Wednesday, December 16, 2009

And To End The Year

Publisher's Weekly,

It's not enough that authors have been insulting all through 2009. Publisher's Weekly first dismissed women from their picks for 'Books Of The Year'and then got in on Racefail 09 with an image on the COVER of a black woman, her hair COVERED IN COMBS, COMBS WITH HANDLES SHAPED INTO THE BLACK POWER SYMBOL.

Yes, Publisher's Weekly put out an image of a black woman, looking down, as her head is nothing but afropicks.

And then Publisher's Weekly made another article over the fact people were wondering WTH WAS WRONG WITH THEM! It's a non-apology pointing out that scholarly and truly artistic people 'got' the image, with not even a FART of realization of how the image combined with headline played to all previous images of black women and people within THE DAMN SMALL POOL IN CULTURAL MEDIA.

In other words, in response to complaints, Publisher's Weekly served a platter of whiteness with a side order of maleness and tall drink of faux cluelessness.

2009 - Making me realize if it isn't Verb Noire or Tu Publishing, near anything related to traditional publishing disgusts me. The only reason it's not EVERYTHING is because I know two authors who have books coming out in 2010 and traditional publishing, so far, hasn't stabbed them in the back.

I have to wonder, though, how many black writers moved on to something else; how many new writers will, because the thought of having to deal with all the entrenched white male, pov in getting something published is as appealing as a fork twice in the eye.