Recently we’ve seen a surge of social media outrage against popular forms of media, from music to movies to TV shows. Sometimes these outcries are warranted as brands put the wrong messages out there. And so I must preface this article by saying that I understand the act of boycotting any person or entity that is knowingly putting out a wrong or harmful message.
But now cancel culture is affecting the book publishing industry. And I have mixed feelings about it because I feel authors are being wrongly ridiculed for wanting to cover a specific type of subject matter in their works.
The most recent case of this came when author, Amélié Wen Zhao had her book pulled when advanced readers called out issues with the way slavery was represented her YA fantasy novel, Blood Heir. Critics took to Twitter to bash Amélié’s novel. And Followers of these critics went on a hate campaign against the book despite the fact they hadn’t read it themselves because it hadn’t even been released. This led to Amélié canceling the book’s release so that she could re-work the story.
To The Book Community: An Apology pic.twitter.com/SCdYMOSLOA
— Amélie Wen Zhao (@ameliewenzhao) 30 January 2019
Why I think Cancel Culture is dangerous for the book publishing industry
As Amélié explained in her Tweet, she wrote the book with her own country’s experience of slavery in mind, but the argument against her was that slavery wasn’t correctly depicted. If you read between the lines of these arguments, people are essentially saying that slavery should be written about in the way that they understand it. Does this mean that authors from other cultures aren’t allowed to insert their own experiences into their work?
Currently we live in an age where people are so aggressively pushing a diverse agenda, that they’re actually alienating authentic diversity. BookTuber, Francina Simone said something substantial in a recent video.
– Francia Simone
“The whole conversation about diversity is to include people into the narrative, not create a separate narrative for them to exist in.”
What she was saying is that people only want diversity to exist if it fulfills what their own idea of diversity is. And by doing so, you’re putting all things diverse into a separate box as opposed to allowing those diverse works to exist among everything else.
Amélié should not have been ridiculed for writing about her own understanding of slavery in her culture because A) western slavery wasn’t the only form of slavery that existed in the world, and B) we’re talking about fantasy fiction here; OF COURSE ITS NOT ACCURATE! C) It’s completely unfair for residents of Western society to judge a writer from another region writing from their own viewpoint in the world.
The outrage over Blood Hier made me upset about what social media has become. And then I read another article that was the icing on the cake. The New York Times posted an article titled, When Social Media Goes After Your Book, What’s the Right Response? — In the article, two authors weigh in on how an author should react when social media attacks your book.
The first story in this article, from author Kiera Drake made me sad. Critics called it “racist trash” all because the main character is a privileged white girl that soon faces the brutal realities of war. The critic went on to say that the fictional races in the book were fantasised versions of Native Americans and Japanese people, and that they included racist tropes.
Now let me be clear, as a black man I recognize white privilege when I see it. But while I understand and recognize white privilege, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with an author depicting white privilege in the form of fiction. Are we to crucify every movie, every book and every TV show that depicts white privilege? Because believe me, many archives would be wiped clean. Fiction is supposed to take risks and it’s supposed to indirectly shed light on the realities of life.
Art is a snapshot of social thinking
By now, people reading this may wonder if I have any morals or social values. Of course I do! I recognise racism, sexism and prejudice and I 100% oppose it. As a black man living with a disease that effects mostly blacks and Asians, I’ve been a victim of these things my entire life because people don’t even attempt to understand or empathize with things that don’t effect them.
But my philosophy is that art should be allowed to exist exactly how its creator envisioned it. H. P. Lovecraft was a known racist, but the fact is that he wrote powerful works of fiction. Do I want Lovecraft’s catalogue cancelled because he had racist views? Absolutely not. Because guess what? As a reader, I get to make the conscious decision of whether to buy a book or not, and I’ve decided to never read H. P. Lovecraft. That’s my own personal choice to make, and I don’t need society to erase history to protect me.
When it comes to literature, I believe they are snapshots of social thinking at the time in which they’re published. They represent emotions, feelings and thoughts that are present during a specific phase. So in the case of a racist author, let them publish their works — ESPECIALLY IF ITS FICTIONAL — so that each reader can understand what is right and what is wrong. Let’s have some integrity as readers to evaluate books intellectually. Let’s not run to Twitter with a hive mind and wish suicide on an author, just because a popular influencer or critic took issue with a book.
Before social media, a time existed when readers could make their own deductions about what the themes of the book represent. This is what makes book clubs special. It’s a fundamental part of what makes reading powerful; because you are learning more about your own thoughts, feelings and viewpoints as you read. To base your opinions of a book on a Tweet is an insult to the literary art.
But now, the sad reality is that an outrage on social media—which is often caused by a misunderstanding—is enough to cancel an entire work of fiction; causing the writer to cut important themes that have every right to be addressed. If cancel culture continues, I fear we’ll lose all of the nuances in writing.
Whether you agree or disagree with what I’ve said here, please leave your comments below. Let’s talk about it.
