Why Barnes & Noble Swiftly Canceled Its “Diverse” Book Covers for Black History Month

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Rather than challenging what’s included in the classic canon, “Diverse Editions” simply repackaged books by white authors.

and—had five different custom covers designed “to ensure the recognition, representation, and inclusion of various multiethnic backgrounds reflected across the country.”

A press release describing the selection process for the novels says that the organizers used artificial intelligence to “analyze the text from 100 of the most famous titles, searching the text to see if it omitted ethnicity of primary characters.” The algorithm apparently had the ability to account “for the fact that when authors describe a character, they rarely outright state their race, but often use more poetic and descriptive language.

That choice, among others, reveals the fundamental problem with the “Diverse Editions” concept: The project assumes that stories written by and about white people are somehow racially neutral and that you can just slap a black or brown face on them and declare them diverse. But just because a character isn’t described as having pale skin or golden hair doesn’t mean that their whiteness isn’t a part of their narrative.

 

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