The Backlash of Barnes and Noble’s “Diverse Editions”

The beginning of February marks the start of Black History Month. This is typically the time where the media tries to highlight Black creators, and it is usually somewhat successful, however this year that was not the case for the well-known bookstore Barnes and Noble. This year Barnes and Noble decided that they would introduce what they called “Diverse Editions” which meant that they replaced the covers of “classic” novels with Brown and Black characters. For example, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz traditionally has a cover with Dorothy who is portrayed as a smiling young white girl with brunette pigtails tied and red sparkly heels, while the “Diverse Edition” depicts Dorothy as a deadpan young Black girl with her braids tied up into space buns and her red shoes tied together with their shoelaces hung over her shoulder. In my opinion, noticing the dichotomy between the two covers, should have raised some red flags at the B&N headquarters. Even though the covers were approved by the company, the public heavily scrutinized the entire concept of “Diverse Editions” of ‘classical’ novels.  

The company tweeted the night before, stating that the release of their new “Diverse Edition” novels will be displayed and sold at their Fifth Avenue store in New York. That night the company received huge amounts of backlash from a multitude of people and some authors even called it “literary blackface” (León). Barnes and Noble intended for the “Diverse Edition” novels to be inclusive, however, the authors who responded stated that out each of these twelve literary works, with the exception of one, were written by White authors, about White characters, through a White perspective. The bookstore attempted to defend their position by stating that they, “looked to identify books that did not specify race for the protagonist” the only exception being The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Ruiz-Grossman) (Cornish). Black authors, Frederick Joseph and L.L. “Elle” McKinney highlighted that simply changing the covers of these “classics” does not change the content of the books nor does it contribute to Black History Month. A number of other Black authors such as Angie Thomas, author of The Hate You Give, expressed that if Barnes and Noble wanted to celebrate Black History Month that they should showcase Black authors as well as other authors of color such as Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin, to name a few.   

What these authors are saying is that instead of changing the “classics” to maybe, possibly, fit into another narrative, why not highlight the narratives which already exist. And have the literary community re-evaluate the canon of “classic” literature and redefine who gets included and why. This will hopefully spark the discussion for this long overdue topic.