Barnes And Noble, How About Celebrating Diversity With POCs IN Books, Not Just On The Cover
To celebrate Black History Month, Barnes & Noble Fifth Avenue is launching a limited edition of beloved classics with covers that depict the main characters as "culturally diverse."
Everyone has a story to tell. Everybody's story is unique. That's the beauty of diversity. That, even though everyone's lives are totally different, we can still appreciate the stories.
To celebrate Black History Month, the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble is launching a limited edition of beloved classics. The catch? The covers depict the main characters as "culturally diverse." This series is "designed to ensure the recognition, representation, and inclusion of various multiethnic backgrounds reflected across the country." The new editions are set to be released February 5, 2020, and will be sold throughout the month of February. The books included in this series are:
"Alice in Wonderland"
"Romeo and Juliet"
"Three Musketeers"
"Moby Dick"
"The Secret Garden"
"The Count of Monte Cristo"
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
"Emma"
"The Wizard of Oz"
"Peter Pan"
"Treasure Island"
"Frankenstein"
When Publishers Weekly tweeted about the new "Diverse Editions," they were met with quite a lot of backlash. Some Twitter users went so far as to call the new editions literary blackface. From what I saw, it looked like most of the tweets spoke to the importance of promoting non-white authors instead of redesigning old novel covers. One user expressed her disappointment by saying, "You put me on the cover to make a buck but I'm not in the pages?" Others shared similar sentiments, one verified Twitter user, writer Kendra James said, "Giving Dorothy ruby Jordans DOES NOT CHANGE THE WORDS INSIDE THE BOOK?????"
And I have to say that I agree.
The whole point of being able to celebrate diversity is to celebrate differences. Those differences aren't meant to divide but instead celebrate what makes people unique. The novels that are getting a cover makeover are fantastic stories. There's no argument there. These stories are excellent just the way they are. There is no need to change the color of the main character's skin to enhance the story. That's not what celebrating diversity means. People of color want to see themselves represented, but that doesn't mean we want to revamp the covers of classic novels. We want our own things, which I don't think is a selfish request.
Instead of making new book covers, why not promote POC authors? Or if we're going for reimagined classics, why not promote books like L.L. McKinney's "A Blade So Black," an Alice in Wonderland modernized and retold with a POC main character?
To celebrate diversity in literature today, we do not need to take old novels and "fix them." To truly celebrate today's diversity, promote POC authors who tell POC stories and write about POC characters. Read the stories about people today. Don't worry so much about the past and focus on the ever-present and beautiful diversity of today and the future.
