like learning when I can talk to something and when I should not talk to something. And so consuming Own Voices, reviews of things has helped me a ton to also like process my own thoughts and feelings. But of course, giving those people credit and boosting those voices and passing the mic, like we’ve talked about, in those cases as well. So, you know, at the end of the day, it’s still a book, and you can review a book, I think you just have to be careful with your language with being you know, pointing out microaggressions and things of that nature. And with taking a step back and saying, Well, I don’t I can’t speak to this, because I don’t know about it. And that’s okay.

Adri 27:04
I think a big part of it is people need to become comfortable, like Paige was saying, with admitting that you don’t know everything, or you’re not qualified to speak on something. And to kind of go back to what Marty was saying, that’s something I have been trying to do, especially when I’m doing an individual review of a book that has representation that does not relate to me personally, is I will try I will make a point, to redirect people to own voices reviews, so that they see and hear from the people who are actually affected, and the people whose voices actually matter in the conversation.

Samantha 27:40
Yeah, and it’s so easy to do, like we’re all saying, like just, you know, do some extra research, it doesn’t actually take that long in the grand scheme of things, and find those reviews and link them like, especially if you’re somebody with like a platform, it’s so easy to be like, Here are three reviews from Own Voices, you know, saying that, whatever, like the rep was good or whatever, but like we are the people that are talking about this so that the viewers wouldn’t have to do anything. Like they could just click on the link, like you’re doing the work for them. And it’s just it’s easy to do that.

Adri 28:10
And then like Mari was saying, like, just because you maybe can’t speak to the representation in a book doesn’t mean there’s nothing else to talk about. You can still talk about the themes, you can talk about how it impacted you, connections that you made, things that it made you think about. And I think that goes a long way to showing people the potential impact a story might have and to help humanize that impact.

Marines 28:32
I also like to mention, like, sometimes I read something, and I’m like, I don’t understand, or this is not something I’d ever thought about. And that usually leads me personally to do more research or even if it’s just like looking up, you know, something like a nonfiction book to go along with it, or just reading articles or whatever it is. And I always like to try and mention what like thought or what path a book led me down. So if there is something that I didn’t entirely understand or wasn’t exposed to, like recently, I read we are not from here by Jenny Tora Sanchez. It was the first time I had ever heard about the migrant caravan that actually rides the rails from Central America to the border at the US. And so obviously, I had heard about like migration, things like that, but never the specific experience. And I ended up checking out a nonfiction book and reading about it. And so I mentioned that in my review, and I linked both those two books together, because, hey, here’s a gap in my knowledge. But here’s where this book got me thinking, here’s the direction in which it took me. And I think that that can be helpful for people who are consuming the review, to kind of understand what a book can bring to you. I will also add that as much as me personally especially like, it’s very important to me that everyone knows that when I give a review, they’re honest, they’re straightforward and whatnot. And I don’t believe in this idea of like giving anything a free pass. I’m going to give you my impression, but also can you just let us be excited? Can you just let us have this like for a second Everybody gets so excited about like part 72 of whatever Stephenie Meyer is doing or whatever Sarah J Maas is doing. And we want to get excited about a book that actually features somebody who looks like me or talks like me, or has, you know, the same identity as me. And people get so like up in arms about it. And it’s like, Sam was saying, like, calm down, you have the rest of everything else, like, let us be excited about. Yep.

Paige 30:25
And that comes in part because it’s so normal for them to see themselves everywhere. So they don’t understand where the excitement is coming from for us, or why we might be a little more lenient on a book that features some of our representation, because we get so little of it,

Samantha 30:37
That reminds me too, about the conversation that comes up around more diverse books, which could we have another word for besides that, because I hate saying it, because I know, it’s just like, what, but anyway, about more diverse books that like, are featuring tropes, that people are considered tired. And it’s like, well, yeah, it’s tired with if you deal with the same, you know, white straight sis people, but like, this has like a black by main character. So like, let us have this, you know, that whole conversation was just like, that, it’s a whole side thing too, because like, people act like you just can’t keep doing a trope, it’s like, all these tropes about a thing for a very long time, these tropes are not going away, just because you’re over at Sandy, like, it’s still gonna be a thing. So just let people like, enjoy the things that they want to enjoy with the representation that they finally get to see.

Adri 31:27
I think part of it also is that people, for some reason want to stake the quality of a story on whether it’s quote, unquote, good representation. And then if they think it’s not good representation, like I said before, they think there’s nothing else to talk about. But it’s like, there’s still value to the story. There’s still other things going on. Besides whether or not you personally subjectively think this is good representation or not.

Marines 31:52
To Sam’s point, you know, I think that it’s, it’s kind of understanding that when we do see these these tropes, or these like, you know, story basics, but we get some representation that we don’t normally see, yes, in essence, that is a different story. Because adding these identities in there, these backgrounds, whatever changes it, it like, that’s the way that story making works. We’re all working with the same plot here. But you add different ingredients. And so this idea that, you know, everything from publishing, I get it like the comp titles, it is how they sell books, but that everything has to be compared to what is already done, by usually a straight white sis person, or that, you know, we’re tired of seeing certain things, but mostly and most loudly, when it is something that we’re finally seeing for the first time, with marginalized identities. It’s just really frustrating. Because guess what, I grew up on these things, too. I’ve seen these things too. And I’ve always wanted to see them with me. And so now getting that like to have it tainted by people like oh, boo, this was already done, like, ah, take that somewhere else.

Adri 33:01
I think I’m remembering this from when I interviewed Aiden Thomas, but they were talking about how identity and experience is not something you can just map on to a character. It’s not something you can copy and paste, it fundamentally changes every single aspect of a story. So when I hear these Own Voices, books being compared negatively to popular, very white, very straight, very Sis, etc, books. It’s just frustrating, because it’s like, no, that’s not a true comparison, that’s makes no sense. Like there is no causation between those two things. Because by having this other element, the story is fundamentally different. In my app, I’m gonna fight someone.

Marines 33:44
As they’re talking about it, it really does like kind of work you up, because, you know, these are things that are important to us. And, again, surrounded by media and sort of starved for the sort of stories that we’re finally starting to see. And to get with some regularity. To hear some of this pushback That doesn’t even make sense. Because by virtue of being, you know, a group of diverse or mixed identity, thieves, it’s not the same as being a group of white thieves. It’s not the same story. It’s a different story. If you don’t want to read it, that’s fine. But you can’t disparage it on those grounds.

Paige 34:23
And then like publishing also does a disservice to some of these books, because I’m just thinking of Marlon James is black leopard, red Wolf, and how it was pumped to Game of Thrones. Yeah, and I tried to fight against it here. But like, once that something’s picked up, fascist always going to be called and a lot of people didn’t like the book because they had this false equivalence to Game of Thrones. And that’s not what the book was at all.

Adri 34:43
Quite literally. I mean, you could not have two more different books like nothing about Game of Thrones, even related to black leopard, red Wolf, besides the fact that they’re both fantasy stories written by men.

Marines 34:56
So as you guys sort of have these conversations in your space, About misrepresentation or under representation or anything sort of under that umbrella, what are some of the consequences that you face. And, you know, this can be in your content or page in publishing, or anything along those lines.

Adri 35:16
Somebody previously mentioned the whole idea of being like labeled as like the angry person who is always discussing diversity and publishing, I would think it’s more about being difficult to work with, that’s something a lot of people are afraid of when they’re trying to speak out about everything that’s happening. And also on the opposite end of that, I would say tokenization, being the sole person that everybody will come to, to discuss these things, I’ll want you on panels, or committees, or they will want you to talk about it in articles, like, they just won’t let you be a person, you will always be either a person of color, or queer person in these spaces. And that’s something I’ve been like trying to push up against kind of like I was talking about earlier, it’s never easy, and it never will be easy to talk about why certain representation is harmful, or the ways in which representation is lacking. Because it is always going to get taken as a moral and ethical attack. Like if you discuss valid reasons why a certain portrayal is harmful, especially to a group you’re a part of. People always read that as an attack, because they’ll say, I read this thing, and I didn’t see it as a problem, I had no problem with it, are you saying I’m a bad person. And the fact of the matter is that a lot of people still need to work on listening and not speaking over people, especially when the people speaking or the people affected. Like if people say they’re being hurt, they’re being hurt. And I don’t think that shouldn’t need to be qualified any further. But a lot of people don’t feel the same way. If you openly discuss why a certain character or a certain experience was misrepresented. You make yourself at Target whether you want to be one or not, especially if you are a marginalized person, because people take it as an opportunity to debate you on the merits of personhood, which is wild, it’s a wild thing to say. And again, I think if someone says this is how I understand this through my own experience, then that is their own experience. Period.

Marines 37:10
It’s that this hurt me. No one didn’t. Yeah.

Samantha 37:14
Okay. The whole concept of like, people are more offended by being called a bigot than by actually being a bigot. I think it was Ibram Kendi, in how to be anti racist said something along the lines of, you know, you can be a racist, and still actually, like, do good things and be a good person. It’s just like, but then you have to actively work to start being anti racist, like, and I think people have this like idea that’s like, yes, if you say, like, Hey, you, you did something you messed up, they’re like, Oh, my God, you’re saying, I’m the worst person, I should just die. And it’s like, that’s not. We’re just saying to like, do better. We thought you’d want to know what so there’s that whole idea that people get, like, super offended by their potential mess ups.

Marines 37:58
And I think it’s always really tricky when it comes to books. And, you know, I say this, as somebody who spends many hours reading books and creating more content about books, I mean, you’re listening to a panel about books. So like, I get that books are very, like personal and important things to us. I talked about this recently, when we’re talking about consumerism, on a live show, and this idea that a book is not as less of like a good or an object, and it’s an art right. And so whenever you’re talking in these terms about somebody’s book that they enjoyed about this art that they enjoyed, I think it is very difficult for people not to take it personally. So if I am now saying that your favorite book in the world is racist, then immediately that feels like an attack, like we’re saying that, you know, that becomes a more a thing that you’re internalizing, because if you can like this problematic work, then what does it say about you, and instead of like unpacking that, and sitting with it, and dealing with it, and working through it, people just put their guards up and immediately attack the messenger, attack the person who was like, calling it out, instead of, you know, at all engaging with the work itself. So that’s a lot of what I see that if I ever want to say like, hey, this bothered me, or this isn’t quite right, then it it does, indeed put that target on me. And going back to what I said in the beginning, it becomes very wild that people then think that, you know, we enjoy doing this or like do it for clout, because that target is very much there.

Paige 39:27
And then like that target will cause like a burnout for the people who are actually speaking upon these issues, and trying to bring awareness to them. Because if you’re doing it all the time, you’re gonna get tired of having these discussions and being pushed back against. And then that’s a consequence for everybody who’s trying to have these conversations is you’re not you’re going to burn out and then what if you disappear from the conversation, and then we lose an important voice in the community. And it also

Adri 39:52
Kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about how people stake the quality of a book and whether or not it has good representation like it may have holes. representation and may have harmful representation. But there could still be other things the book is doing well, it still could have value in other ways, it still could have merit, just good representation will not be one of those merits.

Marines 40:15
And in talking about this, and, you know, we keep like calling each other back. But this ties into what Sam was saying about trigger warnings and how it can be a part of this conversation. But a lot of times my my thing with talking about it is to make sure that other people know that this is there. So if I’m saying that this book is, you know, full of misogyny, for example, that is a warning for somebody that if they want to read this book, either, maybe they shouldn’t, because that is something they don’t want to encounter, or they need to be prepared or, you know, ready to kind of receive this sort of story in talking about it, we, you know, you can definitely say, like I say with, you know, a million examples are coming to my mind, but the Witcher series, they were super popular because of the adaptation. Like I enjoyed reading those, for the most part, it treats its female characters so incredibly badly, and has a ton of ableism in them. Do I still love Geralt? Absolutely the character and I can say these things together. But guess what my thing is, might protect somebody who doesn’t want to see the misogyny or the ableism and the story from having to encounter it. So you know, yes, but both of these things can be true in this conversation can all be happening at the same time,

Samantha 41:27
That got me thinking of the never ending JK Rowling conversation, aka JK Terfling, but I keep I’m seeing things about it. Because now there’s been like a game announced and everyone’s swirl about, like, if they can play the game. I can hear your long suffering. And there’s like this, and I keep seeing this response over and over from different people of like, but she gave us Harry Potter, like, so she’s proven she’s a trash can, like you can still like, you know, I’m personally not saying to throw out your Harry Potter series. I know, there’s plenty of people that are choosing to that’s their choice, whatever. But like, most people aren’t saying, hey, burn your Harry Potter stuff. They’re just saying like, hey, moving forward, now that we know this, like, let’s not contribute more to her financially. Because, like we mentioned earlier, most people in the like general population don’t even know that she’s done this stuff, because we’re not on Twitter. And like, unless a major news organization, which I think if you have have picked up on it than like the general population is not going to know. So like, let’s withhold our support. Because like, not everyone is going to know this stuff. And she’s still going to be like a millionaire. And she’s, she’s going to be fine. So that, but that whole thing of like, well, this, this book saved me. And it’s like, yes, that can be true. And it can also be true that she’s doing like active harm to people now and has been for quite some time,

Adri 42:46
My sort of like, quick little tagline every time she comes up is like Marie Kondo that shit, no, be grateful. Be grateful for what it brought into your life, take a deep breath, and let it the fuck go because I’m tired of hearing about it,

Marines 43:01
Nostalgia can die, as we have said in another, like kill your nostalgia, like, let it go. And I think that that there are like, of course shades of nuance to this conversation. So you know, there can be misrepresentation in a book that doesn’t, I guess, ruin the whole experience for you. So you know, something where there are other merits to the book that you can talk about and move on and enjoy the book for what it was. And then there is something like JK Rowling where she is causing active harm. And it’s something that is not only like inside of her books, where we are now learning to see how she’s embedded her beliefs into her books, but sort of outside of that she’s using her platform, her money that we put in her pockets to do active harm to a group of people. So that becomes a whole different conversation here. And I think, like we’re saying that, you know, everybody has to navigate this their own way. But if you’re asking me, yeah, don’t give her any more money, like withdraw your support. So there are definitely like shades of nuance here, when we’re talking about, you know, speaking up about misrepresentation or under representation, or in this case, active harm or, you know, all the phobics and isms that there are, and how that comes from inside of the text and outside of the text because of authors.

Adri 44:21
I think it’s also important to consider how when we’re talking about critiquing representation in books, the consequences are not always bad things, right? Like if you study for a test, a consequence might be that you do well on the test, right? So there are times where if enough people speak up and speak out about how a story is potentially harmful, or how a story could be improved. A book might get pulled, a publisher might reconsider working with a certain author, a book might be brought back in for another round of edits before it’s released. So there can be helpful consequences as well. But that’s only if enough people are making noise and you know, it has to be the quote unquote, right people with enough influence who are making the noise.

Paige 45:04
Yeah. And speaking about like showing your support the whole idea of like Stephanie Mayer’s new book that just came out. And everybody said that they’re buying this book, but they’re going to donate to specific cause. And publishing won’t see those dollars and know that actually, you’re buying this because you want to talk about the misrepresentation in this book, they just see those dollars, and they see it as support and that more of these books need to be published. And so it goes back to the whole idea of supporting the author’s online by sharing your voices, but also thinking about your wallet as another voice. And that also kind of ties back into what we were talking about in relation to the stats for diverse books or Own Voices, books, and how they stay abysmal year

Adri 45:45
after year, right? And it’s because for every one cemetery boys, there’s like five American dirts being published, right. And so there’s all these different layers to that there’s authors appropriating other people’s stories and experiences. So you get the illusion of representation, but it doesn’t actually, quote unquote, count towards the group that’s actually being affected. So the same thing that Paige was just saying about, you know, when you buy a certain books, it only sends a message to the publisher that I would like, more of these, right? So it’s like, as much as Stephenie Meyer sucks. If enough people buy her books, she’s gonna write the story again, from fucking Alice’s perspective. I don’t know.

Samantha 46:29
Well, they did just say that not to harp on. Because this is, I mean, Mari is on this podcast. So like, I guess. You know, midnight sun came out. And then now she’s announced, like two or three more books on the Twilight. Yeah, like, we just yeah, it’s proven now. Like, this might have been a test like, Hey, can I still do it? It’s like, You sure can, sweetie racist will still buy it. So yeah, it’s just like we saying, like publishing has no idea. We all live in capitalism, regrettably. And like, you know, there’s no ethical consumption. So the whole using your dollar to vote for things, yeah, it’s very simple. Like, if you buy something, it’s seen as support, even if you’re doing it for another reason.

Marines 47:09
Apart from enjoying the stories and enjoying reading diversely. And getting a lot out of that, personally, part of what like, motivates me to keep talking about this and keep having these conversations are that you know, moving this needle Little by little, and sending the messages to publishing that we can, and if in talking about it, like, you know, I can help one person, not buy the new Harry Potter game, or whatever, you know, like extending that influence outside of me, and just trying to kind of build a reading community that you know, more accurately reflects the world that we’re living in. So, you know, as much as there are downsides to continuing to have these conversations, and a lot of times having the same conversation over and over again, like what motivates you to continue and to speak up about this?

Adri 48:00
Not to sound like a dick, but I’m gonna keep having this discourse. And I’m gonna keep talking about the books I talked about, because I give a shit. You know, everyone deserves to see themselves celebrated and reflected in the media they consume. And not just once, not just sometimes everyone deserves to feel like they are seen, and that they’re not alone. And also people need to understand that these books are in fact good and worthy and they have merit and that if you’re reading with your blinders on, you are going to miss out on so many legitimately wonderful books like it is a guaranteed that’s not a shot in the dark, for sure, you’re gonna miss out I also think a lot about Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and her book, the dark, fantastic, which is all about how marginalize people, specifically, black communities are written out of so many stories, and by extension from our own collective consciousness, which then in turn, shapes how we understand and formulate the imagination itself. And when we only see certain things celebrated again, and again, when we go to pull something from our own imaginations, we may not even be able to imagine ourselves, she talks a lot about how we have to reclaim and counter story and write ourselves back into existence. So I see reading widely as being an extension of that practice. And because whiteness and other privileged identities have dominated the market and the collective consciousness and the Canon for so many years unchecked, frankly, we have so much ground to make up in order to even out the playing field, so to speak. So if my reading doesn’t reflect the world I see every day, then what am I even doing?

Paige 49:36
You made a really good point just now about the whole idea of our imagination being impacted by what you read? Because when I used to write more often, when I was younger, I would write white characters because that’s all I was reading. I would never imagined myself in the stories. So it’s definitely the feeling I got sitting down watching Black Panther for the first time, and also hearing that feeling be expressed by people who are watching crazy rich Asians. It’s the first time I saw that movie, I want to make sure as many people as possible, get that feeling. And that’s why when I’m like talking about publishing and that kind of stuff and pushing within my industry, I just really believe that we can be better. And that’s what keeps me motivated. It’s all the people who are currently struggling to make sure that we are better. It’s like romanticizing the idea that by taking these risks, we’re going to create stories, and everybody’s going to see themselves, but I’m really hoping at least within my lifetime, that significant changes are made, it feels like we’re beginning to take the first step. So like, that’s what’s motivating me right now.

Samantha 50:30
Yeah, like you were both were saying, you know, like, this is how the world is like, the world has all these different very experiences, and I want to continue to read about experiences that are like, true of the world, know, like, the world is not just made up of, you know, white, straight, able bodied, cis, people like that is not the way that things work. So I want what I read to be reflective of, like, actual society in some capacity and the variety of experiences. But also, we haven’t touched on this a ton, but from my angle, you know, like, my marginalization are like, largely invisible, right? Like, unless I tell somebody, they’re not going to know that I’m queer, and that I have like mental illness, I mean, you might be able to know the mental illness, looking at me, but otherwise, like, you know, you really can’t tell. So really getting to see that you know, yourself again, in media, for me, seeing myself has been more like, Oh, that’s a thing with other people, when you see it in media, you know, like, I remember the first time reading about characters with panic attacks, I was like, Oh, my God. I mean, at that point, I had already discovered through like, college classes that I had panic attacks that took a psych class for me to know this, but I can’t imagine about about a teenager reading a book and being like, Oh, my God, it’s panic attack, like, you know how much earlier I could have gotten in therapy, that would have been great. So just having like those experiences, but also again, just like being exposed to things that would have taken so much longer for me to be exposed to, if I would have had to just have find it in my real life as far as like other queer people, because I grew up in a town that was very, like quiet about that. And very, also, like, almost segregated in a way with a lot of that. So I think just again, seeing yourself but also being able to explore things about yourself that you might not have even been aware of until you know, it’s even a thing, you know, having those labels as much as some people like hate labels, it can be helpful for people, when you first discover that, like, you might be different. And having like a word to go with it so that you can then discover more about yourself is so helpful. And fiction can be a catalyst for that. And these conversations, you know, in talking about, you know, misrepresentation under representation, or whatever it is, it is an extension of having conversations about who I am. And so, yes, I’m going to keep having them because I’m not going to stop talking about my experience and my identity and who I am, these are not things that are going to go away. And this idea that we have enough diversity is laughable. For all of the reasons that we mentioned already. In this episode in this panel, I’m glad to hear that we are all still motivated to keep shouting about these books. And, you know, kind of, like I said, moving the needle further along. And on that note, that brings us to the end of another great discussion. Thank you so much to Adri and Paige for being here. And thanks again to our sponsor, Little Bee books. Join us on September 24. On Twitter to continue this conversation. We’ll be asking you all to chime in with your thoughts on these questions. And also, you can send our panelists questions if you have them.

Marines 53:27
To join in on that conversation and keep informed on all of the events that are happening across the course of booknet. First, follow us on Twitter at booknet. First, you can find me at mynameismarines

Samantha 53:38
You can find me at ThoughtsonTomes.

Adri 53:40
You can find me at perpetualpages

Paige 53:42
and you can find me at minimumalbookie.

Samantha 53:44
If you’re enjoying the conversations that we’re having and the content that we’re providing online this month. please consider donating to our GoFundMe. We are a 501c3 nonprofit event and any contributions you can make will help us in future years

Marines 53:56
This has been a book net fest production edited by me, transcribed by Sam, and the music is by Stefan Chin.