As the daughter of a Chinese immigrant, I feel compelled to write in support of Amélie Wen Zhao. She immigrated to the U.S. at age 18 from China. Chasing her dreams, she wrote while a professional in finance, and won from a YA Pitch on Twitter, a 3 book deal from Delacourt worth in the neighborhood of $500k+.
In other words, with no previous books published, Amélie scored what might have been the biggest or one of the biggest YA deals that year. No doubt feathers were ruffled for those who have been toiling in YA for years with much smaller financial rewards. Could the reaction simply have been jealousy disguised as concern for the young ones that read YA? Because honestly, this is YA! Readers are … young adults — teens or actual adults. My teens are capable of forming their own opinions on racism, both in books and in real life. They don’t need “gatekeepers.” That’s middle grade, chapter books, picture books, easy readers, board books — these readers need “gatekeepers.”
TabletMag has details here: How a Twitter Mob Derailed an Immigrant Female Author’s Budding Career
Last January it was announced that Zhao, who was born in Paris, raised in Beijing, and currently works in finance in Manhattan, had sold a debut three-book trilogy to Delacorte Press, a Penguin Random House imprint, in “a major deal.” In publishing-speak this means her advance was at least $500,000, an outcome most first-time authors writing in any genre could only dream of.
Zhao’s debut, Blood Heir, was due to be published this June. It’s an adventure “pitched as Anastasia meets Six of Crows,” referencing the popular film and fantasy novel.
It was Twitter that launched her career, and Twitter that brought her down.
To The Book Community: An Apology
Zhao’s debut novel, originally for release in June, had received enthusiastic praise. Then review copies went out, and a chorus of online critics began to attack it as racist.
On what grounds? For one, “Blood Heir” takes place in a world where some people including the heroine, Ana, have dangerous supernatural powers that make them reviled and hunted; their outcast status is used as a metaphor for real-life oppression of racial minorities. Detractors found that “repulsive.”
There was also fury over the book’s blurb, saying that oppression in the fictional universe of “Blood Heir” is “blind to skin color.” And the death of an apparently dark-skinned young girl who is killed while saving Ana was seen as a demeaning trope of black self-sacrifice for white benefit.
Add it up, and the book wasn’t simply criticized but denounced as an outrage by prominent, influential young adult fiction writers.
A popular tweet by author Ellen Oh warned “POC” (people of color) authors that they were “not immune to charges of racism” and that “colorblindness is extremely tone deaf.” In this atmosphere, it’s not surprising Zhao caved.
I don’t want to comment too much because I’m on the outside looking in as most of us are in this scenario…considering very few have read Blood Heir but I find a few things about all this a tad disturbing:
1. AWZ is being flagged for plagiarizing tropes and very popular sayings….and she is a Chinese woman. Around the world, the biggest stereotype about the Chinese is “they steal” so It’s odd to be that some derivative things are being flagged as Plagiarism.
2. Marginalized people have said over the years that CALL IN should be used instead of Call out. and a call out is basically coming into a public space where words cannot be taken back and mistakes live on digitally forever. Why way this WOC not given a Call In?
3. As a Chinese Immigrant AWZ is being called out for getting “white” stuff wrong….How much has western media gotten wrong about Chinese culture? How much has been ripped and pillaged for mockery? but she gets some pronouns wrong in a book yet to be copy edited and it’s war?
4. As an Immigrant AWZ from a country of slavery she is not allowed to bring her own culture to her own book? We must make her adapt and assimilate to the American vantage point?
I’m not defending the book…but I think since all the people freaking out are upset about her stepping out of her lane….they should also ask themselves what prejudices they are perpetuating and what they can do better….LIke damn
I just remember her article about how she got her deal and how she had reached for the stars and her dreams had come true because she never gave up….and because she was treated like an outsider and dragged (a good reads review called her “Happily Racist”) she did. She gave up.
This is what out community did to a woman of color. Not Trump. Not Nazis. Are all women of Color now expected to me immaculate without misstep? Michelle Obama wrote in her book about how her uncle was more immaculate than the white men he served…never a misstep to be seen.
Are we to go about this industry as white knights pure and chaste? Do we speak only when we know the words are just right? Look. I’m going to tell you know. I’m not a fucking saint. I say what I see and I use my work to understand me and how I fit into this world.
This world is ugly and sometimes I am too. So, don’t count yourself my ally if you expect me to be better than you’ve behaved today. You stole a dream today…You didn’t come to her aid, you came for her dream. I don’t know why—maybe because tokenism is still a thing?
I know for sure, as a debut she was shaken to her core. she learned yet again, that this world isn’t for her. That she is just a visitor and she must play to the tune of someone else’s drum because if she isn’t want WE want she doesn’t get a seat.
Sounds a lot like something I’m too familiar with. And I said it before. You hate long enough and you become the thing you hate. Today, this community was that thing. For better or worse, you get to decide that. I’m not judging you fam, but I do see you.
Francina Simone posted a video on this here:
Even if she deserved being called out there are ways to do that that aren’t vicious and hateful. + people who called her ignorant I feel are ignorant themselves. Slavery isn’t limited to just USA’s history, erasing her experience is extremely rude and damaging.
P.S. Putting on my tin foil hat, the speed & fervor makes me wonder if outside forces were interested in stifling her words about trafficking. Thousands of YA books released each year & suddenly folks all at once cared SO much about this? Feels like someone was pouring gasoline.
YA Twitter remains a cancerous stain on social media and in life. Woke white women mostly along with “concerned” minority women cyber bully a debuting Chinese author Amélie Wen Zhao to NOT publish her book, Blood Heir
You can feel the insincerity, book gatekeeping and demanding even foreign writers to conform to American YA book cult norms.
The Guardian: Young adult author cancels own novel after race controversy
“I write fantasy, but my story draws inspiration from themes I see in the real world today. As a foreigner in Trump’s America, I’ve been called names and faced unpleasant remarks – and as a non-citizen, I’ve felt like I have no voice – which is why I’ve channeled my anger, my frustration, and my need for action into the most powerful weapon I have: my words,” she wrote last year.
While some on social media praised her decision to cancel publication, others urged her to reconsider bowing to “bullying” from a “mob”. Random House Children’s Books, her publisher, told the New York Times: “We respect Amélie’s decision, and look forward to continuing our publishing relationship with her.”
There has been pushback against Ellen Oh and L. L. McKinney who are credited with the Twitter takedown of Amélie Wen Zhao.
Ellen Oh is the founder of We Need Diverse Books, a non-profit and a grassroots organization of children’s book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry, specifically “Putting more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children.” Ellen Oh also has YA trilogy that she describes as “will be loved by fantasy and action fans of Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, Tamora Pierce’s Tortall novels, and Marie Lu’s Legend series!”
L. L. McKinney is a debut YA author who finds racism in publishing the most surprising.
Honestly? The racism. Yeah. I know that’s probably not what people want to hear, but that’s the truth. Publishing and the inner workings thereof is very, very, VERY racist.
If they were truly concerned with making Amélie’s book “better,” why did they go after her in public on Twitter? Why not advise her in private using DM, email, the phone, or a face-to-face meeting?
Ellen Oh and L. L. McKinney have been on the receiving end of some vile harassment (including death threats) recently. To help offset the hardships caused, a number of us are putting together a drive to get their books into libraries and schools!
Agent Beth Phelan (@beth_phelan on Twitter):
we are seeing women of color literally putting themselves in harm’s way in order to protect the children who would be hurt reading books like BLOOD HEIR. but you’re anti-that??? OKAY.
I would assume that an agent that represents YA authors would know that YA readers are 55% adult and 45% teen. I would further assume that she would realize that U.S. enslavement of African Americans is part of a school’s curriculum. All public school children in Massachusetts study U.S. Slavery in 5th Grade. That curriculum is here. I am assuming further that Beth Phelan must also consider Laurie Halse Anderson’s excellent trilogy Chains to also be problematic which is geared for a middle grade audience, ages 8 and up? Or any picture books on slavery?
Slate: An Author Canceled Her Own YA Novel Over Accusations of Racism. But Is It Really Anti-Black?
These seem like pretty common tropes. But you said people were also mad about racial insensitivity, right?
Right. The issue that has most inflamed YA Twitter is the alleged racial insensitivity toward the black community. Influencers are saying that the book shows a black girl being rescued from the slave trade and subsequently dying so that the white protagonist can live.
Why not?
Well, for starters, we’re really not even really sure that the character in question, May, is black.Huh?
Yep. After reading a few descriptions of the character, it’s difficult to be 100 percent certain, but May is described several times as having “ocean-blue eyes” or “aqua marine eyes.” Her skin is initially described as “bronze” and then “tan” on second reference. Her “brown curls” are also not necessarily indicative of a particular race.So … the author has said that the American slave trade was not the inspiration and the character might not even be black?
Correct.
The irony is real. Two female YA authors of color have used Twitter to take down a much anticipated YA author of color who, unlike them, is a recent immigrant. Apparently, Amélie Wen Zhao, in publishing a book in the U.S. must reference or realize that she references U.S. history of enslavement even though Amélie Wen Zhao actually is referencing modern day slavery in Asia of which there is plenty.
But don’t assume that Asians have each others’ backs. Just because we are all Asians does not mean that we are not racists towards each other. I am half Japanese and half Chinese American and married to a Korean national. Here’s a quick primer on Chinese/Japanese/Korean relations (just these three for simplicity): we have a history of centuries of war, crimes against humanity, and subjugation that permeates to this day the modern day psyche of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans both nationals and immigrants.
Chinese: We are better than the Japanese and Koreans. We are the oldest culture and are far superior than pretty much everyone.
[When I was in China, there was a ton of anti-Japanese propaganda about the rape of Nanking. My nieces and nephews who recently immigrated from China can attest to this sentiment.]
Japanese: We are better than the Chinese and Koreans. We brutally conquered and occupied both your countries. You both still fear us. We concede slightly to Chinese culture as informing our own culture but we are superior having descended from the sun goddess. Yes, we know that sound ridiculous but we actually believe that.
[When I lived in Japan, I noticed how the racism is hidden under cultural norms of politeness but this is a very striated society not too different from India’s caste system, just a more subtle version.]
Koreans: We have been oppressed throughout most of our history. We hate the Japanese slightly more than the Chinese because they occupied us more recently. We kept our culture despite millennia of occupation.
[My in-laws are Korean nationals. I can vouch for anti-Japanese sentiments but who can blame them?]
This looks like a professional hit job. Ellen Oh and L. L. McKinney took out Amélie Wen Zhao and then guided their YA Twitter mob into buying their books. It’s for those “children,” you know. The ones that need to be told what to read.
p.s. Run a Google image search for “bronze skin” and “aquamarine eyes.” Who do you get? This is the range that I found:
The Afghan girl featured in National Geographic.
Tweets from
김윤미 Author @kimyoonmiauthor:
I still found it problematic, because what she said erased things like acknowledging slavery in Asia (In a year of Mr. Sunshine) and people like me who have curly hair. And people like my brother who have darker complexions. It wasn’t canceled, but it still felt like erasure.
I understand the need for black activists to be concerned about slavery, but unfortunately, slavery is alive and still kicking worldwide. And there is diversity within the Asian communities that gets erased by people who won’t acknowledge it.
Saying it’s only a black narrative does harm. YES, the transatlantic slave trade was the worst of slavery. But NO. It’s not the only system out there. And YES, there are Asians with curly hair. Like there are blacks with freckles or naturally red hair.
Search for the diversity within before launching ships. Think harder. And own when you are wrong. Asian forms of slavery are still alive. For Korea, Vietnam Brides is STILL a thing. Nobi in history. We should own that.
We aren’t guiltless in history. Koreans did slavery too. But by saying slavery is only a black issue, we clean ourselves of the problems with our own history and reckoning, and I’d have liked her to own this a bit more in her launch. It could have been a call-in, not a call out.
That’s the part I have problems with. That’s in dispute, because the skin color was described as a medium brown. The person had curly hair, but much like NK Jemisin saying her character was Mayan-derived, not black, like assumed, people automatically jumped to “must be black”.
The story is set in Russia/China-esque setting. There ARE Asians with medium black skin. I DO think asking and thinking about shadism is valid in these situations, but I DON’T thing slavery+medium brown skin+curly hair auto makes the person black.
Medium brown skin. My bad.
Shadism is an issue with Asians dating back to the male-written sex manuals. And Koreans DO have a tendency to erase the diversity within that we need to wrestle with. Saying that we are all light-skinned–but it’s not true. And the erasure is real.
I think it could have been done and handled better. There were people that decided to flee YA over how it was handled. I don’t think the anger is wrong. I think more along the lines of how do you direct anger for positive change.
I have other minor gripes with some of the way she handles the activism she’s done, so I wasn’t exactly shocked. I get that intentions are good, but the impact is having a negative effect on how people and new authors view YA. Gate keeping, I think is the wrong direction.
Open discussions, be open to being wrong, and listen and negotiate more. She was wrong, but failure to own it is the problem I have with the whole cancel crew philosophy. PoCs were censored a ton in history, we need not do it with each other. Let them fail like in 2007.
Let us openly talk about why those books were problematic. Let people learn. I’m more call-in person when I can afford it. Use intellect. Medium brown Asians exist. Curly haired Asians exist. Sometimes Asians are both. Asian Slavery is a fact. Own it first, before attacking.
I was there before WeNeedDiverseBooks, fighting trolls on writing forums, so I do know the fight well. I also know where I feel like they could and should still do better. I quibble, not with anger, but with how to direct change. I’ve always been for education over condemnation.
I quibble not with anger. I quibble with how to make that change. I was on the front lines for years. 2001 I was working my butt off getting resources and spreading them around. So I get a say in this fight for change I was there before her.
Round up of articles on Blood Heir
Here is a round up of articles on Blood Heir. This shows the plethora and range of write ups. These are in no particular order. I simply ran a Google search.
Slate Magazine: An Author Canceled Her Own YA Novel Over Accusations of Racism. But Is It Really Anti-Black?
How did the Blood Heir controversy begin?
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but last week, Twitter user @LegallyPaige accused Zhao of compiling screenshots of people who weren’t fans of Blood Heir ahead of its release and harassing them: “I’ll tell you which 2019 debut author, according to the whisper network, has been gathering screenshots of people who don’t/didn’t like her book and giving off Kathleen Hale vibes: Amelie Wen Zhao.” (@LegallyPaige has since made her account private.)This opened the floodgates, with others accusing Zhao of plagiarism and of her book being offensive to African Americans. YA novelist L.L. McKinney voiced her displeasure with this particular description of the book:
In a world where the princess is the monster, oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray…comes a dark Anastasia retelling that explores love, loss, fear, and divisiveness and how ultimately it is our choices that define who we are.
The description led McKinney to also state that the book was “pretty much about” the oppression and slavery faced by the African American community.
LL McKinney
✔
@ElleOnWords
· Jan 28, 2019
Replying to @ElleOnWords
Y’all really let this shit fly.Y’all REALLY omg.
LL McKinney
✔
@ElleOnWords
Explain to me how you write a book pretty much about slavery and oppressions suffered by the Black community, such as a system that uses not only slaves but people “arrested’ by the authoritative system in place to be used as relatively free labor, but “oppression is blind to38
5:03 PM – Jan 28, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
See LL McKinney’s other Tweets
Author Ellen Oh, known for the Prophecy series, also made comments that seemed aimed at Zhao (and later applauded Zhao for canceling the publication).Dear POC writers, You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness. And colorblindness is extremely tone deaf. Learn from this and do better.
— Ellen “Hell No” Oh (@ElloEllenOh) January 29, 2019
The Guardian: Young adult author cancels own novel after race controversy
Following positive early reviews, a groundswell of criticism of Blood Heir began last month, with reviews posted on Goodreads and Twitter calling out what one reader described as “the anti-blackness and blatant bigotry in this book”, particularly its depiction of slavery and the death of a particular black character.
In comparison with other publishing controversies attracting ire online, such as Keira Drake’s YA novel The Continent, which was slammed for its “white saviour” narrative, and picture book A Birthday Cake for George Washington, which was withdrawn after its upbeat portrayal of slavery was questioned, criticism of Zhao’s novel was relatively confined, possibly because the author responded so fast in cancelling her book release.
Vulture: The Latest YA Twitter Pile On Forces a Rising Star to Self-Cancel
Early last week, however, influencers within the YA community began tweeting vaguely about an unnamed person engaged in bad authorial behavior: targeting book bloggers for harassment over negative reviews, “shit talking other authors of color.” The villain’s identity was initially a mystery and source of fascination, but elsewhere, a woman who tweets under the handle @LegallyPaige wasn’t being so cagey about naming names: “I’ll tell you which 2019 debut author, according to the whisper network, has been gathering screenshots of people who don’t/didn’t like her book and giving off Kathleen Hale vibes: Amelie Wen Zhao.”
Although LegallyPaige declined to offer proof of Zhao’s alleged screenshotting-with-intent, her thread now looks a bit like the opening salvo in a larger campaign to sabotage the debut author. A flurry of additional accusations followed: that Zhao had plagiarized a death scene from The Hunger Games, lifted a line from Tolkien, gotten the conventions wrong on her Russian-inspired characters’ names, and indulged in problematic world-building by putting a slave auction scene in her book — in which a black character was ignominiously killed off.
Whether Zhao was guilty of any of the above is still up for debate, particularly in the absence of a finished book. (Blood Heir was not slated to publish until June; some reviewers had advance copies.) But unless we want to eliminate the Death Song trope from fiction or ding Tolkien’s own use of paraphrased Bible passages, the plagiarism allegations are shaky at best — and the charge of racism, led by a series of caustic tweets from YA fantasy author L.L. McKinney, relies on both a subjective interpretation of the word “bronze” and an exclusively American reading of scenes involving slavery. Nevertheless, the latter allegations caught the attention of social-justice-minded readers, and the controversy began to balloon. A smattering of one-star reviews cropped up on Zhao’s Goodreads page. Book bloggers began announcing that they no longer intended to read Blood Heir. In a tweet thread that did not name or tag Zhao but was clearly about her, well-known author Ellen Oh wrote, “Dear POC writers, You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC.”
It’s worth noting here that the role of Asian women within YA’s writers of color contingent has been a flashpoint for conflict before — one that led Zhao to butt heads with YA queen bee Justina Ireland in May 2018. After Ireland wrote a (since deleted) tweet that some readers interpreted as exclusionary gatekeeping of the “POC” label, Zhao launched a long thread asserting that Asian women are, indeed, women of color, including some pointed language about those who would suggest otherwise.
“You can delete your tweets, and we’re not going to come into your mentions, but ask yourselves why you wrote those/agreed with those in the first place, and why there is such an outcry. While we’re on the valid issue of anti-POC within POC groups, examine your own beliefs, too.” (She did not tag Ireland, but needless to say, everyone knew whom she was talking about.)
It’s impossible to say whether this eight-month-old beef helped spark a retaliatory campaign by Ireland’s supporters, or perhaps primed critics to focus on Zhao’s alleged insensitivity to the history of African-American slavery. What is clear is that the current controversy speaks to a larger, ongoing debate in YA about marginalized identities, “own voices,” and who is and isn’t entitled to tell certain kinds of stories.
In the past, this sort of grumbling over imperfectly woke books has sometimes grown into a five-alarm social-media fire replete with vote brigading, form-letter writing, and petitions to cancel publication. But whether Blood Heir might have eventually become a target of animus on the order of The Black Witch, American Heart, or The Continent, we’ll never know. Just as Twitter was beginning to fan the flames of the controversy, Amélie Wen Zhao — who had been silent since before @LegallyPaige first accused her of plotting against book bloggers — gave her first and (for now) last statement on the matter. She had not intended to evoke an offensive analogy to American slavery, she said, but she had nevertheless asked Delacorte not to publish her book.
The Daily Signal: Rising Star From China Pulls First Novel After Being Accused of Racism
Among the sharpest critics was L.L. McKinney, a fellow fantasy author and woman of color, who reportedly called the book “anti-black,” saying that oppression could never be colorblind.
Others chastised Zhao, a Chinese immigrant, for writing about, as some interpreted it, the oppression and slavery faced by African-Americans.
“[One hundred and fifteen] reviews and how is nobody mentioning the anti-blackness and blatant bigotry in this book?” one commenter named “Sarah” wrote. “This book is about slavery, a false oppression narrative that equates having legitimately dangerous magical powers that kill people with being an oppressed minority, like a person of color. This whole story is absolutely repulsive.”
This article has been corrected to reflect that ““oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray,” was a description of “Blood Heir,” not a quote from L.L. McKinney.
New York Times: When Social Media Goes After Your Book, What’s the Right Response?
While I chose to embrace the criticisms I received, and to rewrite my book, many authors choose to do otherwise, and that is their prerogative. Either way, a Twitter pile-on of the sort I experienced is not the appropriate way for criticism to be delivered. The hateful messages, the maligning of my character in tweets and articles across the internet, an organized campaign to find, attack and harass online anyone who had ever given my book a good review: None of this is acceptable. Authors, bloggers, readers, editors — these are real people, and this kind of behavior can have devastating consequences not only professionally but psychologically.
Twitter callout culture is a shameful stain on the young adult book community, and yet these incidents happen again and again, typically before a book is even published. And here’s what makes the least sense of all: I’m fairly certain that we all want the same things. We all want great books, breathtaking storytelling, characters we can love and hate and mourn, themes that make us think and reconsider aspects of the world as we know it. Stories that are diverse and inclusive, so they might be enjoyed by all.
So how do we get there? How can we leave this prepublication callout culture behind and move toward establishing more productive, thoughtful and important conversations between authors and critics? I don’t have the answer, but I am hopeful that we can reach a solution.
Keira Drake is the author of “The Continent.”
“Blood Heir” is set in the fictional Cyrilian Empire with themes including human slavery and depicts a world in which “oppression is blind to skin color.”
“In a world where the princess is the monster, oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray…comes a dark Anastasia retelling that explores love, loss, fear, and divisiveness and how ultimately it is our choices that define who we are,” the novel’s description reads.
LL McKinney
✔@ElleOnWords
“Explain to me how you write a book pretty much about slavery and oppressions suffered by the Black community, such as a system that uses not only slaves but people ‘arrested’ by the authoritative system in place to be used as relatively free labor, but ‘oppression is blind to skin color,’” McKinney continued in one of her posts.
LL McKinney
✔@ElleOnWords
It’s a book about fake Russia published in the us by a us publisher with a black girl who dies for a white protagonist after being saved from a slave auction. INTENDED AUDIENCE MATTERS.
Fiona Jacobson@SammyAurReplying to @ElleOnWordsBecause it’s about essential slavery and oppression suffered by people today in countries all over the world but, specifically, China? Skin color is not the primary factor there.
Fucking fabulous. https://t.co/t9NB17jPND
— LL McKinney is on (partial) hiatus (@ElleOnWords) February 1, 2019
We now live in a call-out culture, where we now have the ability to point out and amplify these claims to make real change happen. Sometimes, these accusations are thrown against abusers, predators, and manipulators who have hurt others, sometimes for years, through their terrible behavior and finally face consequences for it. On the flip side, however, we get YA author Amélie Wen Zhao pulling her debut book after early reviewers claimed it was anti-Black, which now appears might not be the case.
Ultimately, I think it should be up to the reader to decide these things. I think that, at least in some ways, the author should be divorced from the book so that it can live, or die, on its own merits or faults. And if you don’t want to support a book, then don’t read it or buy it. After all, there will always be people who publish storylines and opinions that are offensive on various levels, but it’s up to us as readers (or parents if the child is too young to make those distinctions) to suss these things out, to learn to think critically about art and the world it lives in. But instead of becoming a teachable moment, Blood Heir and its author are retreating before a conversation can even be had.
Right now, it looks like publishing’s year for 2019 might outpace 2018 in terms of sheer scandal volume. Last year, a sexual assault scandal postponed the Nobel Prize for Literature, perhaps indefinitely. Additionally, many prominent male writers were accused of sexual harassment and assault, including Daniel Handler, Junot Díaz, and Sherman Alexie. Further uproar ensued later in the year, when Díaz re-assumed his position as Chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Board, proving that men’s lives are hardly ever ruined by accusations of bad behavior toward women.
YA Twitter has organized an effort to get books by Ellen Oh and L.L. McKinney — two women of color who spoke out about Blood Heir and were later dogpiled by hateful trolls — into schools. You can learn more about it here.
Den of Geek: Cover Reveal: Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao
“BLOOD HEIR is the story of an exiled heir with the monstrous ability to control blood, a silver-tongued con man who is running from his past, and a dark, frozen empire rife with corruption. I wanted to take beloved fantasy tropes and twist them, and to imbue themes relevant to our times. At its heart, BLOOD HEIR is a story of the Other, the ones who are demonized by society for simply existing as they are. I wanted to explore what makes a monster, and question who our laws are designed to protect.
Splice Today: Twitter Culture Cops Crush Dreams of Chinese Immigrant/Author
At the time, the young author naively believed that her publisher, Delacorte, was the final arbiter of whether or not her book would advance beyond the galley stage. For any book in the YA (young adult) genre to achieve that these days, it must first pass muster on something called “YA Twitter,” a self-righteous, humorless brigade of Culture Cops prone to backstabbing who’ve somehow ended up as the gatekeepers of the fantasy stories that young minds are allowed exposure to.
Chinese-American Zhao, who moved to the U.S. when she was 18, has learned how powerful and arbitrary these Thought Police are. After being hounded by the tireless enforcers of correctness, the author finally decided to ask Delacorte to cancel her debut sci-fi/fantasy novel, Blood Heir, originally slated for June publication.
Know Your Meme: Amélie Wen Zhao’s “Blood Heir” Cancellation
On January 24th, 2019, Twitter user @heidiheilig posted a tweet criticizing an unnamed author, claiming they were “shit talking other authors of color” (shown below). That day, Twitter user @LegallyPaige[7] tweeted that Zhao was “gathering screenshots of people who don’t/didn’t like her book and giving off Kathleen Hale vibes.” The tweet has since been deleted.
Reading the End: Some thoughts on the Blood Heir situation
A few days ago, I saw an author on my TL, LL McKinney, criticizing an ARC she had read, a secondary-world fantasy YA debut called Blood Heir, by Amelie Wen Zhao. She initially identified the book as a problem based on its description including the phrase “oppression is blind to skin color”; later, she read through the book and tweeted about elements that played into racial stereotypes, such as a black character dying to further the emotional arc of a white character. (She also used the word plagiarism to refer to a scene in the book that bears a strong resemblance to a scene in The Hunger Games.) Another YA author, Ellen Oh, tweeted that when you write books to be published outside of your own cultural context, it can be very easy to make mistakes and fall into stereotypes; the thread was clearly in reference to Blood Heir.
Under which of these circumstances, if any, is it reasonable to delay a book’s publication? In each case, do you think the publisher should be the exclusive arbiter of that decision? The author? Someone else?
- if the context in which the premise will be received abruptly changes (e.g., if you had a book about a school shooting slated to publish, and then Newtown happened)
- if another book with eerie similarities came out (assume no plagiarism has occurred and it’s just one of those weird things like that year there were two romcoms about a President’s daughter trying to shake off the burden of political life)
- if a reviewer with an advance copy identifies major errors in fact
- if a reviewer with an advance copy identifies major oversights in interpretation
- if a reviewer with an advance copy identifies harmful stereotypes of marginalized groups
- other reasons?
6 is a catch-all, obviously, so please let me know if there are other circumstances in which a book might be pulled, and you have opinions about those circumstances!
Publishers Weekly: Citing Social Media Controversy, Debut Author Delays Publication of YA Novel
Another author has become the subject of social media controversy in the children’s writing community. Amélie Wen Zhao, whose debut YA fantasy novel, Blood Heir, has been compared to Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, has asked her publisher, Random House’s Delacorte imprint, to postpone the novel’s release, which was scheduled for June.
Zhao’s request to her publisher occurred after a groundswell on social media began slowly a few weeks ago with veiled comments about an unnamed POC author’s hostility to other POC authors and to bloggers, and rose to a crescendo last week, when a book blogger calling herself Paige Cee criticized Zhao for “gathering screenshots of people who don’t/didn’t like her book and giving off Kathleen Hale vibes.” Others on social media posted their concerns regarding the book’s content and themes, particularly that a slave auction scene in Blood Heir was insensitive to POC readers due to the history of slavery in the U.S.
Ellen Oh, the founder of We Need Diverse Books, posted on January 29 what many regarded as a tweet directed at Zhao. “Dear POC writers, you are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness. And colorblindness is extremely tone deaf. Learn from this and do better.”
New York Times: Y.A. Author Pulls Her Debut After Pre-Publication Accusations of Racism
The controversy surrounding “Blood Heir,” and Ms. Zhao’s swift and dramatic decision to withdraw the work just months before publication, has further fueled a skirmish in the world of young adult literature over racial representation, diversity and cultural appropriation.
The debate over Ms. Zhao’s novel echoes previous scandals that have erupted in recent years over representation in children’s and young adult books, as publishers have had to delay, cancel and even withdraw and pulp books that became lightning rods for online criticism.
In 2016, a picture book titled “A Birthday Cake for George Washington” was withdrawn from stores after critics complained that it glossed over the horrors of slavery. A similar scandal engulfed the 2015 picture book “A Fine Dessert,” which depicted an enslaved mother and daughter hiding in a cupboard and cheerfully licking a bowl of batter clean; the author, Emily Jenkins, apologized and donated her earnings to We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit that promotes diversity in children’s publishing. In 2017, Laura Moriarty’s dystopian novel, “American Heart,” was savaged, months before its release, by readers who said Ms. Moriarty had peddled a “white savior narrative” in her depiction of a future America where Muslims are placed in internment camps. Harlequin Teen delayed publication of Keira Drake’s fantasy novel, “The Continent,” after readers blasted it as “racist trash,” “retrograde” and “offensive.” Ms. Drake and her publisher, Harlequin Teen, apologized, and Ms. Drake rewrote the book, removing and revising some passages and character descriptions that readers had flagged as racially offensive.
Tablet: How a Twitter Mob Derailed an Immigrant Female Author’s Budding Career
But while some of the social justice concerns percolating within YA fiction are legitimate, the explosive manner in which they’re expressed within YA Twitter is another story. Posing as urgent interventions to prevent the circulation of harmful tropes, the pile-ons are often based on selective excerpts pulled out of context from the advance copies of books most in the community haven’t read yet. Often, they feature critics operating on the basis of idiosyncratic ideas about the very purpose and nature of fiction itself, elevating tendentious interpretations of the limited snippets available to pass judgement on books before they have been released. To take one example, a viral blog post that sparked a pile-on against a highly anticipated and eventually well-reviewed book, The Black Witch, “consisted largely of pull quotes featuring the book’s racist characters saying or doing racist things,” as Rosenfield explained. Most adult readers across genres understand that representing a morally repugnant position as part of a broader narrative is not the same as endorsing that opinion, but this is the sort of obvious-to-everyone-else point YA Twitter tends to confuse or outright reject. “I have never seen social interaction this fucked up,” one “author and former diversity advocate,” who, like so many others, insisted on anonymity, told Rosenfield in an email. “And I’ve been in prison.”
Further heightening the drama, these pile-ons are often accompanied by claims that those who have been selected for dragging or excommunication have not only sinned against social justice, but pose a safety threat to others in the community. To be sure, online harassment can be a genuinely scary experience when it occurs. But within YA Twitter, harassment accusations are almost a tic at this point, and many of them don’t pass the smell test.
Washington Post: Fantasy author postpones book amid racism allegations
The Post Millennial: Young Adult authors continue their mobbing ways
Ellen Oh, author of middle grade and young adult fiction, and founder of We Need Diverse Books, and L.L. McKinney, young adult fantasy author, were among the most ardent proponents of the Zhao’s book being censored. Because of the backlash to their opposition to the book, brought out of the depths of YA book Twitter by journalist Jesse Singal, these authors were subjected to hatred. Not cool, everyone. As bad as it is to hound an author out of her premier publication, it is at least as bad to send death threats to people with whom you disagree. This is the children’s literature community, after all.
In response, friends and advocates of Oh and McKinney circulated a Google doc wherein educators, librarians, and those who want to show their support, can buy Oh and McKinney’s books for school and library shelves. The idea is that an increase in sales would go a little ways toward making up for the harassment. It must be great to be part of such a supportive community.
A tweet read: “Ellen Oh and L.L. McKinney have been on the receiving end of some vile harassment (including death threats) recently. … To help offset the hardships caused, a number of us are putting together a drive to get their books into libraries and schools!”
While it’s may be nice to some that YA book Twitter is standing up for YA authors who trashed another YA author, it’s discouraging to see that the decrying of books as well as the promotion of books are both being done based not on the content of the books themselves, but because of the author’s perceived relationship to the main characters and story, and what that means in the broader social context. A more cynical person might suggest that this is all part of some kind of promotion for Oh’s and McKinney’s books.
Publishers Weekly: Book Deals: Week of January 29, 2018
Delacorte Takes Debut Trilogy at Auction
Krista Marino at Delacorte Press took North American rights for high six figures to debut author Amélie Wen Zhao’s trilogy Blood Heir. The fantasy series was bought after a five-house auction; Delacorte said the series is about “a fugitive princess with a dark secret and a charismatic con man who forge an unlikely alliance in order to save themselves, each other, and their kingdom.” Peter Knapp at Park Literary and Media sold the series, which will launch with book one (also called Blood Heir) in summer 2019. Zhao, who works in finance, was born in Paris and raised in Beijing.
Conservative Woman: The hate mob and the author who censored herself
This global team – organised, disciplined and committed – have decided that Zhao’s first book, Blood Heir, is racist. Given that no one has read the book it’s hard to discern what, exactly, was the problem but it’s something to do with the fact that in this fantasy (!) world ‘oppression is blind to skin colour’. There are also murmurings about a black girl dying at a slave auction – although it’s not certain that she is black as she has blue eyes.
I’m delighted the book hasn’t been published because it would be dangerous for the public to read and judge personally how problematic it is. The last thing we want is people thinking for themselves and forming their own opinions. That would be ultra-problematic.
This decade has seen a massive increase in censorship, so many incidents of social media-driven mobs, and now we have self-censorship.
Others responding to Zhao’s apology and decision to kill her own book went further.
“Kiera Drake did the same thing you are doing and her career is over,” one commenter observed. “You will never make the mob happy. You should have gone ahead and published it. We need books about human trafficking now. There are currently 30 million people in slavery today, 6 million are children.”
“So….we’re essentially now burning books before they are even written?” another commenter said. “Sad. Publish what you want. An immigrant from a non-free speech country essentially being shamed out of free speech. Terrible on so many levels.”
“She was coerced by a mob,” another said. “Don’t minimize the smears she endured and act like she made a dispassionate decision. This [is] a textbook case of bullying.”
“Imo, publish your book immediately and on schedule,” another commenter offered. “Literature is supposed to push boundaries and reveal truths through often shocking and realistic scenes and dialogue, not censor itself for overally sensitive infants. To me, it sounds like you were doing just what was needed.”
“Important note: Never indulge the mob,” yet another said. “Not only will being this nice not help you against them (nice words now won’t stop them in the future), its consequences will be rained down on the next person tenfold.”
One Angry Gamer: SJWS PRESSURE CHINESE AUTHOR AMÉLIE WEN ZHAO TO DELAY RELEASE OF BLOOD HEIR OVER RACISM
Asian writer Ellen Oh also took aim at Zhao before deleting her Twitter account, posting a series of tweets on January 29th, 2019 that admonished colored people for “racism”. Oh wrote…
“Dear POC writers, You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness. And colorblindness is extremely tone deaf. Learn from this and do better.
“Now I’m going to talk directly to Asian writers. Anti-blackness is real in our community. We’ve all grown up with it and it is our job to root it out in ourselves first and then address the rest of our community. We are all unaware of our own racism until it is pointed out to us. Especially Asian writers who did not grow up in western countries. Your lack of awareness may not be your fault given your lack of cultural context, but it IS your fault if you do not educate yourself when it is expressly brought up to you.
“And if you have the luxury of getting this important criticism before your book is actually published, it is YOUR responsibility to make it right. Do right by the audience that your book will be reaching. Do right by the kids who will be reading your book.
“I want my Asian writing community to succeed. I want the best for them. I want us to be better writers. I want us to be great role models. So I say this from a place of kindness. Listen, learn, do better. You have a responsibility to the kids who are your audience. And if you want to know if I read the book in question. Yes. I did. And I absolutely believe that it wasn’t the author’s intent to be racist. But intent can’t negate impact.”
Hilariously enough, Ellen Oh couldn’t even finish chiding coloreds about their racism without offending someone, which resulted in her having to apologize for her own language that was deemed offensive to disabled people. No, this is not a joke.
Why Evolution is True: Author of young-adult book gets vilified and censored by the mob
That’s when the mob took over. YAT is particularly toxic, and though its intent is usually good, its performance, and hard-nosed policing of novels to assure they conform to the strictest notions of social justice, is lame. (See my earlier post on YAT here.) In this case, even though Zhao is a person of color, the fact that she even mentioned pigmentation (though not of any defined ethnic group) made YAT go nuts.
The loudest voice in this pile-on was another Asian author Ellen Oh:
But perhaps the most damaging, drawn-out broadside came from Ellen Oh, an established YA writer who is herself of Asian descent, and who co-founded We Need Diverse Books. Oh published an extended tweetstorm to her 11,000-plus Twitter followers in which she noted that “colorblindness is extremely tone deaf.” Then she proceeded to address Zhao without mentioning her by name. “Now I’m going to talk directly to Asian writers,” she wrote, particularly “Asian writers who did not grow up in western countries” like Zhao. “Your lack of awareness may not be your fault given your lack of cultural context, but it IS your fault if you do not educate yourself when it is expressly brought up to you.” The admonishment continued, “And if you have the luxury of getting this important criticism before your book is actually published, it is YOUR responsibility to make it right. Do right by the audience that your book will be reading. Do right by the kids who will be reading your book.”
Jebus
Ms. Oh, who did have an advance copy of the book, went after Zhao because of her character named May, who is described as having skin “the bronze of their sands at sunset.” (There’s no evidence that Zhao intended May to be black.) That set Oh off and launched her tirade, as well as Oh’s interpretation (wrong!) that the book was about slavery of blacks in America. But there was no evidence that the book is about “chattel slavery of blacks”, and Oh adduced none.
Zhao’s debut novel, originally for release in June, had received enthusiastic praise. Then review copies went out, and a chorus of online critics began to attack it as racist.
On what grounds? For one, “Blood Heir” takes place in a world where some people including the heroine, Ana, have dangerous supernatural powers that make them reviled and hunted; their outcast status is used as a metaphor for real-life oppression of racial minorities. Detractors found that “repulsive.”
There was also fury over the book’s blurb, saying that oppression in the fictional universe of “Blood Heir” is “blind to skin color.” And the death of an apparently dark-skinned young girl who is killed while saving Ana was seen as a demeaning trope of black self-sacrifice for white benefit.
Add it up, and the book wasn’t simply criticized but denounced as an outrage by prominent, influential young adult fiction writers.
A popular tweet by author Ellen Oh warned “POC” (people of color) authors that they were “not immune to charges of racism” and that “colorblindness is extremely tone deaf.” In this atmosphere, it’s not surprising Zhao caved.
Medium: Author Willingly Cancels Book Amidst Racial Controversy
Gossip began swirling when twitter user @LegallyPaige — a now private account — claimed Zhao was quietly attacking advanced readers who were low-rating the book because of its supposed “anti-blackness.” There is currently no proof of Zhao attacking anyone.
Authors Ellen Oh and L.L. McKinney quickly jumped on the bandwagon even though neither had read the book. McKinney saying, “Explain to me how you write a book pretty much about slavery and oppressions suffered by the Black community,” after referencing a small part of the blurb while Oh then tweeted “Dear POC writers, You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness. And colorblindness is extremely tone deaf. Learn from this and do better.”
Twitter users are equally confused and supportive, as early readers are unsure if the character of May, the one in question, is actually black. Aja Hoggatt of Slate says May is described “several times as having ‘ocean-blue eyes’ or ‘aqua marine eyes.’ Her skin is initially described as ‘bronze’ and then ‘tan’ on second reference. Her ‘brown curls’ are also not necessarily indicative of a particular race.” Others think people are blind to the slavery industry still existing and that Zhao was teaching a generation of new readers.
Blood Heir “Narrative” of Editorial Process in Action
A final note on YA stuff – which we discuss in the latest Feminine Chaos (at 36:00) but which I think is important enough to merit extra emphasis: Despite what some have retroactively tried to claim, the Blood Heir saga is not an example of the normal editorial process in action.
The screenshot below is the best example I’ve seen of this argument. Nothing to see here, folks! Just the system of critique working as it’s designed to! Everyone who reported on this got it wrong! This is pretty effective PR. It’s also 100% not true.
And if you think about this for even a second, you’ll realize it’s not true! By the time an ARC exists, the editorial process (including sensitivity reads if necessary) is complete. The story is ready to be read. The story is *done*. That’s what ARC means: advance *reader* copy.
So when a publisher sends out a hundred ARCs, it’s not because they’re looking to rewrite the story based on feedback from Joe Book Blogger and all his internet friends. (I mean. Can you even imagine?) Anyone who tells you that this is how publishing works is lying to you.
So, if the ave. person is to understand you correctly, the above statement is, not only disingenuous, it is incorrect in its objective conclusion about the literary interpretation itself? If so, do you attribute this to intersectional intention or misinterpretation?
Could you rephrase this, I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking
Are you basically saying they are wrong and misinterpreting the work?
What I’m saying here is that they have misinterpreted (to be charitable about it) their role in Zhao’s editorial process, which they’re now trying to retroactively justify by claiming that books are *always* changed last-minute based on unsolicited Twitter comments
Thank you.
On Tuesday, April 30th, 2019, Amelie announces that her book will be released in the fall.
Zhao reread her novel several times, “examining the plot and characters to see if the critics were right. She decided they weren’t,” but still made some revisions.
Amélie Wen Zhao@ameliewenzhao
Dear Readers: I’m glad to announce that BLOOD HEIR will publish on November 19, 2019. Thank you for the support. BLOOD HEIR is now available for preorder.
New York Times BooksVerified account@nytimesbooks
Amélie Wen Zhao canceled publication of her young adult novel, “Blood Heir,” because of online criticism. Then she decided the critics were wrong.
From New York Times:
She Pulled Her Debut Book When Critics Found It Racist. Now She Plans to Publish.
When the controversy over “Blood Heir” erupted, battle lines were quickly drawn within the close-knit children’s publishing community. A small but influential group of authors argued that the novel dealt insensitively with race and the legacy of slavery, and was an affront to nonwhite communities. The book’s cancellation then prompted an equally passionate backlash to the backlash from a camp that rallied to Zhao’s defense, arguing that the novel’s critics, who claimed to be championing diversity, had bullied a young Asian woman into silence.
She came up with the plot for “Blood Heir” in 2014, during a family trip to Russia. She imagined a fictional empire where a group of people called Affinites, who have special powers, are feared and trafficked for labor by the powerful elite — a system that is challenged by a fugitive princess who wields magic. In describing the plight of Affinites, Zhao aimed to invoke real-world issues, including human trafficking and indentured servitude in Asia.
“What I sought to interrogate and critique was the modern-day epidemic of human trafficking and endured labor,” Zhao said. “It wasn’t something I had seen in Y.A. literature.”
After Zhao decided she wanted to release the book, she and her publisher sought feedback from scholars and sensitivity readers in an effort to resolve any ambiguity around the type of indentured labor depicted. They had academics from different multicultural backgrounds, as well as one who studies human trafficking in Asia, evaluate the text, and Zhao added new material and made changes based on their comments. They had additional sensitivity readers vet the book for racial and other stereotypes.
According to an interview with Zhao just published in the New York Times, Zhao reread her novel several times, “examining the plot and characters to see if the critics were right. She decided they weren’t,” but still made some revisions. Delacorte then sent the revised version of Blood Heir to scholars and to sensitivity readers to evaluate the text, and Zhao made further revisions based on
A YA Novel Scrapped Because of Sensitivity Concerns Is Getting Published Anyway
It’s a master class in turning a backlash into a boon.
Now, Zhao told the New York Times, she has changed her mind. Reeling from the criticism after pulling the book from publication, she took time to reread her manuscript several times and decided her critics were wrong. In March, she contacted her editor at Delacorte Press to tell her she wanted to proceed after all. Zhao and the publisher solicited new feedback from experts including a human-trafficking scholar, “academics from different multicultural backgrounds,” and multiple “sensitivity readers” who scan manuscripts for stereotypes. She made additions and revisions in response. “We ultimately think our YA readers are very smart,” her editor told the Times. “They can read what they want to read and use their critical thinking skills to work through it.” The tweaked version of Blood Heirwill be published in November.
Blood Heir, which centers on human trafficking, was promoted as showing a world in which “oppression is blind to skin color.” Fantasy author L.L. McKinney had scorned the idea that oppression could be color-blind.
Zhao’s debut book, the first in a planned fantasy trilogy, came under fire in January, several months before its initial June publication, from a group of young-adult authors and readers on Twitter. They objected to a scene in the book that depicted a slave auction, criticizing it as insensitive to African Americans.
Zhao responded that the scene was inspired not by slavery in America but by human trafficking in Asia. (The Paris-born Zhao spent much of her life in Beijing, and now lives in the U.S.) Nonetheless, she agreed to postpone the book so she could revise it, and apologized to those who had taken offense.
One Angry Gamer:
Young adult novelist Amélie Wen Zhao originally cancelled her book Blood Heirback in January of 2019 following a barrage of harassment from Social Justice Warriors who claimed her book was racist and was insensitive toward the history of slavery. Well, after convening with “sensitivity readers”, Zhao will be releasing Blood Heir this November.
So basically, it’s basically an extortion racket for cultural content.
If your book doesn’t meet the standards of Social Justice Warriors, you turn over your creative freedom to the “sensitivity readers” and if they give your book the a-okay then you’re allowed to sell your book to the public.
We saw a similar thing happen when Kokoro Jackson’s book called A Place For Wolves came under fire for being “insensitive” because he set his book during the Kosovo war but had two gay black boys as the main characters in the book. This caught ire from Social Justice Warriors who felt he wasn’t being sensitive enough toward the victims of the Kosovo war.
In essence, if your story doesn’t align with the ever tightening vice of socially acceptable content in the eyes of Cultural Communists then you’ll be castigated publicly, humiliated, and left beaten, battered, and whipped into ideological submission by the Commissars of Cultivation.
What Is #OwnVoices Doing To Our Books?
In May of 2018, young adult fiction author Kosoko Jackson wrote a tweet that would come to haunt him.
“Stories about the civil rights movement should be written by black people. Stories of suffrage should be written by women. Ergo, stories about boys during horrific and life changing times, like the AIDS EPIDEMIC, should be written by gay men. Why is this so hard to get?”
Jackson’s stated belief, that stories about marginalized people should be written by authors of the same identity group, is a common one in YA fiction. It’s also the central ethos of a movement known as #ownvoices, which aims to improve diversity in the industry by matching authors to subject matter. It’s not hard to see why it caught on: What better way to improve the representation of marginalized authors than to have them write what they know — or what they are? Who better to capture these stories than someone who shares an identity with the main character? Not only would the books be more diverse (the logic goes), but they’d be more honest, too.But in its present form, the impact of this movement on the landscape of YA has turned increasingly toxic, leading to callouts, controversy, and cancelled books — often for the underrepresented authors it was supposed to help. And no author learned this lesson more harshly than Jackson. His debut novel A Place for Wolves, was set to publish March 26, but was cancelled for not being #ownvoices enough instead.
That Jackson was both a sensitivity reader and an enthusiastic enforcer of YA callout culture himself — he was among the voices denouncing Amelie Wen Zhao in January— speaks to the way the community can turn on even its wokest members.
With #ownvoices extending to everything from medical conditions to sexual orientations, authors describe feeling compelled to either reveal private information in order to assert their right to tell a given story, or abandon the material entirely.
Additionally, gatekeepers who consider themselves anti-racist allies can have troubling preconceptions of what marginalized people’s stories should look like, and will pressure writers with different backgrounds to stick with “issue books” centered on oppression or injustice.
“Do those writers not see the artistic dead end they are creating for themselves?” one 20-year veteran of YA publishing wrote in an email. She has a point: Taken to its logical conclusion, this approach to storytelling will set strict and claustrophobic limits on imagination, confining authors according to an ever-narrowing concept of which identities, settings, or narratives are their “own.”
Some will say that all’s well that end’s well since Blood Heir now has a release date, but I think the fundamental issue comes down to censorship. The issue with this YA trilogy is that the worldbuilding fantasy was created around a controversial construct: a world where race isn’t an issue. Apparently Martin Luther King, Junior is allowed to dream about such a world, but no one is allowed to write about it. Even in Young Adult Fantasy. Let me repeat … even in fantasy meant for an adult audience. Is this really the world that we want to support? If so, then perhaps we all live in a dystopian world where we are expected to believe “alternative facts” and censorship is the new reality. Maybe wizards living among humans is a go, or vampires that sparkle in sun, or even a kind of gladiator Olympics for kids who have to fight to the death. But for anyone who hopped on the bandwagon to censor Blood Heir, beware. Be careful what you wish for. Because just as Amelie Wen Zhao left China where censorship is the norm, you are imposing it on her.
p.s. Asian Americans are not a monolith. Case in point, Sery Kim, a Korean-American on NBC News
Kim, who is Korean American, said of Chinese immigrants, “I don’t want them here at all,” while speaking at the forum on Wednesday. “They steal our intellectual property, they give us coronavirus, they don’t hold themselves accountable.”
Texas GOP congressional candidate on Chinese immigrants: ‘I don’t want them here at all’
Sery Kim, a veteran of the Trump administration, followed up with a punchline: “I can say that because I’m Korean.”
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I saw this break over the weekend. What disturbs me most is that a book can be taken down before it’s even published. Why bother writing anything more? It’s one thing for your work to be criticized in the court of public opinion. But the idea that something can’t/shouldn’t be published because it might offend someone, might impress young people, might have counter cultural ideas is frightening. It’s very 1984. Let the book be published and then have your say.
It’s very akin to demanding that controversial speakers be banned from college campuses. Now, I know that some controversial speakers do this specifically to make a point, and they do everything they can to rile up controversy ahead of the engagement to make a big news splash. But we can’t shut everything down before it begins. We need to let bad ideas out there and then call them out/in.
Obviously I cannot say whether this book is overtly or subtly racist, whether it plagiarizes other ideas. But now I’ll never be able to form an opinion. People can say and write bad, stupid, racist things. That’s freedom of speech. And we have the right to call them out/in on it. (I’ll admit, I hadn’t seen the call out/in argument before and don’t even understand it – I’ll have to do some research on that.)
As an immigrant writer, this makes my spine shiver. I had seen some of the posts but I had no idea what they were about, this article has helped me understand and “see” both sides. What Amelie had to go through is indeed bullying. Shame on those trying to silence a fellow author. I might get in trouble for this, and I know WNDB has been helpful to raise awareness for the need of diversity in literature, but it always seemed to me it was more of a platform to promote the founders’ own books. Anyway, I hope Blood Heir gets published soon so we can all read it and move on.
Hi Debra,
I’m sorry you feel that I’m wrong. That was my perception of things, which may or may not be yours. I visited their site many times and followed them in the beginning. In my personal opinion, I don’t think much is done to recognize a variety of diverse authors. It is always mostly the same people, and feels like a clique. At least to me as an author. I do recognize WNDB contribution creating awareness on the issue of diversity and I recommend their site, along with MCBD to librarians and other educators who look for diverse literature. I’m also against any twitter mob attacking either side. Sadly, these ladies comments sparked a controversy and they did not clarify anything and with silence allowed the mob to grow. I know authors and publishers provide ARC’s to bloggers for a reason, but if you are going to call a book racist, or call out the author for any reason, at least it should be done in a responsible way, either calling in or providing analysis. And this is exactly to AVOID what we are seeing right now. As an immigrant writer I am terrified that some of my content is not going to please influencing people in the industry. I take side with Amelie in this case (which is also my right, and your right to disagree) because I identify with her. Also, I agree with Mia in the fact that we don’t need gatekeepers in YA. We need analysis and insightful reviews so we as readers can make the decision to either buy or not the book. What I’m sure about, is that a 500k advance for a new (and foreign!) writer encouraged some of the twitter mobsters to jump in the wagon of criticism. Opinion leaders do have to be careful. I wish Amelie wouldn’t have postponed the book, but the fear of it failing because of the backlash in public opinion might have been strong. I don’t even think she should have apologized! When you are confronted to a wall of sudden critics, you feel vulnerable and weak. Since some of your critics are considered influencers, you believe that they are right and you’re not. And you know what? Sometimes your gut is worth defending. It has happened to me in a different scenario. Last thing, WNDB started as a hashtag. They thrive on Twitter so that tells me they did have a sense of what they were saying was going to influence the people who buy books. That’s a book take down, weather intentional or not. Or they just took the gatekeeper role too seriously. But I don’t think they expected to open a Pandora box. I do hope this episode teaches us all how to handle reviews, opinions, and call-outs in a more responsible way.
It seems that things can get ugly really fast. I haven’t read the book, and just became aware of the situation, but I can say that she’s at least trying to do the right thing, and she apologized. That says a lot right there!
I posted this on Facebook, but I feel like I should put it here, too.
I have not kept up with this, but I’m not sure if I agree with your interpretation of the events. I find it hard to believe that jealousy would trigger (the highly respected) Ellen Oh to take down another author, especially one of color. I, myself, as part of the Asian Authors Alliance, was considered part of the “twitter mob” that “took down” the “A Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library.” While I know the author of that book was greatly displeased about the letter sent out by the Asian Authors Alliance and the Asian Authors Alliance was also accused of judging before reading the book in its entirety, I still stand by our criticism of that book and do not consider it censorship. Could it be possible that this book was actually problematic?
Hi Grace,
The character in question has “bronze skin” and “aquamarine eyes.” Ellen Oh and Twitter mob interpreted this to read as African American. The author does not concur. I believe it would be the author’s call as to the ethnicity of her character. Also, African Americans do not have blue eyes in general and bronze skin or tawny skin can be a range of ethnicities and not specific to African Americans.
Secondly, Ellen Oh and Twitter mob say that the slavery in the story references U.S. history of African American enslavement. The author, who is from China and immigrated at age 18, says the slavery references modern-day slavery in China and Asia.
The author was attacked for her anti-African American portrayal on the basis that YA readers need to be protected.
But IF the character is, in fact, NOT BLACK, then the author has been attacked for no reason. So… it comes down to what the author says about her character and if bronze skin and aquamarine eyes = African American.
If you believe that the reader can call the book any way he/she likes despite what the author has said or written, then the book is “problematic.” But who is to say that the book has to be read from a U.S. history centric interpretation or that a Chinese immigrant writing from her own experiences has to write from a U.S. history and culture perspective? Apparently, that is what Ellen Oh is saying.
But read and view yourself:
Francina Simone has a balanced take on this: https://youtu.be/C4S1p3KtZSw
New York Daily News: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-this-isnt-dystopian-fiction-this-is-modern-social-media-20190131-story.html
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/young-adult-author-cancels-own-novel-after-race-controversy?CMP=share_btn_tw
Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/blood-heir-ya-book-twitter-controversy.html
Tablet Mag: https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/279806/how-a-twitter-mob-destroyed-a-young-immigrant-female-authors-budding-career
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/books/amelie-wen-zhao-blood-heir-ya-author-pulls-debut-accusations-racism.html
None of these articles take the stance that her character is African American. If you remove that issue, the rest of the objections are pretty thin:
— She used Russian pronouns incorrectly
— She used Tropes
— She has a scene like Hunger Games where flowers are strewn around a grave
Read and judge for yourself. I’d love to get your take after you read these articles.
The other big issue is that if Ellen Oh is truly trying to support new authors of color, why did she call her out on Twitter instead of call her in? Why wasn’t her criticism of the book, still in ARC form, done publicly? Ellen Oh was the one who whipped up the frenzy of the Twitter mob to take her down. But why? Honestly? Why not behind closed doors? Why not DM or a phone call or an email? That’s what is the most surprising.
Hi 🙂 just wanted to respond to this part of your comment that ‘The character in question has “bronze skin” and “aquamarine eyes.” Ellen Oh and Twitter mob interpreted this to read as African American. The author does not concur. I believe it would be the author’s call as to the ethnicity of her character. ‘
Actually, Amelie herself has said that that character is islander/Caribbean on her blog post (titled ‘I HAVE A THREE-BOOK DEAL!!!!!!!’ if you want to check for yourself). So, African American. This also does link the character to US slave history, though I don’t believe it was the author’s intention. But as we can see she did herself give her own inspiration for the race of this character, so to say otherwise isn’t true.
Hi N,
Here is what I found on Carribean Latinos:
The Caribbean Hispanic
• 17% of U.S. Hispanics can trace their ancestry to Puerto Rico, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic.
• These Hispanics are primarily of European (Spain and Italy) and African ancestry.
• Most have post-high school education (community college course) or college degrees.
• Most are bilingual.
• Many occupy salaried and management positions.
• Most live east of the Mississippi, primarily in the New York/New Jersey–Florida corridor.
• Racially, Caribbean Hispanics are black or white.
http://www.hispaniceconomics.com/overviewofushispanics/hispanicclassifications.html
Here is another one:
Racial Identity Among Caribbean Hispanics: The Effect of Double Minority Status on Residential Segregation
“Carribean Hispanics are clearly distinguished from the majority population by their use of Spanish, their Spanish colonial heritage, and their Latin Catholicism. At the same time, they may be black, white, Asian, American Indian or some mix of thereof.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2117754.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
This is from JStor:
JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
We help you explore a wide range of scholarly content through a powerful research and teaching platform. We collaborate with the academic community to help libraries connect students and faculty to vital content while lowering costs and increasing shelf space, provide independent researchers with free and low-cost access to scholarship, and help publishers reach new audiences and preserve their content for future generations.
I can’t say if there’s racism or tropes as I can’t read this YA Fantasy now. Of course, readers can give their reviews and they are important when deciding to spend your hard-earned cash. But, readers weren’t given a chance to read the novel. That is also unfortunate. I also appreciate Francina Simone’s comments. I’d never heard of “Call In” but that method is more constructive, generally, in critique groups. For an unpublished book a “Call In,” seems more productive for everyone.
This is so disheartening to me. I hope that Amelie will get the chance to see the book published. I also hope that these women’s actions won’t result in a backlash and paralyzing effect in the publishing of diverse writers’ works.
I haven’t read Blood Heir so I can’t comment on its content. However, I do have some thoughts about this blog post. To imply that fellow writers were jealous of Ms. Zhao’s success is disingenuous. In my experience writers are thrilled when a colleague receives a generous advance. We know how much work goes into a book and we are happy to see it pay off for a colleague.
In Ms. Zhao’s letter to the “book community” she says that she voluntarily withdrew her book. She states that she wrote it from her own cultural perspective but now realizes many of her American readers have a different cultural perspective. Isn’t is possible that she withdrew her book because she wants to learn more about these cultural perspectives and perhaps rethink some of what she’s written and not because she was driven to it by a Twitter “mob”? She doesn’t say that the book will not be published, she simply states “at this time.” This whole blog post takes agency away from Ms. Zhao (such as saying that she “caved”) – that troubles me. She even states in her letter that she doesn’t want people to defend her and yet here we are.
Another troubling element of this blog post is the calling out of Ellen Oh and L.L. McKinney by name. Ms. Oh’s tweet does not name the author. It’s addressed to “Dear POC writers” and merely states that no one is immune from charges of racism. Surely that’s true.
“There has been pushback against Ellen Oh and L. L. McKinney who are credited with the Twitter take down of Amélie Wen Zhao.” First of all, that “pushback” has taken the form of terrifying death threats. Criticism of a book on one side versus death threats on the other – that’s appalling and frightening. In a response to Grace Lin’s comment here Ellen Oh’s name is combined with the phrase “Twitter mob” three times – that’s incendiary and unnecessary.
The insinuations in this post are ugly and do nothing to resolve the situation, in fact they add fuel to the fire. “If they were truly concerned with making Amélie’s book “better,” why did they go after her in public on Twitter? Why not advise her in private using DM, email, the phone, or a face-to-face meeting?” I can’t answer that question but I can ask a similar one of Ms. Wenjen. Did you talk to Ellen Oh or L.L. McKinney in person about their actions? If you didn’t, why not since you seem to think private conversations are far better than a public call out?
Hi Cheryl,
Ellen Oh and LL McKinney have been featured in many, many articles on Blood Heir so it’s way past time for private conversations. That ship has sailed.
Here’s an assortment:
Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/blood-heir-ya-book-twitter-controversy.html
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/books/amelie-wen-zhao-blood-heir-ya-author-pulls-debut-accusations-racism.html
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/young-adult-author-cancels-own-novel-after-race-controversy
Resonate: http://www.weareresonate.com/2019/02/chinese-author-slammed-for-anti-black-racist-novel-blames-asian-heritage-amelie-wen-zhao-blood-heir/
Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/ya-twitter-forces-rising-star-author-to-self-cancel.html
The Outerhaven: https://www.theouterhaven.net/2019/02/questions-arise-over-authors-decision-to-pull-blood-heir-after-accusations-of-racism/
Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/02/04/rising-star-from-china-pulls-first-novel-after-being-accused-of-racism/
NextShark: https://nextshark.com/chinese-author-anti-black/
“Did you talk to Ellen Oh or L.L. McKinney in person about their actions? ”
They made all their various ranty comments in public. Why should peoples’ responses not also be in public? If they wanted to hang around and explain themselves, they could just do so on the bloodheir hashtag on twitter like everyone else, instead of locking themselves away. It’s all hypocritical.
Hi Cheryl,
I left a long response to Tara that also applies to you so feel free to read that if you like. But what I want to ask both of you is was there a Facebook request by someone to leave comments on my blog defending Ellen Oh? Is that why I got three responses within an hour of each other even though my blog post and Facebook post has been up for more than 30 hours?
If so, can you please add to this comment thread the cut and pasted Facebook request? Thanks so much! The timing and exact nature of how Ellen is being defended is quite suspect.
As for Twitter mob, if you say that Ellen Oh and LL are getting haters and threats from Twitter, is that not a Twitter mob? If Amelie canceled her book based on Twitter, is that not a Twitter mob? It’s not the same people, but it’s still a Twitter mob. Are you on Twitter? I’m assuming you understand how things go viral on Social Media.
Hi Cheryl,
Do you what is troubling to me? That both you and Tara Dairman leave comments on my blog at almost the exact same time despite the fact that my post was up for more than 30 hours.
And curiously you both state that “Ms. Oh’s tweet does not name the author” which is not in any of the many articles that I linked. So you both have the same exact argument at nearly the same time of information that is not widely circulated.
It’s also untrue and while they did not tag the author or hashtag her, Ellen Oh thanks the author for listening to her and tells her that her book will be stronger for this. After Amelie makes a very public apology.
You should ask Ellen Oh for those tweets because she appears to have deleted them.
Hmm… conspiracy theory? You tell me. Or do please let me know who is coordinating your responses behind the scenes via Twitter DM.
I want to clarify that it was Grace Lin who asked authors on her Facebook group to come to this post. Grace Lin did this independently and not at the request of Ellen Oh. I understand why Grace Lin would support Ellen Oh as she is a board member (past/present?) of We Need Diverse Books.
So let me summarize the defenders of Ellen Oh and LL:
1) Amélie Wen Zhao receives a $500k+ contract for a trilogy geared to the YA market of 55% adults and 45% teens.
2) Ellen and LL tweet out that a book is racist. They do not identify the author or the book.
3) YA Twitter responds by outing the author and the book. This is a typical reaction for YA Twitter. With the author revealed, she receives “feedback.”
4) YA Twitter is the victim here, please do not refer to them as a “Twitter Mob.”
5) Amélie Wen Zhao self cancels her book.
6) Ellen and LL are in no way responsible for Amélie Wen Zhao decision to self-cancel.
7) Amélie Wen Zhao’s first book is definitely coming out and will receive no harm for this negative press. If anything, her book sales will be stronger because of the useful and helpful feedback that she has received.
Futhermore, she will absolutely receive all if not more of the $500k+ advance. If her book does not come out, she will definitely not have to pay back her portion of the advance she received. Amélie Wen Zhao is, for sure, not harmed financially by claims that her book is anti-black racist.
8) Ellen and LL do not provide any critical analysis for why the book is anti-black racist but because they are both “smart,” we should take their word that it is “problematic.” They do not nor should have to show any fact-based evidence that the book, which most of us do not have access to, is racist.
9) The real financial victims here are Ellen and LL so please donate to a fund which is buying their books to place into schools so that children do not get exposed to racist books with anti-black themes of US enslavement of African Americans. Because those YA readers who are 55% adults and 45% teens will be so damaged by reading those kinds of books. Thank god Ellen and LL continue to screen these damaging texts for our “children.”
p.s. As for death threats, we have all received threats on Twitter if we stand up to something. Here’s what I do. Separate the bots from the humans. The bots are not real threats. Ignore them. Report the humans to the police. This is a felony offense. I like to call the actual humans out and ask for a phone or face-to-face meeting. As for a face-to-face meeting, I offer to meet them at my boxing gym. They never respond back because they are cowards. They are bullies. They need a reaction of fear. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Don’t amplify your fear. Don’t go on Twitter with “oh my god, I’m receiving death threats.” Keep your cool. Don’t let them rattle you. They need you to be fearful.
I like this quote from Will Smith: “Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”
To imply that you know how they’re feeling is also disingenuous. Who wouldn’t say they were thrilled? I’m not saying that they did this out of jealousy or that they intended this to go so far, but they and their supporters don’t get to cast Zhao as a conniving anti-black racist who they conveniently didn’t name but also didn’t try very hard to hide and get to walk away clean. Pardon me, Mckinney backtracked in her twitter and said she never called for Zhao’s book to be halted and none of this is on her. Everyone is twisting her now deleted words. I’d have more respect for them if they were willing to stand behind their accusations or at least admit they were wrong. The campaign to buy their books makes me laugh. I’m not a YA reader, but personally, I wouldn’t want to buy or read books by people guilty of trying to censor someone else’s work. You can find problems if you look hard enough anywhere.
Hello Cheryl,
It’s incredibly naive to say that the author community is one big happy family. I write horror, and usually, horror writers are very supportive of each other, but have you looked into the romance community? Have you ever heard of #cockygate? If not, I would highly suggest you research it. Felina Hopkins ( a romance writer) tried to trademark the word cocky to stifle her competition. She even sent out cease and desist letters to other romance writers who used cocky in their titles. There are writers who try to trademark simple words such as dragon slayer, so no one else can use them.
I also had a good friend who was thrown out of an anthology and many accusations labeled against her because one author (who had more influence than her) did not like what she said on a chat. It was because that author wanted the biggest spot in the anthology. If it hadn’t been for me and other author friends, this woman would have quit writing. It happens all the time, and you can research it on your own. Publishing itself is a very cutthroat industry and if someone doesn’t like you or jealous of your success, they will do everything in their power to destroy your career.
So, I’m afraid to say that it’s not disingenuous at all about the jealousy being the main factor for pulling the book because it’s so obvious it was.
Hi BG,
Wow, I did not know that about the romance community. It’s ironic that romance is cutthroat but horror is not (given the topic LOL!). So my personal experience is in two different business industries. I started a women’s golf apparel business in the early 1990’s and designed and manufactured out of Los Angeles. My vendors were in South Central and East Los Angeles, some of the most gang ridden places in America. My embroidery manufacturer’s across the street neighbor ran a contract sewing company. He was Korean. He paid his workers in cash every week to avoid employment taxes. He was murdered for his payroll on a Friday. I remember the police cars swarming. I can honestly say that the clothing industry is the most cut throat and ruthless of anything that I’ve experienced (and they are not impressed in the slightest with your Ivy League degree :)!!
I also co-founded a staffing company. We are the largest minority-owned business in Massachusetts and as an MBE (Minority Business Enterprise). I attended work events hosted by and for MBE’s to represent my company, and if you are not African American, you are kind of on the fringe. We compete for business with the Fortune 500 and it’s actually quite a civilized competitive space where you have to work in partnership with your staffing competitors via VMS (Vendor Management Systems) to work with the client.
So… I’d say that on a scale of automatic weapon to water gun scale, I would give the AK-47 weapon to the clothing industry and the water gun to publishing. Publishing seems like there is A LOT of drama compared to working with the Fortune 500 companies, but there is no teeth. No one is being murdered for their cash payroll. You don’t take your life in your hands every day to visit your sewing manufacturing vendors.
Mia, I appreciate your passionate defense of an author you feel was wronged, but this quote is where your post veered into the realm of fantasy for me:
” This looks like a professional hit job. Ellen Oh and L. L. McKinney took out Amélie Wen Zhao and then guided their YA Twitter mob into buying their books. ”
Do you really mean to say that these two authors conspired and premeditated this? As some twisted way to increase their own book sales? I can’t swallow that. Ellen’s tweet struck me as quite diplomatic, actually–she didn’t tag Amelie or even mention her by name. And the content of her tweet is certainly something authors of every race and background should be mindful of as they write and as they seek publication. Not to mention the fact that Ellen and Elle have both received VILE blowback from putting themselves out there, including death threats. While, from what I understand, Amelie’s book has not been cancelled–it’s been pulled back temporarily so she can have time to rework the issues that several early reviewers raised, well before Ellen or Elle got involved on Twitter.
I think that Amelie handled what was surely a heartbreaking situation for herself as an author with grace and bravery; I hope that I would handle it as well myself. But Ellen and Elle were brave, too, to put themselves out there, knowing the kind of blowback women of color ALWAYS get when they stand up for themselves and their humanity. How will our industry ever move beyond casual racism if no one is ever willing to point it out and say “enough”?
Hi Tara,
I don’t buy that Amelie’s book is racist. Their interpretation that is not substantiated by their analysis. I would welcome their analysis on why the book is problematic, but “I read the book” and “I said it’s racist” is not enough.
And the end result is a campaign to buy their books seems disingenuous. Why not books not by them on racism to donate to schools?
“And the end result is a campaign to buy their books seems disingenuous.”
I don’t think that Ellen and Elle have anything to do with this, though. If they were engineering it, I’d take your point, but I believe that the folks behind this campaign are just trying to show support to authors they love in the face of the terrible threats both have received since speaking their minds.
You keep insinuating (or outright saying) that these two authors are behind a conspiracy to create this controversy to sell more of their own books. This is not true. And I’d bet my last dollar that they’d trade the handful of extra book sales they’ll receive for not receiving the death threats and racist hate mail that have driven them offline.
I believe that disagreement and debate are healthy. And I believe that you’ve raised some valid points here in your post (though I have not read the book myself, so I can’t engage on its content). But I don’t see why you can’t accept that these authors expressed opinions against the book out of genuine concern. Even if you think their concern was misguided and disagree with it strongly, can you respect them enough to stop implying that they engineered this situation maliciously, for their own monetary gain? I’d respect your defense of the book more if you left the personal attacks and conspiracy theories out of it.
Thank you for publishing my comments and responding to them. I’ll step aside now and listen to what others have to say.
Hi Tara,
The reason why I can’t accept that the authors expressed opinions against the book out of genuine concern is:
1) They called the book racist publically. If they were genuinely concerned, as part of We Need Diverse Books with the mission to bring new POC voices into publishing, then they would not have used Twitter as their dog whistle.
2) They called the book racist but provided no analysis, both when they called the book out, and in the aftermath. The many, many publications who have written articles on Blood Feud gave them a platform to detail their critical analysis of their perceived racism and they have not provided it.
3) It’s also a travesty to say that children will be harmed by learning about U.S. history of enslavement of African Americans. It’s part of the Massachusetts curriculum for 5th grade. In my elementary school in Newton, we have African American students bussed in from Boston’s inner city as part of the METCO program. Are you claiming that they are harmed by this curriculum?
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2013/05/5th-grade-slavery-unit/
In this case, Ellen and LL argue that YA readers must be protected from this. YA readers are 55% adults and 45% teens. First of all, they have already been exposed to units on U.S. enslavement of African Americans as part of U.S. history and social studies units assuming that they attend school (versus homeschooling).
This is the basis of them calling out the book. The book is anti-Black because it has themes of U.S. enslavement of African Americans. Even you agree that Ellen’s opinion of racism can rest on “because I said so,” do you also agree that any book with themes of slavery MUST be viewed as U.S. based? And if so, this is an issue for teens and adults reading it?
Finally, I don’t think that the bots attacking Ellen and LL or even the actual people on Twitter attacking them both were ever their fans of their books. So I’ll take a big leap here and say that I can not see how this will affect their book sales. These people were never buying or planning on buying their books in the first place.
And if concern about exposing children to harmful themes of enslavement is really their issue, then why are they agreeing to a book donation program that donates their own books rather than books that teach and educate on a subject that they feel is taught incorrectly, or not enough, or whatever they think so as to make enslavement in books harmful to the reader. And why are they donating their books which don’t even address the 5th grader learning about slavery.
If they want to protect the YA reader, why are they not donating their books to the majority of YA readership — the adult? They perceive the YA reader as being harmed by this book. And the YA reader is 55% adult.
As for conspiracy theories, several commenters on my blog have asked for their comments to be taken down. The reason why is that someone has hacked their WordPress identity and left comments in their name. They caught it because when their comment is approved, they get email notification. This has only happened in the past 3 days. I have been blogging for over 10 years. It has happened on this post.
Has anyone reached out to you to ask you to leave a comment in support of Ellen Oh? If so, you are free to leave a comment but you might want to research the full scope before you jump in. And I do think that they are using this situation that they created themselves but did not expect blowback to their own financial gain. It’s that while they relish the PR that it has generated, they did not expect it to go negative on them. So now you see backpedeling and deleted tweets. Ellen Oh’s tweet was, make no mistake, a dog whistle to her thousands of followers who then identified Amelie. This is not a new tactic. This is standard operating procedure for YA Twitter.
But what Ellen and LL did not expect was Amelie to quit and say that the slavery was based on modern-day slavery in China and Asia. Now, they are caught in a conundrum of their own making. They have to substantiate their claims of racism in her book. And now they can’t. So instead of apologizing for calling a book racist based on their own US-centric triggered reaction, they are saying that we called the book racist, but we did not call out the author. We did not ask her to cancel her book.
Amelie is from China and has memories of the Cultural Revolution through relatives, I have no doubt. My father is also from China and his friends who received doctorate degrees from UCLA along with him were tortured during the Cultural Revolution. I met one of his friends when I visited China. Though his English is perfect, he refused to talk about his experiences from the Cultural Revolution because they were too painful. But my siblings and I noted that he was missing three fingers. He is an engineer.
If Amelie is to be expected to realize that all references to slavery = U.S. based enslavement of African Americans, then are we not expected to realize that calling her out publicly = Chinese Cultural Revolution shaming/torture.
As for her book to be rewritten, reedited and rereleased and that this has no financial repercussions, that is not actually clear. I’m sure that missing the terms of her contract in terms of release dates has financial consequences. Whether or not the book gets released probably depends on the court of public opinion so you standing up for Ellen and LL probably hurt her chances of getting her $500,000.
Without substantial and unequivocal proof that Amelie’s book is racist, what Ellen and LL did was flat out wrong. So where’s the critical analysis? The attacks on Ellen and LL stem from this. They took down an author and now they are backing away from their leadership in this book cancelation. They locked down their Twitter accounts and, apparently, are deleting the related tweets. And they want the court of public opinion to donate money to buy their books and feel empathy that they are being attacked. They claim they did nothing wrong. They just called a book racist without revealing the book or the author. They deny that this is a dog whistle to call a book racist and damaging to YA readers? That adult and teen readers need gatekeepers to protect them so they are doing the screening for them by weeding out the “racist” books.
Awesome reply! And pointing out, again, that the US is not the be-all, end-all for everything, and maybe they should have backed off and stop complaining about something not hewing to the history of US slavery when the book has exactly nothing to do with that.
Hi Tara,
It’s interesting that my blog post and related Facebook have been up since Monday morning, but then, suddenly, you, Cheryl Bickford and one other author who DM’d me privately on Facebook are leaving me comments of very similar content.
So, I have a few questions:
1) Ellen Oh and LL said that Blood Heir is racist on Twitter without calling out the author though it seems like it was not too big a leap to connect the dots since all the publications have done so. My question is WHERE IS THE ANALYSIS? I am assuming that they both did a critical analysis on the book, pulling quotes and giving context.
For example, when Katie Ishizuka and I resolved to get Dr. Seuss removed as the poster child of NEA’s Read Across America, we provided analysis. Katie did most of this. It is here: https://www.pragmaticmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FINALNEAReportDr.SeusssRacismandRAA.pdf
I would assume that their analysis shows unequivocally that –> the character in question is of African descent and —-> the slavery references U.S. historical enslavement of African Americans.
I have not seen this analysis. I don’t think anyone has. Please produce it. I’m sure the Ellen and LL did it prior to their tweets or certainly in the five days since #BloodHeir exploded. Bonus points for getting Cornell West to back them up.
But since they have not produced any critical analysis, you (and others) are defending her on …. what exactly? “She said so.” “She’s protecting the children.”
2. Why exactly is U.S. historical slavery a taboo subject in YA dystopian fantasy? Is U.S. historical based slavery taboo in middle grade also? What is your take on Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chain’s trilogy, for example?
Is slavery really too painful a subject for teens and adults to read about? For context, my public school system, Newton Public Schools, decided that middle grade authors could not present to our middle schools on books in which divorce is a topic. That’s because many middle grade students (grades 6-8th) come from divorced families. So, it’s too painful for them to have authors speaking about books with divorced parents.
Personally, I said that this is ridiculous and your screening of authors is ridiculous. The person who is in charge of this decision has since retired, but it really is no different, is it?
3) Is there fact-based evidence that Blood Heir has an African character and U.S. slavery? Is Ellen Oh right and the author wrong that the slavery is, in fact, U.S. based and not modern-day slavery in Asia? Let’s see the analysis.
Because there is analysis on all those articles, blog posts, and YouTube videos that refute the claim of racism.
4) When the author canceled, though no fault of Ellen Oh … (oh please) just because she didn’t tag the author or hashtag her, if no one was supposed to connect the dots, then the dots would not be able to be connected.
When the author canceled and there was blowback because the limited analysis provided indicated that the character is ambigious in race, and that the slavery COULD BE INTERPRETED as modern-day slavery in Asia.
If Ellen Oh’s analysis is correct, then this blowback is wrong. If Ellen Oh’s analysis is wrong, then she create this shitstorm. But I don’t know. I haven’t seen her analysis. And if all she can provide in 5 days is –> I didn’t tag the author –> I read the book. —> I said so, then she looks like she, in fact, is wrong.
So … when you come out to defend her, show me the evidence. You should want it for yourself, I assume.
When Ellen Oh says that she does this to protect the children who actually are teens and adults, she is assuming that they are incapable of doing their own critical reasoning even though that’s what we, as parents, want our teens to be doing. And in fact, the teens that I know are completely capable of doing their own critical analysis. They, for example, would not turn in a paper: This book is racist and anti-black with reasoning of “because I said so.”
And now, there is a movement to get books into in the classrooms based on Ellen and LL’s experience that is … their own books. Not books on modern-day slavery. Not books on structural racism. Not books on U.S. slavery.
This end result may not have been plotted out from start to finish, but it definitely swung that way. So the end result is that a book gets called out for racism. The author delays or cancels her book (we don’t exactly know. I DM’d her agent, and have no indication from him what will happen). There is no basis for the racism provided. There is no PDF essay. There is no blog post of the offensive parts of the book. There is nothing.
So, where is the casual racism exactly? Is it in the book or is it what the author experienced? Because if it wasn’t casual racism, then SHOW ME THE ANALYSIS.
It’s credible, Tara, because the two authors in question are part of Justina Ireland’s crew on Twitter that has perpetrated this exact same type of attack on various authors repeatedly over the last several years. At some point, only extremely gullible people will still come running to the cry of, “WOLF!”
As Ray Bradbury said, “There is more than one way to burn a book. And there are a lot of people running around with lit matches.” What happened to Zhao is unconscionable, and shows that conservative cultural imperialism does not just occur with white people.
Your point about the kidlit Social Justice Warriors backing away from young adult novels and limiting their so-called “harmful content” critiques strictly to middle grade titles and younger is outstanding. Let’s stop infantilizing our teens. It is not making them better readers or thinkers. Titles by authors like Trujillo, Moriarty, Gantos, Strasser, and this one would simply be published and debated. There’d be no more performative ARC apoplexy. Not that those debates are fair in the time of theatrical toxic YA twitter mobs, but that’s another topic.
Know that you have many supporters out there. I’m sorry that Zhao felt she had to capitulate. Her book is now toast and teens won’t get to read it. Even an appeasing rewrite, as Keira Drake found out, will get torn apart as inadequate. The whole episode has been shameful.
I don’t care about any of this, but quit saying they both didn’t reveal the book title or Zhao’s name!
LL McKinney named the book at least TWICE. I’m pretty sure the tweets are still up, if not I can provide screenshots. So STOP saying she NEVER revealed the book title! She also went on a rant about the books synopsis, and if you were to google the blurb you would have found the book too.
Meanwhile, Ellen’s callout was so transparent that you can figure out 0retty easily who she was talking about. Like how many upcoming YA authors of (East)Asian ethnicity, who grew up outside of a “Western Country”, do you think there are?? Very few.
Also, this is from personal experience, but I only knew about the Jesse reporter when Ellen decided to retweet his thread while lambasting him for revealing Zhao’s name. So instead of ignoring him or not retweet his so called “damaging” thread ( which names Zhao) Ellen ended up spreading Zhao’s name further cuz we can all read it via Jesse’s. She essentially confirmed it by retweeting his tweet. If she didn’t do that, I would also never have known who he is or read his article.
The ppl who keep repeating Oh and McKinney never revealed the book title or Zhao’s name, please stop. It’s simply not true.
McKinney named the book at least TWICE during her rant. I’m pretty sure the tweets are still up, if not I can provide screenshots. So STOP saying she NEVER revealed the book title! Also she provided the books official synopsis blub to rant about it. If any one took half a second to google the blub, they would have found the book and Zhao’s name.
Also Ellen’s callout was so transparent that you can figure out who she was talking about very easily. Like how many upcoming YA authors of (East)Asian ethnicity, who “did not grow up in a Western Country”, do you think there were?? Very few. She made that emphasis. No one made her to that.
Also, this is from personal experience, but I only knew about the Jesse reporter when Ellen decided to retweet his thread to lambast him for revealing Zhao’s name. So instead of ignoring him, or do it in a separate tweet, Ellen decided she would confirm and spread Zhao’s name further cuz we can all read it via Jesse’s. It was literally dead in the center of her retweet. She essentially confirmed it by retweeting his thread, which she claims that twisted the truth. Ok. If she didn’t do that, I would also never have known who he is or read his article.
Mia, my observations of how all of this unfolded are different than yours.
I saw early conversations and concerns and tweets that followed. Subsequent characterizations of the conversations/tweets was way off and I view the Tablet and the Vulture article as intentional misrepresentations. And… the misrepresentations are expanding. I disagree with many things being said, including the idea that Ellen and LL put forth their criticisms in a self-interested way or that they’re behind the effort to get their books into classrooms.
I respect the criticism that Ellen and LL put forth, and I respect Amélie Wen Zhao’s decision. There are thoughtful things to say about what happened but so far, that isn’t getting any visibility in the media articles. Without them, everybody loses.
Hi Debbie,
There seems to be a Yes Camp and a No Camp.
Yes Camp says the book should come out on June 2 in more or less it’s current state.
No Camp says that book should not come out on June 2 in its current state.
The No Camp has not made convincing arguments as to why the book should not come out. I welcome their thoughtful perspective. Could you cut and paste it into a comment?
There have been a plethora of mainstream media articles that have come out where The No Camp had an opportunity to state their case. I’m not sure why their objections were not made clear to these media opportunities and included in the articles.
But out of thousands of YA book releases in a 12 month period (I don’t have an exact stat), why did this book get targeted?
Also, will The No Camp screen YA books going forward? Will The No Camp specifically screen YA books pre-publication or will it include newly released YA books or YA backlist?
Is there a The No Camp list of problematic YA books or is this the first one. Both you and I have flagged problematic books on our blogs in the past. I specifically do not blog on YA because I do not feel YA needs gatekeeping.
Could The No Camp please provide their list of problematic YA books and clarify their position of serving as gatekeepers moving forward.
Also, could The No Camp please clarify why they feel that YA readers need gatekeeping. I think it’s incorrect to call YA readers “children” for example. Also, could they specify who they categorize as YA readers, especially if they do include children as part of the YA audience.
I think there is plenty of opportunity for The No Camp to put forth their thoughtful things that they have said. They can literally cut and paste into a comment on my blog, for example.
And while you bring up excellent points:
1) Tablet and Vulture articles are intentional misrepresentations. I would appreciate you pointing me to articles that are accurate representations. I know that the Washington Post just came out with an article on this topic but I can’t access it because I am not a subscriber.
2) Ellen and LL putting forth their criticisms in a self-interested way. I would love substantiation on their position that the book is anti-black –> it would be helpful to have them, especially since they actually have the ARC, to pull quotes from the book and explain the context for their position. That YA readers needs gatekeeping. That slavery is harmful to YA readers.
3) That Ellen and LL are behind the effort to get books into their classrooms. I don’t think that they intentionally set out to get this book canceled as a means to get their books into classrooms. But I do question why this is a solution because really their books being placed in classrooms has nothing whatsoever to do with The Yes Camp and The No Camp and adding this fundraising effort into this equation makes no sense to me at all. And if you think about it, the person who seems to be the most affected financially is Amelie if her contract is not rewritten and reissued. Because we all know that it’s not so easy to not meet deadlines of your legally binding book contract and still get paid. It’s not an easy thing to “oh just push the book off for a month or three months and have her release later and she’s not harmed or her book release is not harmed.”
I agree that everyone loses when a book does not come out based on accusations of being racist and there no understanding of what constituted that racism in the words of the book. The burden of proof, though, lies in The No Camp. They have not done a very good job of stating their case. I don’t understand why they are failing to articulate their position in a visible way. If The No Camp can articulate why this is happening, that would be helpful. Saying that there are misrepresentations of their position without actually stating their position is a problem of their own doing and they should take responsibility for that.
Hi, Mia,
I don’t see this as Ellen or LL trying to get their books more publicity at all. I also don’t see that there was a coordinated anything. All this started happening because people shared tweets and articles on multiple platforms. As a result, everyone goes to read those tweets and articles, including this blog post.
I appreciate and respect the critiques of this book that Ellen and LL shared and I respect Amélie Wen Zhao for her decision to delay her book. If a writer writes a book, it is critiqued, just as those who critique are also critiqued, but going so far as to envision a scenario in which there is more going on than simple critique doesn’t seem to serve the ongoing conversation at all, especially when we’re all wanting better representation and for kids to read the best books we can give them.
Hi Tricia,
Can you please share the critiques of the book that Ellen and LL shared? I was unable to see the critical analysis that accompanied their calling the book anti-racist. I would love to see the passages in the book in question and their analysis of those passages.
As for YA readers, do you also believe that YA readers need gatekeepers to screen them from harmful material? Who do you define as YA readers? That stat that I have is 55% of YA readers are adults and 45% are teens.
I agree with Debbie that this situation is being significantly misrepresented, and I also support the actions of Ellen Oh, L.L. McKinney, and Amelie Wen Zhao. Ellen Oh and L.L. McKinney aren’t wide-eyed newbies in the realm of online discourse – they knew the right-wing trolls would come for them sooner or later, because they always do. The notion that they spoke out in order to financially benefit themselves could not be more wrong.
Hi Mike,
I replied to Debbie’s comment and I understand that Ellen Oh and L. L. McKinney feel that they have been misrepresented. I would really appreciate their clarification. Can you point me to an article that states their position accurately? Could you also cut and paste their position into this comment section? If it is too long, please give me a URL and I will include into this comment chain. Unfortunately, my blog tech only allows me to include URLS and not my commentors.
But I am just wondering why there is a campaign to get their books into classrooms in the first place? That doesn’t seem to be related to the issue of whether or not Amelie’s book should come out. I’m also wondering how you feel about YA readers needing gatekeepers to screen them from harmful material. Where do you stand on that? That is also the root issue of what happened.
I am saying as an independent critic in children’s and YA literature, that I followed the tweets and that I believe they are being mischaracterized. I don’t know how either Ellen Oh or L.L. McKinney feel and won’t speculate about that.
I don’t have a record of the conversation but I did–and do–think it was fair and reasonable criticism. It wasn’t “nobody should write about slavery for young adults.” Characterizing their criticism–or anyone’s–as efforts to protect young adults from reading about slavery (or any other racist episode in history) is nonsense. How things are depicted IS important and that’s what I saw.
A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ camp framework creates a false binary that completely disregards the thinking of Amélie Wen Zhao. I don’t think she “canceled her book based on Twitter.” She made that decision based on feedback that she thought has merit. That feedback isn’t available to any of us today but she Zhao saw it and used it to make a decision. Again, I respect what she said.
It seems to me that there is this tiny window of time there, several days back, that has import, but it is hopelessly lost to most people at this point. The three women there, at that point in time, know who said what and how it was said. Trying to characterize any of them to suit ones point feels like each one is being wronged.
With regard to criticism of young adult books, I do it. I know that most people in the US (around the world, really) are tremendously ignorant about Native peoples. They–in that state of ignorance–create problematic content in books for kids and adults. I address it in reviews and social media because letting it go, unremarked on, means it continues, unabated. Being silent about it because the target reader is not a child in elementary school means being complicit with a huge body of misrepresentation that feeds the next cycle. And obviously, I am not silent about it.
Regarding articles: I’ve read most of them, too, and they don’t vary much from one to the next. I don’t read that as an affirmation of anything. If I do see one that seems to do a better job at presenting all of this I will be back with a link.
Hi Debbie,
I don’t think anyone except Amelie knows why she decided to cancel her book. I think that when a book/author is criticized for being problematic, the analysis must and should be made public. I know that when you have an issue with a book, you provide a lengthy blog post with your analysis. I do the same. I really don’t understand why Ellen and L.L. are not able to provide their analysis whether it is to show their tweets or write up an analysis, post Amelie’s decision. Their inability to put forth their analysis is problematic. It says that anyone can mark a book as problematic without providing public analysis for how they came to that conclusion. This is important for both the community to understand precisely what the issues are.
For example, when Katie Ishizuka and I wanted the NEA to remove Dr. Seuss from Read Across America, she provided substantial analysis of his books: https://m4a7y5g7.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FINALNEAReportDr.SeusssRacismandRAA.pdf
It’s not fair to the author or the audience that reads those books to decry a book as being problematic without providing analysis. People are free to disagree with the analysis, but the people who take issue with a book in a public way have a responsibility to back up what they are saying.
I understand that slavery in YA is an issue of depiction. I don’t understand why that analysis of the issues can be provided to the general public.
Also I wonder if this is the only book that Ellen and L.L. take issue with? Will they be gatekeeping for YA in general? Is there a list of problematic YA books already in circulation or is it limited to this one ARC? How do they define the YA audience in terms of age range? If the age range is as shown through statistics, 55% adult and 45% teen –> the majority of YA readers being adults, is it fair to censor YA in this manner? Are they saying adult books should all be censored and that gatekeepers need to monitor books for adults?
Even if there were egregious misrepresentations in this book (which still have not been clarified), are they saying that adults can not have access to books with misrepresentations? And then, therefore, who is responsible for this monitoring?
Also, if you read Amelie’s book from the perspective of modern day slavery in Asia/China, are there still misrepresentations? I would be curious to see an analysis from both perspectives. This is the type of hard work that is critical when one calls out a book or author for being racist. It is not something that should be done lightly or casually. That’s simply not fair to the author.
I also respectfully disagree that timeframe for the critical analysis of why this book is considered problematic has passed. As with Dr. Seuss, it is never too late. It is more important than ever, I believe, to get that critical analysis and understand why the book is considered problematic. Other people are writing books as we speak. We all need to understand the issue or we are saying that an author’s book can be criticized publicly but no analysis needs to be available for those who happened to miss that conversation or window of time. That’s really not fair to the author. That allows for anyone to “take down” a book casually for whatever reason they choose.
It’s like saying, anyone can be accused of a crime, but no evidence needs to be produced at the trial other than word of mouth.
Hi Debbie,
Do you remember when The Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library was canceled? I signed the petition on that and amplified that alarm that went off. There was context given to why this graphic novel was problematic. It was also an issue of depiction. It was also done on Twitter. I actually never saw the tweets. The information given to me was a description of the plot of assuming that someone in a library leaving after looking at his phone is a suicide bomber. There were specifics.
The Tweet chain by Zainab Akhtar @comicsandcola is still available: https://twitter.com/comicsandcola/status/1064570705411493888?lang=en
She gives very specific context on why she finds the book troubling. She gives specifics on the book even though the book isn’t out. It’s enough from the tagline that she gives to understand the misrepresentation issue. The book got canceled, as it should have been. This tweet chain is still up and is available for anyone to read and understand. This is a graphic novel for kids not YA. The graphic novel is canceled, as it should be.
I’m just asking for this level of commentary with regards to Blood Heir. I’m really troubled it’s not available and I don’t understand the reasoning why it doesn’t need to be.
There was another book that was canceled by Charlesbridge. You wrote a long blog post on Beyond the Green: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2018/07/dear-charlesbridge-its-not-too-late.html
You wrote an open letter that gave context to the harm that this book would do. You explained the historical context. I think this careful treatment of a book’s issues is appropriate and necessary. The book got canceled, as it should have been. The book never came out. Your post is still up, as it should be, as a marker for everyone to learn and grow from. This book is middle grade.
That’s all I am asking for with regard to Blood Heir. If a book is troubling such that it should not come out in its present form, please provide analysis and context for the issues. Please keep this analysis up for posterity.
Yes, I do detailed critiques but I also do tweet threads as another form of criticism. Some eventually become blog posts. I know they’re read because in some instances, change happens. Sometimes I’m told about a change, but that’s rare. Some of my tweets (sometimes threads) aren’t about a specific book–but an overall observation of something (an example is playing Indian; another is how authors come up with names for Native characters).
I understand you want to see the critiques but I come back to the fact that Amélie Wen Zhao saw them and believed they had enough merit that she asked for a delay.
Hi Debbie,
Another possibility is that she saw powerful women in the YA community who influence book awards and reviews and she was afraid to anger them given that she is a new author and would like a career that extends beyond one book.
Hi Debbie,
I wanted to share how shame works in Asian culture. If I did something shameful, for example, not only did I bring shame upon myself, but I also bring shame upon my family. It’s not just my immediate family, but it extends to all my relatives. It also includes anyone who influenced me like my teachers and schools. I also bring shame upon where I live, so for me it’s the city of Newton. (If you live in Boston, that’s too big of a city for them all to feel shamed).
This sense of shame and guilt for not just myself but everyone that I know, brings tremendous pain and suffering. You will see a high rate of suicide related to this. In fact, young Asian women have the highest rate of suicide in the United States. Asians see mental health issues as a stigma and so there is a reluctance to seek out help from mental health professionals.
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=54
So it’s not just Amelie who would be affected. But it extends wider. I would think that everyone who worked on her book from her agent to her team of editors, to her marketing team, to the graphic designer felt that they put forth a quality product that they are all proud of. Now, they must be wondering what they did wrong. What did they miss? How did they miss this issue? There is definitely a financial cost to postponing the book, and even more so if it never comes out.
For anyone who is in the work of book acquisitions, they are wondering what the rules are that they missed. They certainly don’t want this to happen again.
Anyone who reviews books also wants to understand exactly why this book is problematic so that they don’t make the mistake of covering or promoting a book.
Anyone writing books certainly wants to be aware as well.
It’s like the new tax code for example. There are new rules on federal taxes for sales in the 50 states now but it’s not clear. Our government is still giving guidance. Last month, for example, the government said that if you sell in the US, you will be taxed if you sell over 1000 items or $10,000 in one year. But, it varies from state to state as to what is exempt. For example in Massachusetts, clothing under $500 is sales tax exempt but accessories are not exempt. Clothing, however, is taxable in California. So you would have to track the number of accessories you sell in Massachusetts but both accessories AND clothing items in NY. And when you hit that number of 1000 items or $10,000, you need to file taxes in that state. Every state is different as to what is taxable.
My point is that we — all of us — need to understand where the goal posts are in terms of what is now being deemed problematic. It’s not slavery per se … it’s how slavery is depicted, as I understand from Debbie. I would need clarification as to exactly what encompasses troublesome depiction of slavery. For example, rape is off the table? Or is it torture?
I think it’s pretty easy to take screenshots of the tweets or simply scrape them via cut and paste. They can be put into Instagram or Facebook as a post. They can be written up as a blog post. They can be written on a Word doc and made into a PDF. The issue is that we all need clarification. We are all affected by this decision to deem the book problematic. If this is the new standard, then we all need to understand it so that we don’t accidentally do it.
To say that the group affected is just three people is, I think, framing the problem with too small a lens.
Notice how you don’t see one anonymous person defending LL McKinney and Ellen Oh? It’s because if Mike Jung or Debbie Reese or Grace Lin were anonymous, they couldn’t virtue signal to their SJW twitter friends that they’re The Good People. They’re Woke. They make sure their name is seen so they’ll get the plaudits and hug emojis for being Such Good Allies.
YA Twitter is despicable.
Hi Alayne,
What is SJW?
SJW is “social justice warriors” — a term coined by white supremacists to refer to any of us who speaks up about representation. You’d probably be called one, too, Mia. It is derogatory and a cue to white supremacists to go after someone.
I view “virtue signaling” as similar to SJW. It is a way they characterize people who speak up about representations and use their name to do it. You would also be accused of virtual signaling, Mia. Your entire blog could be labeled that way. It is ridiculous, obviously, because every single scholar or professor or teacher or librarian–anyone– in the entire world who studies anything and writes about it could be accused of “virtue signaling.”
LOL, I thought Social Justice Warrior was a compliment! Virtue signaling is also a new term to me. I think I would be proud to be viewed as virtual signaling.
And I’m sure, in a few decades from now, what is deemed derogatory will be seen in a different light. It’s just like “slant” or “yellow” which were/are a way to insult Asians but now we have claimed that name … well “slant” as a term of empowerment.
I was proud to support the Asian American Pop Band “The Slants” who went on to win their Supreme Court case to win trademark protection for their band’s name. I just think that when people call you things on Twitter with the safety of anonymity, they live a fear-based life and are cowards. Real threats are usually not given as Tweets, LOL, but staring you down in the eyes, or not at all, and you are just dead.
My boxing gym works with women who suffered from domestic violence and it’s very empowering to actually know hand-to-hand combat and to be able to take sustained blows for two minutes. It could save your life. It is the difference of being a victim that doesn’t react to a survivor who instinctively fights back and fights back effectively. My kids are all trained in various hand-to-hand combat skills. My son who is small for his age will occasionally get called out to fight. He honestly says, “bring it.” I ask him why and he’s says, “Are you kidding me, mom? I’ve been training as a boxer since I was 8? I could totally kick their as*.” And when he says, “Ok, I’ll fight.” I noticed how the bully just slinks away. It’s comical. My only advice to my son is not to fight during school or on school property. I’d prefer to invite his “friend” to sparring night where the kid has to sign an injury waiver so there is no liability. Then they could totally go at it within the confines of rules and referees and it’s a healthy way to work out conflict. I know most will not agree that boys fighting is a healthy way to work out conflict but it establishes respect and alpha dominance which is the underlying code for our society. Who is alpha? Who is beta? Who gets respect? Who gives respect? It can be based on money and power to determine these power structures but I like old-fashioned boxing in the ring.
Is this a plaudit, Alayne? Because it sure doesn’t feel like one. There’s a distinct lack of hug emojis, for example.
I don’t comment anonymously because I’m unwilling to make public statements while hiding who I am.
Two days ago the NY Times came out with a follow-up story that is worth checking out: “When Social Media Goes After Your Book, What’s the Right Response?” I find it interesting that except for Francina Simone’s excellent response video, BookTube content creators (dominated by YA) have been silent on this topic. My guess is many of them are afraid to speak up. Call-out culture is no way to move forward as creators or as a society at large. If this self-pointed YA tribunal who called out Wen Zhao had concerns about the content of her book, they should have approached her privately. But then they would not have had the opportunity to promote their own books and virtue signal to their feedback loop. Whoops! It backfired. The blowback they are receiving is unfortunate, but perhaps they will handle it differently in the future.
I really like Francina Simone’s balanced take on Blood Heir as well. In 7 days, it has reached more than 18,000 views. It’s on this post as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4S1p3KtZSw
I also think that there needs to be substance to calling out a book like a critical analysis of the book via a blog or a Word PDF. I don’t really think Twitter allows for enough words to do a book review justice, especially for a take down.
I’ve been following this story closely, and wanted to ask you: if this is the current state of publishing, where mobs can cancel entire books, how do you completely avoid it? I’ve heard of writers who aren’t even active on Twitter get awards pulled from their books because so many of the industry gatekeepers are part of that mob. Any thoughts?
In addition, do you think this is the future of publishing, especially as the older folks die out and new ones (like those in this article) replace their seats??
Hi Trisha,
I think it will important to understand who constitutes that mob. If industry gatekeepers include nonprofit organizations who speak out on behalf of diversity, how much sway should they have over book awards as well as book cancelations? This will be up to the organizations that give out awards. As for book cancelations, I think there needs to be substance behind accusations that take down books. I think that a critical analysis of the problems in a book should ALWAYS be provided so that people can judge for themselves. It’s up the people who respond and amplify that create the mechanism for a book takedown.
You keep asking for evidence, Mia, but whatever it was, Zhao (and presumably her editor) saw it and decided to revisit her book.
What if it is, in fact, some very problematic content? What if Zhao has asked that it NOT be made public, out of personal embarrassment? What if Zhao is reading your blog and cringing every time she sees your demands for the criticism to be placed here on your blog for all your followers to read it?
As far as I know, only one book (ever) lost its award. That was Alexie’s ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART TIME INDIAN. I asked people in the field if there are other examples, and nobody could think of one. So… if Trisha can provide examples, that would help that particular conversation.
Hi Debbie,
I believe that the criticism was presented in a series of public tweets that are no longer visible. I have not heard that there was critical analysis brought privately to the attention of the author and editor. Is that what happened?
You are speculating as to the exact nature of why Zhao decided to self-cancel. I don’t think that we all really know beyond her public statement. I would imagine that going up against powerful people in the YA world would give anyone pause. Do you think it is possible that her publishing company warned her about going up against powerful YA authors with a lot of influence in both book awards and reviews? Do you think that would be a factor? Do you think that this ever happens in publishing?
Hi Debbie,
I’m sure that authors cringe at the criticisms that they receive that results in their book being canceled. Do you think that sharing the perspective on exactly what constituted a portrayal of slavery that is problematic is useful for everyone in our industry? Don’t you think that if this analysis is not made public then it would be easy for another author/editor/publishing company to do this again? It should not be about anyone’s feelings. This is to move everyone concerned about racism in YA and children’s books forward.
Are you planning to remove your post about Beyond the Green so as not to cause Sharlee Glenn further embarrassment? How is that any different?
https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2018/07/dear-charlesbridge-its-not-too-late.html
Hi Debbie,
Correct me if I am wrong, but are you saying that if someone has an issue with a book, they should:
– call the author/illustrator out on social media, Twitter in particular
– withhold your critical analysis of the book to the public
– lock down your Twitter account so there is limited access to your Tweets
– do this until the book is canceled either by the publisher or the author
Is the new model for book reviews? I’m not really comfortable with this.
Hi Trisha,
It sounds like We Need Diverse Books, led by Ellen Oh, do not see anything wrong with taking down books this way. Expect to see more like this from this organization.
I’m curious about the ARC distribution of Blood Heir, both digital and hard copy. Does anyone know how many ARCs were printed and mailed out and how many people accessed the Net Galley digital ARC?
It does seem strange if the ARC distribution was at least several hundred why only two people are pointing out egregious issues with the book with regard to portrayal of slavery.
If anyone is familiar with the Cultural Revolution, it was a reign of terror from 1966 to 1976. During this time, an actual mob would berate a victim, humiliating them in public. The victim would have to endure this experience, meted out with punishment which included “public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, hard labor, sustained harassment, seizure of property and sometimes execution.”
Anyone who dared to stand up for the victim would become the next target. I only know a little about it from first hand knowledge. My father immigrated from China before the Communist Revolution. He was part of a government program that paid for their most elite scholars to get an education in the United States. This was usually limited to PhD’s in STEM fields. My father studied mathematics at U.C.L.A. and had many friends from China who studied different engineering specialties.
When the communists took over, all these scholars were called back. My father decided not to return but all of his friends did. Twenty-five years later, I was able to meet one of them. He was a kindly and gentle Engineer specializing in acoustics. I met his family and his children. They prepared a feast for us that likely cost at least a month’s salary. (I can only hope that my father left them significant gifts). During the Cultural Revolution, my father’s friend was tortured. He is missing 3 fingers, for example. He would not talk about his experience during the Cultural Revolution even when I asked him. He said that he wanted to remember this reunion with his dear friend and focus on the happy times and memories.
It’s not a stretch to say that Amelie has relatives or relatives of friends such as my father’s friend who experienced call outs during the Cultural Revolution. It would also explain why she would capitulate to an online call out with an apology and a request for anyone to please not stand up for her.
Her Facebook post should not necessarily be taken at face value. Her decision to self-cancel is not necessarily that she agreed with the criticism of an anti-black portrayal of slavery. In fact, she says that she was referencing modern-day slavery in China and Asia. It would also not be stretch to say that she would know about modern-day slavery in China and Asia and perhaps is referencing this as a social justice mission of her book.
I think we have to be careful to characterize Amelie’s self-cancelation as a response to valid criticism that she agreed with and wants to correct. She never said that. She never said much actually. We don’t know what she’s truly thinking. We don’t understand what influences her decisions based on cultural influences like knowing China’s history of the Cultural Revolution.
I also think that if asking for the critical analysis of her book is wrong because it would cause her pain, I would ask why she was called out publically in the first place and given the critical analysis in private. That makes no sense to me. Calling her out in public via Twitter is going to give someone from China PTSD about the Cultural Revolution.
As with the Cultural Revolution, there are serious repercussions in not immediately offering deep apologies. Your very life depends on it. How your family is treated depends on it. Keeping all your fingers depends on it.
If We Need Diverse Books is saying they believe that a take down of a book ARC should be done publically through Twitter and a public critical analysis is not necessary, then we are going down a very dangerous path. They have tremendous influence in identifying diversity books for prestigious awards and in generating reviews. This power means that they can dictate what is appropriate for a take down.
It’s not so different from the Gang of Four. They could dictate that a mob could take down anyone they deemed fit. There was no need for a trial. There was no need for evidence. There were no repercussions to the leader of the mob. There were no repercussions to the mob. There were no repercussions to the person cutting off fingers.
Let’s let people keep their dignity and their fingers. Let’s not say that it’s ok to take down a book without thoughtful and careful analysis that is shared with the public. In the case of Blood Heir. There was no trial. There is no evidence. And that’s not right.
People have asked me to take down this post via Twitter. I have not. And just like the Cultural Revolution, I became the next target. For the sake of my father’s friend and for Amelie, I am standing my ground. And my fingers.
I would like to share some history that I learned recently that eventually has a point that relates to Blood Heir.
I studied AP US and AP European history in high school. I learned the material and received the highest grade on the standardized test. I studied History and Science at Harvard. I studied a lot of history and a lot of science in college. I studied the history of Japan for example, but I never really understood the history of how the U.S. changed the government of Japan after 650 years of samurai rule.
For 650 years, Japan was ruled by feudal warlords called Daimyo who were Japan’s nobility. Their army was composed of samurai. Clan warfare was frequent between Daiymo who controlled areas of land, not unlike a Baron in England. When the Daimyo united, a Shogun would emerge who would rule all of Japan. This was the government system for more than 650 years. It is the time when ninjas were also part of the Daimyo’s army as their espionage specialists. This is also a time when Japan was closed to foreigners. And by closed, it meant that foreigners like missionaries were killed upon arrival at the shores of Japan.
When clans went to war and one side lost, the losing clan would disappear. This is because the Daimyo family would die, either from war or from seppuku (ritual suicide). Which is to say, you fight, you lose, you die. The nobility who escaped death (daimyo and samurai) would become warriors with a master called ronin or join a Buddhist monastery. Those who were not warriors such as farmers and merchants would simply have a new daimyo as the governor who owned all the lands, the same as before, just a different person to pay taxes.
When Admiral Perry from the United States came to Japan, he refused to allow Japan to be closed to foreigners. He forced Japan to change the government by the use of force and superior weapons. Perry backed the Emperor who had been in a state of near house arrest during the time of Feudal Japan. The Daiymo were eventually stripped of their power and land. In the aftermath, many immigrated to the United States and started over.
By way of example, the U.S. is 243 years old. 400 years from now, let’s say a country with superior weapons (let’s call it China) comes to the U.S. and says that the U.S. now officially a colony of Great Britain, correcting the “rebellion” also called the War of Independence. And now the new government installed, replaces the president, and does an asset grab taking all the land and businesses of Washington DC.
The history of clan warfare in Africa is similar. Clans fought with each other for dominance but the difference is that the losers were captured and sold as slaves. The revenue from the slave sale was used by the winning clan in an arms race. This meant that more wars were fought in order to capture more slaves, in order to buy superior weapons so as not to lose the war and become enslaved.
Americans and others who served as the traders of the captured Africans were the intermediaries who supplied the cash and the weapons for this arms race. They, in turn, benefited greatly from selling the Africans from the “wholesale” price they paid to the African warlord to the “retail” price they got selling slaves in the Carribean and the United States and other places that allowed slavery.
In both cases, it was the Americans who provided the arms and benefitted from both systems of government. It was the American government who backed this system that determined governance in other countries. Slavery is an ugly part of history in the United States but Americans did not determine that Africans were to become slaves. It was the African clan leaders themselves who created this system of human slave trade. Americans were merely the financial intermediaries who profited greatly from it.
Now you might have heard about the Yanny vs. Laurel thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USHPhoXwQJM
There is a particular sound that divides people into two camps because one side only hears “Yanny” and the other side only hears “Laurel.”
I believe that the issue of slavery in Blood Heir is exactly the same thing. Some people only see slavery in this book as “Yanny” or anti-black U.S. enslavement of Africans. Others hear “Laurel” which is enslavement outside of Africans including modern day slavery that exists in Asia and China. Still others see U.S. enslavement of Africans as part of a bigger history of Africans themselves selling prisoners of war as slaves which, as in Japan, was an alternative to the consequences of war and not the only recourse.
So I am wondering if the “thoughtful conversation done via Tweets” that is not public is because it is a Yanny versus Laurel conundrum. If you read the “thoughtful conversation” from a U.S. history perspective, you can see the connection to slavery in the book. If you are aware of slavery in a condition that was much broader than African enslavement — that went back further in history and affected nations all over the world. And that exists today as well. Then you might view slavery in the book differently.
There is no right answer to the Yanny vs. Laurel question. Research scientists have determined that (from the Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/16/yanny-or-laurel-sound-illusion-sets-off-ear-splitting-arguments:
Professor David Alais from the University of Sydney’s school of psychology says the Yanny/Laurel sound is an example of a “perceptually ambiguous stimulus” such as the Necker cube or the face/vase illusion.
“They can be seen in two ways, and often the mind flips back and forth between the two interpretations. This happens because the brain can’t decide on a definitive interpretation,” Alais says.
“If there is little ambiguity, the brain locks on to a single perceptual interpretation. Here, the Yanny/Laurel sound is meant to be ambiguous because each sound has a similar timing and energy content – so in principle, it’s confusable.
“All of this goes to highlight just how much the brain is an active interpreter of sensory input, and thus that the external world is less objective than we like to believe.”
If the conclusion is that Amelie self-canceled her book because the slavery in her book could be viewed equally validly from two perspectives, it means that the depiction deemed as problematic if seen from one perspective, and not problematic from another. It doesn’t necessarily mean that one side is correct and the other wrong. It also suggests that one side can never see the other side.
I bring up Japanese history to note that Africans did not necessarily have to sells prisoners of war as slaves. There were alternatives. It’s also interesting to me how the United States was a shadow benefactor in promoting governance of sovereign states in both cases.
Is slavery in America anti-black or is slavery in America Anti-American? There is little in our U.S. history books about how America benefited from the arms race in Africa. When slavery ended in the United States, the African nations selling Africans as slaves no longer had Gross National Product. Their governments were weakened by the loss of human capital that left as slaves. The governments collapsed, the countries, with no other system of import/export, became poor. This is why those African nations that relied on slave trade struggle in today’s modern economy.
This whole thing of U.S. enslavement of African is anti-black belies the history of African nations who sold their own African people of rival clans as their main export to fund their government. It’s not anti-African. It’s not anti-black. Americans did not create slavery in Africa. They did not run around Africa capturing innocents to sell off. They simply benefited from this system.
The enslavement of Africans is simply commerce. It’s money to fund governments. It is what controls governments and rewrites history. And look how many times Americans are there making money from conflict and then writing history books as to obfuscate their true role.
Mia, I appreciate how respectfully you have answered all comments here. Two things I learned from reading your posts: 1. That racism exists between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people. Not being Asian, I had never thought about that, and 2. The way shame is internalized in the Asian culture, which leads me to wonder if since the author grew up in Beijing, she took this public criticism even more to heart than someone would have who had been raised in the U.S. Your call for analysis of what makes this book racist seems not only reasonable, but necessary and only fair.
I believe I am honing in on the root cause of the accusation of anti-black racism in Blood Heir. I will lay it out here.
The issue is that Blood Heir has a scene with a chattel slavery auction. Because it is a YA book to be sold to a young U.S. audience, it was called out for being problematic. Amelie, in her Facebook post, said that this scene is meant to refer to modern-day slavery in Asia and China. The issue, therefore, is that references to chattel auction slavery must take into account U.S. history of enslavement of African Americans and this book needs to be rewritten.
1) Let’s start with the definition of “chattel slavery”:
“Chattel slavery is what most people have in mind when they think of the kind of slavery that existed in the United States before the Civil War, and that existed legally throughout many parts of the world as far back as recorded history. Slaves were actual property who could be bought, sold, traded or inherited.”
https://fightslaverynow.org/why-fight-there-are-27-million-reasons/otherformsoftrafficking/chattel-slavery/
If anyone thinks this definition is incorrect, please comment.
2) Does this therefore mean that any books sold in the U.S. with scenes or references to chattel slavery auctions are problematic?
Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Huxley immediately comes to my mind. By these criteria, is this problematic also? Why or why not?
I will work on a book list of books with scenes or references to chattel slavery auctions over the next few weeks.
3) Let’s look at modern-day slavery. Does it exist or not? How similar is it to U.S. enslavement of African Americans? Should books sold in the US to a YA audience be allowed to reference modern-day slavery? How should a writer distinguish between references to US history of slavery versus modern-day slavery?
Here’s some background information on modern-day chattel slavery and modern-day chattel day slavery auctions.
This map shows where the world’s 30 million slaves live. There are 60,000 in the U.S.
This is from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8f46d35be159
“The country [today] where you are most likely to be enslaved is West African nation Mauritania. it remains so common that it is nearly normal. The report estimates that four percent of Mauritania is enslaved – one out of every 25 people.”
If you think this source is not credible, please leave a comment.
What Does Modern Day Slavery Look Like?
More than 45 million people are living in modern slavery, with Asia accounting for two thirds of the victims, a new report says.
This is from BBN: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36416751
If you think the BBN is not a credible source, please leave a comment.
People for Sale: Where Lives Are Auctioned for $400.
After seeing footage of this slave auction, CNN worked
After seeing footage of this slave auction, CNN worked to verify its authenticity and traveled to Libya to investigate further.
This is from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-auctions/index.html
It is dated Nov 14, 2017.
Title: Modern Slavery Practices in the Asia-Pacific Regions
Authors: Siddharth SUNIL
Sathvik CHANDRASHEKAR
Uploaded: 4 June 2018
This is from Law Asia: https://www.lawasia.asn.au/sites/default/files/2018-06/S%20Sunil%20and%20S%20Chandrashekar%2C%20Modern%20slavery%20in%20Asia%20Pacific%2C%201%20Jun%202018.pdf
It is my understanding that the accusation of racism and anti-blackness in Blood Heir that led to the self-cancelation and possible re-writing and release stems from the categorization of the chattel auction slavery scene to be viewed from a U.S. historical perspective of enslavement of African Americans.
The “narrative shifting” that is referenced in many comments in this thread, refers to the scene of a chattel slave auction in Blood Heir as referencing modern-day Asia, China and perhaps other locations around the world.
If this is not correct, please leave a comment.
–> The underlying issue that has not been resolved is whether or not author who are selling a book to US. markets for YA or younger can write or reference chattel slavery auctions without taking in to account that it should be assumed that this is a reference to U.S. history of enslavement of African Americans EVEN IF THIS WAS NOT THE AUTHOR’S INTENTION.
Is that right?
—> THEREFORE, I postulate that any books sold in the U.S. for YA audiences or younger that have scenes or references to chattel slavery auctions must be assumed to refer to U.S. history of enslavement of African Americans and are therefore also problematic.
If this is not true, please specify the circumstances in which the book/s is/are not problematic.
Let’s start with Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley
Is this book problematic? Is this book not problematic because the intended audience is adult? Is this book not problematic because it is sold as nonfiction but was written as fiction?
I would note that the movie roots is reviewed by Common Sense Media:
Roots (2016)
Movie review by Kari Croop, Common Sense Media for ages 14+ which coincides with a YA audience.
age 14+
Reimagined slave epic is violent but stirs worthy questions.
Hi K Tempest Bradford,
I will link all articles and blog posts on Blood Heir with relevant quotes to this post soon. I’m just a little busy right now with other stuff. 🙂 But stay tuned.
These articles from mainstream media also address the origins of the controversy and the responsible parties.
The articles by the MSM are full of misinformation, too. That’s a big part of the problem.
In our short US history (243 years young), there are many shameful moments that include:
– genocide of American Indians
– Trail of Tears
– Enslavement of African Americans
– WWII Japanese Americans forced into concentration camps
– Migrant children in cages
What constitutes racism in referencing these shameful moments in books? Why is chattel slavery auctions anti-black?
For example, there are many books for YA and younger coming out or existing about Japanese Internment Camps (in which I have a personal connection as my mother and her family were forced from their home in San Francisco’s Japantown and my uncle fought in the 442nd to prove that he was a loyal American) that constitutes anti-Japanese sentiment? I have experienced racism personally and specifically about this when studying U.S. history in 7th grade when I was called a “Jap.” And yet, I have no problem with these books, even if they are written by someone who is not of Japanese descent. For proof, please see my reviews on Lois Sepahban’s middle grade novel Paper Wishes on my blog. I also would never call out a book with Japanese Internment camp references as problematic without citing specific issues and/or passages with my own analysis. I would make this available to the public in perpetuity.
As a blogger, I have called out books, authors, and musicals that I feel strongly are problematic such as Dr. Seuss:
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2017/05/examining-dr-seuss-racism/
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2017/08/dr-seuss-museum-invite-then-crickets/
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2017/07/dr-seuss-museum-controversy-racism-erased/
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2016/04/dr-seuss-racist/
http://ilovenewton.com/racist-modern-millie/
http://ilovenewton.com/modern-millie/
http://ilovenewton.com/racism-in-thoroughly-modern-millie/
http://ilovenewton.com/nnhs-responds-concerns-modern-millie/
http://ilovenewton.com/mti-advises-squelch-dissent-modern-millie/
http://ilovenewton.com/nnhs-talk-talk-walk-walk/
http://ilovenewton.com/rebuttal-millie-newton-turn-stereotypes-lessons/
http://ilovenewton.com/50-asian-american-teens-bullied-school/
http://ilovenewton.com/modern-millie-takeaway/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/17/thoroughly-modern-millie-show-newton-north-high-school-sparks-controversy/pC96uyhrNKuyFSgAv2B1vJ/story.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10719544/US-high-school-show-triggers-race-row.html
https://intersectionc1.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/thoroughly-modern-millie-controversy-at-local-high-school/
I have also defended books and authors who were deemed problematic but I disagree with that analysis:
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2019/01/author-sandra-neil-wallace-confronts-an-attack-on-childrens-books/
Pragmatic Mom, you are an example of the kind of person I would like my students to become some day. . Arguing based on facts, not feelings. Wanting to develop children and teens into resilient adults, not fragile creatures. Understanding that all people around the world have been both good and evil at different times. Never fearing a book, even if the content may be erroneous or upsetting. Thank you for your leadership in the defense of Amelie Wen Zhao, French-Chinese-American. I could write much more, but that is enough.
Food for thought:
I am wondering if Amelie was an immigrant from Africa instead of China, if Blood Heir would still be considered anti-black?
I am wondering if the controversial character was described as being from a country like Mauritania instead of Carribean-esque if Blood Heir would still be seen as anti-Black?
The unspeakable truth about slavery in Mauritania from The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/08/the-unspeakable-truth-about-slavery-in-mauritania
“For all the government’s denials, slavery persists in Mauritania. In a rare insight into the lives of the tens of thousands of people affected, photojournalist Seif Kousmate spent a month photographing and interviewing current and former slaves. While there, he was arrested and imprisoned by police, who confiscated his memory cards, phone and laptop
Slavery has a long history in this north African desert nation. For centuries, Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, resulting in a rigid caste system that still exists to this day, with darker-skinned inhabitants beholden to their lighter-skinned “masters”. Slave status is passed down from mother to child, and anti-slavery activists are regularly tortured and detained. Yet the government routinely denies that slavery exists in Mauritania, instead praising itself for eradicating the practice.
Former slaves Habi and her brother Bilal, above left, stand in front of Bilal’s garage outside Nouakchott. The siblings were both slaves to a family east of the capital, but Bilal fled suddenly one day after his master beat him. After several attempts to rescue his sister, who was a victim of sexual abuse and forced labour, she was finally freed with the help of SOS Slaves in 2008.
Mauritania is a bridge between the Arab Maghreb of north Africa and darker-skinned sub-Saharan Africa. The ruling Arab-Berbers have higher paid positions in jobs and government, while the darker-skinned Haratines and Afro-Mauritanians are under-represented in leadership positions and face many obstacles in society, from access to education to well-paid jobs.
Mabrouka, 20, was a child when she was taken from her mother, also a slave, to serve with a family in the south-western Rosso area. Around the age of 11, when she was cooking for her masters, she was badly burned on her left arm. She still suffers from the pain. Mabrouka was 14 when she was freed in 2011, but was never able to go to school. She got married at the age of 16 and is now the mother of Meriem, four, and two-month-old Khadi.
Salma, above right, served for more than 50 years as a slave in a white Moorish family in northern Mauritania’s Chagar region. Her children were also born into servitude.
Aichetou Mint M’barack was a slave by descent in the Rosso area. Like her sister, she was taken away from her mother and then given to a member of the master’s family to be a servant. She got married in the home of her masters and had eight children, two of whom were taken away from her to be slaves in other families. In 2010, Aichetou’s older sister was able to free her with the help of the IRA Movement, after she herself fled her masters when they poured hot embers over her baby, killing it. Aichetou and her eight children are now free and live together in Nouakchott.
Jabada, below, is over 70. She fled her master after he tied both her hands to a tentpole, which cut off one finger entirely and deformed the others. She is now unable to use her hands. Taken in by another family who helped heal her wounds, Jabada stayed with them until her freedom in the 1980s. She now lives with her children and grandchildren in one of Nouakchott’s poor neighbourhoods.
Moctar was born into slavery in an Arab-Berber family, where he was forced to work alongside his mother and brother. In 2012, after several attempts, he managed to escape and met an activist from the anti-slavery movement. He tried to liberate his mother and brother, but they refused to go with him. His mother even criticized his escape and testified against him. “When I was younger, my mother told me every night that we must respect our masters, because their caste is higher than ours, and they are saints,” says Moctar. He started school at 13 and hopes to become a lawyer, in order to fight for the rights of the Haratines.”
I am wondering if the ARCs (Advanced Release Copy) were sent out in Dec or Jan around National Human Trafficking Month (Jan, Jan 11th is the specific day) instead of during Black History Month if Blood Heir would still be viewed as anti-Black?
This is from Twitter @NegardtheHorrid
There’s a lot of infuriating stuff in the Blood Heir/YA debacle but I think the one that really gets me the most was a comment about how it was still wrong for the author to depict chattel slavery, even if it was based on Asian countries’ modern history of human trafficking because the book is being published in the US for American audiences. How can you say you want diverse voices in YA and make a comment like that with a straight face? America is full of immigrants and the children of immigrants like myself.
We carry the unique history of our ethnic homelands with us. Are you really saying that isn’t worthy as a topic of literature?
That American kids (or the suspicious amount of grownass adults who live and breathe YA books) won’t understand that there is a world outside of America and that bad things happen there too?
I haven’t taken Statistics since business school, and honestly, it wasn’t my strength. I barely got out of Statistics with a B grade (which is the lowest passing grade for my business school), but I noticed something strange and would welcome someone to run a statistical analysis regression on this.
One reason that I postulate that Amelie might have self-canceled is that the publisher might not have wanted to go up against powerful YA authors that have a huge influence in ALA book awards and reviews.
Let run a statistical analysis regression on this and examine the R squared for that factor.
In statistical modeling, regression analysis is a set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships among variables. … Regression analysis is also used to understand which among the independent variables are related to the dependent variable, and to explore the forms of these relationships.
R-squared is a statistical measure of how close the data are to the fitted regression line. It is also known as the coefficient of determination, or the coefficient of multiple determination for multiple regression. 0% indicates that the model explains none of the variability of the response data around its mean.
Let’s examine who is publicly defending those who protest Blood Heir.
Please include:
– The people on this thread of comments
– The person running the $ campaign to buy books on behalf of Ellen and L. L.
– The three black authors and author/illustrators who threatened to pull out of KidLitCon unless I resigned as co-chair (https://kidlitconprovidence2019.com/reaching-readers-kidlitcon-providence-2019-program/)
Examine against all books qualified to be entered for ALA awards.
Examine against all diversity winners of ALA awards (all of them listed here: https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2019/01/2019-ala-awards-caldecott-newbery-and-more/)
Examine against the listed members of We Need Diverse Books, either board position or holding positions such that they were specifically listed on their website since the organization’s inception.
Correlate the list above by year (ie current members matched to ALA awards of that year).
Also examine by specific ALA book award (ie Caldecott versus Printz versus YALSA etc.).
Run the regressions and examine the R Squared for each variable.
I am not a statistician but this data is relatively easy to get. It would be interesting to run these regressions. Numbers don’t lie.
It has been suggested both on this comment thread and on Twitter that Amelie’s decision to self-cancel was made after a “thoughtful discussion” between herself and two influential YA authors. The author decided to self-cancel the book in order to revise. Their narrative further suggests that
“The book will be released at a later date. There is “no harm, no foul” and no financial consequences for a delayed publishing date.”
Let’s examine the stakeholders of Blood Heir to see if the above assumption both naive and incorrect. I have found that if you “follow the money,” you will see how a different and more accurate perspective.
Amelie (author): as a financial stakeholder, she received an approximate book advance of $500,000 for a three book deal. In addition, assuming her book breaks even, she can earn sales royalties. Given that her book has already sold foreign rights, which, to the publisher, go straight to the bottom line in terms of profitability since the publisher has no direct costs associated with this income stream.
Amelie’s agent: let’s assume that her agent receives 10% of her earnings. He would have already received $50,000 from his share of the book advance. In addition, he will earn 10% for future earnings specific to what Amelie earns including foreign rights, add on books, merchandise, and money earned from movie rights.
Amelie’s literary agency: let’s assume that Amelie’s agent splits his earning 50/50 with his agency. In that case, his actual earnings would drop to $25,000 (plus future earnings), and $25,000+ would go to his agency.
Amelie’s publisher: In addition to paying out a portion of the $500,000 book advance, her publisher has both set up a timeframe in her book contract and spent against her book release.
Let’s try to get a sense for her book release. These are just assumptions for how long it takes to get a sense of the timeframe.
Day Zero: Amelie’s book is acquired by Delacourte, her publisher. Amelie and her editor work to revise her book.
Year One: Her publisher sets up book promotion for one year after her book is completed. During this year, Amelie also drafts her second book.
Year Two: Book Heir is released in ARC form as part of her book release 5 or 6 months later (the necessary time to allow for minor revisions and hard copy printing and shipping from overseas). During this time, Amelie is revising her second book with her editor.
Year Three: It’s probable that Amelie is still revising her second book. It’s also possible that book 2 is gearing up for book release but usually that quick a turnaround is for high volume/high revenue book series where the “formula” is already set up and the author is capable of cranking out a quality product quickly.
Year Four: Amelie’s 2nd book is released. She promotes book 2 and drafts book 3.
Year Five: Amelie continues to work on Book 3 with her editor.
Year Six: Book 3, the final saga, is released.
As a financial stakeholder, the publisher has not only paid out:
– part of $500,000 advance
– financial obligation to produce book for sale of foreign rights
– overhead costs: editorial staff, marketing staff, graphic design department, legal for contracts, production for printing ARCs, ebooks, hard copy … what am I missing?
– Variable costs for printing ARCs and associated marketing material
But another aspect of the publisher’s financial exposure, which is loss of sales. The publisher, in creating a timeline for the release of 3 books (with specific deadlines outlined in the author’s contract) not only times overhead staff around availability to work on this particular book, but forecasts revenue generated from these books as well.
The publisher, for example, might be forecasting:
3Q19 Blood Heir launches –> generates $X
4Q19 Book Heir with foreign sales breaks even
1Q20 Book Heir generates $150k in sales
2Q20 Book Heir is projected to bring in $200k in sales
3Q20 etc….
through year six, quarter by quarter.
With a book delay, the publisher HAS NO OTHER EQUIVALENT NEW PRODUCT to put into its place. There is just a hole now in the projections. It’s not like the publisher can say, “Oh well. Blood Heir is delayed by 6 or 12 months. We have that other YA book that can take its place that we acquired for $10,000. It will now get a year of promotion and foreign rights sales.”
Whatever sales projects the publisher had forecasted into their financial statements has now vanished which impacts the company’s profitability and ability to spend since losses have occurred and now duplicate costs will be incurred should the book relaunch again. That would include overhead/fixed editorial, marketing, legal, production, etc. Plus variable costs for ARCS etc.
—> I would assume that all financial stakeholders would have a say in the author’s decision to self-cancel as they are all impacted and, the publisher, most of all.
The other stakeholders are the influencers. In this case, it includes the YA authors involved in the “thoughtful discussion.” They have no financial stake in this decision in that they earn $0 whether the book does well or the book does poorly. They, however, are perceived to have influence over how much money the book will make as they have the ability to influence book awards and reviews.
—-> Next, let’s examine books that are taken off their contracted release dates to be rewritten and relaunched. Let’s crowdsource a list of books that have successfully re-launched. I don’t know of any but please add to this comment thread those books. Even if there are no such examples, it’s within the realm of possibility, statistically speaking, that Amelie can have a successful new launch of Blood Heir.
—> My final point is about the nature and the timing of Amelie’s decision. The “thoughtful discussion” was done on Twitter but her decision to self-cancel was not on that Tweet thread. Does anyone have access to those tweets to note the precise time and date of those tweets?
I found this one:
LL McKinney is on (partial) hiatus
✔
@ElleOnWords
· Jan 28, 2019
Replying to @ElleOnWords
Y’all really let this shit fly.
Y’all REALLY omg.
LL McKinney is on (partial) hiatus
✔
@ElleOnWords
Explain to me how you write a book pretty much about slavery and oppressions suffered by the Black community, such as a system that uses not only slaves but people “arrested’ by the authoritative system in place to be used as relatively free labor, but “oppression is blind to
38
5:03 PM – Jan 28, 2019
—> This is dated January 28, 2019 at 5:03 pm giving Amelie a two day window.
Her actual decision was done on Facebook, dated: 3:20 PM – Jan 30, 2019
Amélie Wen Zhao
@ameliewenzhao
To The Book Community: An Apology
1,675
3:20 PM – Jan 30, 2019
Given that her decision was on a different social media platform and delayed from the actual tweets (I would love to have an exact timeframe if anyone can help me out), then I would postulate that there was sufficient time for Amelie to discuss the Blood Heir situation with the stakeholders and THAT THEY JOINTLY CAME UP WITH A DECISION.
There is an 80/20 rule in business. 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. Or 80% of your sales come from 20% of your services or products. In the case of publishing, my illustration would be out of 100 books on a publisher’s catalog, 20 books generate 80% of the revenue.
Finally, given that the publisher now has to incur launch costs a second time, we can see by the new release date if the publisher is also willing to invest in their marketing team spending one year to set up promotions for the book launch. All the book promotion that has been set up is now null and void.
There are several reasons why the publisher might not give the re-launch a year of book promotion:
Reason 1: Timing is important. Publisher wants the new version out as soon as possible.
Reason 2: The publisher feels that given the controversy of the book and seeing examples of re-launched books crash and fail, they are not willing to invest in this.
Reason 3: The publisher has a pipeline of other $500k trilogies and these book launches are already in the system. The marketing launch team that sets up promotion does not have bandwidth to add in another book that is not in the schedule. It’s also possible that the marketing promotions team works on all potentially high revenue books not necessarily confined to YA.
It is a reasonable assumption to make that without a full year of pre-launch book promotion, Blood Heir will not have the same revenue results as if it had the benefit of this robust marketing campaign.
When Blood Heir’s new release date is announced, we will be able to see if this timeframe allowed for rewriting and editing AND one year of book promotion.
It has been suggested on this thread that Amelie Wen Zhao self-canceled after a “thoughtful discussion” on Twitter. Conversations can be hard to follow on Twitter so I am gathering up tweets between the three relevant parties that I found on my round up of the articles on Blood Heir. I have not searched Twitter streams — some of the relevant accounts remain locked down.
If I have missed any tweets, please add them to this comment. The precise order the tweets is also unclear to me so if anyone wants to unwind the sequence, I would be most appreciative. Thank you!
Amélie Wen Zhao@ameliewenzhao
There are already so many barriers for POC and WOC in the industry. Why is this the hill we all want to die on? Please don’t claim to advocate for POC and then proceed to criticize us. Especially young, debut WOC who are new to this industry and breaking barriers.
Amélie Wen Zhao@ameliewenzhao
Secondly, if we found someone’s tweet offensive, what happened to calling IN? Wasn’t that supposed to be a thing? Infighting among POC, who are all fighting to get past that ~7% in children’s publishing, just tears us apart even more? When we’ve got a whole 93% out there to face?
LL McKinney
✔@ElleOnWords
….someone explain this to me. EXPLAIN IT RIGHT THE FUQ NOW.
LL McKinney
✔
@ElleOnWords
· Jan 28, 2019
Replying to @ElleOnWords
Y’all really let this shit fly.
Y’all REALLY omg.
LL McKinney
✔
@ElleOnWords
Explain to me how you write a book pretty much about slavery and oppressions suffered by the Black community, such as a system that uses not only slaves but people “arrested’ by the authoritative system in place to be used as relatively free labor, but “oppression is blind to
38
5:03 PM – Jan 28, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
See LL McKinney’s other Tweets
Dear POC writers, You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness. And colorblindness is extremely tone deaf. Learn from this and do better.
— Ellen “Hell No” Oh (@ElloEllenOh) January 29, 2019
LL McKinney
✔@ElleOnWords
It’s a book about fake Russia published in the us by a us publisher with a black girl who dies for a white protagonist after being saved from a slave auction. INTENDED AUDIENCE MATTERS.
Fiona Jacobson@SammyAur
Replying to @ElleOnWords
Because it’s about essential slavery and oppression suffered by people today in countries all over the world but, specifically, China? Skin color is not the primary factor there.
Fucking fabulous. https://t.co/t9NB17jPND
— LL McKinney is on (partial) hiatus (@ElleOnWords) February 1, 2019
Asian writer Ellen Oh also took aim at Zhao before deleting her Twitter account, posting a series of tweets on January 29th, 2019 that admonished colored people for “racism”. Oh wrote…
“Dear POC writers, You are not immune to charges of racism just because you are POC. Racism is systemic, especially anti-blackness. And colorblindness is extremely tone deaf. Learn from this and do better.
“Now I’m going to talk directly to Asian writers. Anti-blackness is real in our community. We’ve all grown up with it and it is our job to root it out in ourselves first and then address the rest of our community. We are all unaware of our own racism until it is pointed out to us. Especially Asian writers who did not grow up in western countries. Your lack of awareness may not be your fault given your lack of cultural context, but it IS your fault if you do not educate yourself when it is expressly brought up to you.
“And if you have the luxury of getting this important criticism before your book is actually published, it is YOUR responsibility to make it right. Do right by the audience that your book will be reaching. Do right by the kids who will be reading your book.
“I want my Asian writing community to succeed. I want the best for them. I want us to be better writers. I want us to be great role models. So I say this from a place of kindness. Listen, learn, do better. You have a responsibility to the kids who are your audience. And if you want to know if I read the book in question. Yes. I did. And I absolutely believe that it wasn’t the author’s intent to be racist. But intent can’t negate impact.”
I just linked all the media coverage on Blood Heir in my post and I have gathered up the “thoughtful discussion” of tweets between the three authors in the comment above. My takeaways are:
1) This was less a takedown of a “racist” book than a “real estate” grab by POC, drawn along racial lines. What is established from this incident is that only African-Americans will be allowed to write on topics such as slavery and police violence.
What Nora Baskin Raleigh feared in her TedTalk that white authors cannot publish on topics they feel passionate about if they are not #OwnVoices is proving to be the rule of YA.
https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2018/06/ownvoices-controversy/
2) We see a fracturing of POC as a unit of diversity in YA. Ellen Oh defines the Rules of Engagement by saying that YA books sold in the U.S. market must reference knowledge of U.S. history. We see #OwnVoices as the only safe harbor for topics that draw along racial identities.
3) The larger the book advance, the larger the target for the author. I would not be surprised to see a different contract for YA emerge. $500k book advances are starting to feel like a “real estate bubble” or a “dot.com bubble.” I’d expect to see much smaller book advances even for manuscripts with many publishers competing in an auction. Instead, I think that the book contract would allow for more upside for the author with less money for the book advance. This mitigates the risk for both publisher and author.
4) The rules of engagement for a book takedown do not include any critical analysis of the problematic book that needs to be public or remain public. This is a new rule of engagement and a very important one. It says that influencers can be anyone with a Twitter account. The number of followers is irrelevant. Reading the book is not necessary. And providing analysis is besides the point.
This new rule further supports #3 point that I expect to see large book advances decline in favor of smaller numbers with larger percentage royalties. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.
5) We also see that while the media coverage can be unflattering for those involved, a book takedown that allows a re-write still generates significant eyeballs. For any author, getting PR coverage, particularly national media is a challenge. We might see more debut authors involved in takedowns to generate PR that establishes their name because even bad PR is PR.
6) We see limited downside for those who take down a book (see #5). But if there is also a book GoFundMe drive on behalf of those taking down the book, their book sales actually will increase. So there is an incentive for wanting to take down a book.
7) For publishers seeking to avoid a book takedown, it’s clear that #OwnVoices is the safest path. My advice to Amelie is to rewrite her controversial character as an Asian #OwnVoices character and to keep the slavery portions, removing the slave auction that resembles US historical enslavement of Africans with modern day slavery. Perhaps underage sex workers sold into slavery??
I don’t think it will be enough to try to correct the actual points brought up in the Twitter discussion. The actual problem is #OwnVoices and the establishment along racial lines of topics in YA being claimed by particular groups of POC.
At the end of the day, this controversy has raised significant awareness of modern-day slavery in Asia. Perhaps this is the silver lining for Amelie. If she rewrites her trilogy as an #OwnVoices themed book, it also takes her out of harm’s way for her book re-release.
One publication brought up a good point with an analogy to a nude painting. If people object to a nude painting then putting underwear on the nude will only engender criticism that the painting is now ugly.
#DiversityJedi One who takes down a #KidLit or #ya book and provides written and public critical analysis.
#DiversityDictator One who takes down a book without critical analysis, thus demonstrating a flexing of power and influence.
My mind is unchanged.
Zhao made a statement. I respect her and her statement.
In your comments, you seem especially intent on harming Ellen Oh and We Need Diverse Books and you are using Zhao to harm them.
Speaking as a Native woman and scholar of children’s literature, I fully support Ellen Oh and We Need Diverse Books.
Many people who are bullied online make statements of contrition like Zhao did. One good example is astronaut Scott Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords and currently a candidate for United States Senate in Arizona, who made a statement of contrition after being bullied online. His crime was praising that so horrible racist Sir Winston Churchill, who helped to save the world from Nazism. People faced with threats to livelihood in Soviet Russia and Maoist China also made statements of contrition. Also in the McCarthy era here in America. Also in the Social Justice Warrior era.
Mia is right. There are #DiversityJedi who seek to improve a community of writing. There are #DiversityDictators who seek to wield power, promote the suppression of books, and make it impossible for writers to be creative in ways that they do not approve. As a corollary, #Ownvoices too often serves as ideological barb wire to protect turf. These are the lessons of the Blood Heir affair, and children will harmed not for what they read, but what they won’t or can’t, and the writers they cannot one day become.
I can’t really agree nor disagree with either side because all anyone has at this point who hasn’t read the ARC or has the ARC is hearsay. All I really saw was people discussing their interpretation of what they read or saying things about a book they only heard things about. I had to comb though a lot of reviews on Good Read just to find ones that were detailed and honest about their initial feelings regarding the story.
What’s really an issue here is the whole cancel culture that we now live in. There are tons of people who haven’t even read the book that’s giving their opinion on it, whether it’s in support of Blood Heir or not.
I’ll refrain from saying anything about the story since I haven’t read it, but maybe the publisher and author did find an issue with the story after the complaints. If there was nothing wrong with the story and any history related to the work of fiction, there shouldn’t have been a reason for pulling the publication.
I know there are some that says that you presented both sides really well, but you really came off as biased, especially in the comments. It’s like Ellen Oh did something to you personally.
In regards to Roots, I am definitely biased. I’ve grown up watching the movie on Roots every year, and reading the novel regularly. I don’t think that it is necessary to bring in another work to try and say if this is problematic then so is this. From my understanding, Alex Haley did a lot of research into his family history to get the core story of Roots. I feel like it would make it different from a complete work of fiction.
Have you had the opportunity of reading Blood Heir? What are your thoughts on the passages sited as anti-black or as plagiarized?
Why was Amelie Wen Zhao CALLED OUT on Twitter versus being CALLED IN?
If you are cognizant of Asian culture, calling in is a way to let the author “save face” versus calling out.
Saving Face Asian Culture
The concept is a core social value in Asian cultures, among others. The meaning has remained stable across time. Saving Face signifies a desire — or defines a strategy — to avoid humiliation or embarrassment, to maintain dignity or preserve reputation.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/chronic-healing/201011/saving-face
Amélie Wen Zhao
@ameliewenzhao
11 May 2018
More
Secondly, if we found someone’s tweet offensive, what happened to calling IN? Wasn’t that supposed to be a thing? Infighting among POC, who are all fighting to get past that ~7% in children’s publishing, just tears us apart even more? When we’ve got a whole 93% out there to face?
“Notably, the YA culture wars are largely about the Left eating its own. The targeted books almost invariably get attacked for things intended to promote “social justice.” Drake apparently meant for Continent to be an exploration of “privilege” and blindness to the suffering of the less advantaged. Before the storm, Zhao wrote that she wanted Blood Heir to be a reflection on the mistreatment of the “different,” from her vantage point as “a foreigner in Trump’s America.””
From The Quilette, Young Adult Fiction’s Online Commissars
https://quillette.com/2019/02/04/ya-fictions-online-commissars/
This part of the quote resonates for me.
I was the co-organizer of KidLitCon and was forced to resign after the three black authors and author/illustrator on panels threatened to pull out. KidLitCon in Providence was the first KidLit conference of its kind in that every single panel had diversity representation.
I wanted to take a moment to let those involved acknowledge their role in this if they so choose.
The result is that while the three black authors and author/illustrator are coming, there is a net loss of seven presenters in total who are not coming in counter-protest.
This letter was issued from the now, sole, organizer:
I want to expand on and clarify the message I sent to you earlier this week. I’d like to start by saying I completely support Mia’s right to her opinions and completely support the right to all of you to have your own opinions in this particular discussion. Unfortunately, Kidlitcon as an entity became enmeshed in a toxic embroilment on twitter when Mia, the person, and Kidlitcon, the abstract entity of the conference, were conflated. My point in the original message was to make you aware of that the situation was creating toxicity for the conference. I wish that the distinction between Mia’s own voice and the conference had remained clearer, but since this was not the case, it seemed best for the conference to distance itself from the controversy, and for Mia to step down as co-organizer. Past organizers of Kidlitcon have worked hard to make Kidlitcon a venue for frank, safe and respectful discussions of many controversial topics, and I hope that this year’s conference will prove to be such a place.
Mia has put tremendous effort into the program, spearheading the conference’s commitment to bringing diversity to every panel. This was her vision from the beginning, and she’s succeeded in bringing it to fruition, for which I am very grateful. She’s also invested considerable time and energy handling the website and registration; without her, the conference program wouldn’t be anywhere near the excellent program it is today.”
Does anyone know who created the Facebook post below? This Facebook post is attached to the tweet below but Facebook identity is not identified.
———
Kat Rosenfield , Verified account, @katrosenfield Feb 22
The screenshot below is the best example I’ve seen of this argument. Nothing to see here, folks! Just the system of critique working as it’s designed to! Everyone who reported on this got it wrong!
This is pretty effective PR. It’s also 100% not true.
“An Asian author wrote a novel that hinged on harmful anti-black tropes. Bloggers and early readers pointed it out to me in private. I brought it to the private KidLit FB group that I run, posting an intra-community discussion that we Asian folks have to fight prejudice and anti-blackness in our community.
A couple of authors — Ellen Oh, who is Korean, and L. L. McKinney, who is black — read the book, confirmed that it did in fact feature these racist tropes, and pointed it out on Twitter.
The Asian author listened to the critique and pulled the book for further rewrites and edits. Everything was fine. The system of critique and response was working.”
Kat Rosenfield, Verified account, @katrosenfield Feb 22
And if you think about this for even a second, you’ll realize it’s not true! By the time an ARC exists, the editorial process (including sensitivity reads if necessary) is complete. The story is ready to be read. The story is *done*. That’s what ARC means: advance *reader* copy.
Kat Rosenfield, Verified account @katrosenfield Feb 22
So when a publisher sends out a hundred ARCs, it’s not because they’re looking to rewrite the story based on feedback from Joe Book Blogger and all his internet friends. (I mean. Can you even imagine?) Anyone who tells you that this is how publishing works is lying to you.
Kat Rosenfield, Verified account @katrosenfield Feb 22
A final note on YA stuff – which we discuss in the latest Feminine Chaos (at 36:00) but which I think is important enough to merit extra emphasis: Despite what some have retroactively tried to claim, the Blood Heir saga is not an example of the normal editorial process in action.
Naomi Barton @shutter_j
Replying to @katrosenfield
“Confirmed”. FFS. Neither of them are in a position to “confirm” anything.
Those who have participated in the takedown of Amelie’s book have helped to normalize it to the point that it takes down one of its own. Karma is real!
He Was Part of a Twitter Mob That Attacked Young Adult Novelists. Then It Turned on Him. Now His Book Is Canceled.
Kosoko Jackson, a gay black author writing about a gay black protagonist, gets taken down by the YA Twitterati.
https://reason.com/archives/2019/02/28/he-was-part-of-a-twitter-mob-that-attack
And thanks for including KidLitCon controversy:
“Thanks to pressure from Jackson and others, the “keys” to KidLitCon were taken away from one of its co-owners, a woman of color who authored the tweet questioning McKinney, and full control was given to a white woman with the “correct” stance on the Zhao controversy:”
–> The result of removing me from KidLitCon are:
–> 7 panels are no longer coming in a counter-protest. 1 panelist is not coming due to personal issues. 8 panels are hard to replace with less than one month to go
–> I built the KidLitCon website which also processes ticket sales which now seems to be “glitchy.” Actually, they should check the backside of KidLitCon ORDERS tab which lists all the orders and how they were generated. Also, use that tab to enter in the email address for notification. It’s really not that hard.
KidLitCon @KidLitCon Feb 28
If you registered for Kidlitcon on yesterday, Feb 27 (orders 1248 and 1249) could you email me please? charlotteslibrary@gmail.com
KidLitCon @KidLitCon Feb 28
Did you register for Kidlitcon in the past week? Our woocommerce plugin failed us and we didn’t get your registration details! Let me know if you were one of those people I have no information about….(sigh) And if you haven’t registered yet, please email your info directly.
—————
Here’s a list of some of the players involved in YA Takedowns from Reddit:
http://archive.is/xAjg3#selection-575.0-739.377
This has been going on for so long with basically the same names every time that I’ve ceased to find it disturbing and now find it amusing. It’s very much a snake eating its own tail now. Seriously, surest way to get attacked by woke ya twitter is to be a part of woke ya twitter
Just made a list of what I could remember of ya twitter controversies (not dick soap but versus people) and critical players off the top of my head and the list is stunningly long! I’m not pubbed yet so I don’t have access to all the drama that must happen on Facebook tragically but maybe someone else can fill us in?
Can anyone add some more? I’m certain I’ve left a bunch off. I stuck with the main names of big players though there are tons of supporting players you see over and over again (like Scott Westerfeld’s wife, for example)
—- Kathleen Hale writes an article about stalking a reviewer and YA twitter assails.
Ellen Oh leads Twitter against Andrew Smith for saying he didn’t understand women, thus is sexist.
Ellen Oh leads Twitter against a book with a romance between a Jew and a Nazi
Justina Ireland is at Hamline MFA posting about being in tears when a professor says not to listen to outrage mob. Ellen Oh publicly assails the professor over Twitter in angry caps lock for being racist.
Tristina Wright and others accuse Sunil Patel and Greg Andree of harassment
Justina Ireland and other twitter people get angry at A Fine Dessert for being racist.
Ellen Oh is offended by Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park for anti-Asian racism.
Ellen Oh and co are offended by a writer’s book about a white girl in Korea centered around KPOP (name escapes me).
Michael Grant states he had diversity in all his books. Justina Ireland goes to war with him. They have repeated conflicts on and off Twitter.
VE Schwab does… something and gets attacked. Bre Faucheaux defends and states she doesn’t care about diversity. LL McKinney, Justina Ireland, Tristina Wright, Hannanh Moskowitz and Heidi Heilig lead twitter in anger. VE Schwab disavows Bre’s defense and also attacks.
The author of The Cruelty offends Twitter by implying YA is not complicated. Twitter mob assails the author. Justina Ireland and Victoria aveyard were in the lead as I remember
Justina Ireland posts a tweet by tweet attack on The Continent, causing Keira Drake to withdraw the book for revisions. Deb Reese on behalf of Native Americans takes offense and also leads an attack.
Keira drakes husband got into it with Justina and Camryn Garrett as well and people were outraged at attacks on CG for being underage (though she initiated)
Roxane Gay was involved at some point and that same trick with CG? Or some underage member of the brigade did not fly with her
YA Twitter attacks reviewer Emily May for being racist in reviews of poc
YA Twitter goes after former member, Kelly Jensen, for something
Justina Ireland posts a tweet by tweet attack on Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth for racism. She is joined by Heidi Heilig, LL McKinney, and Tristina Wright.
In the course of her explanations, Veronica Roth speaks of chronic pain being her main character’s gift. Tristina Wright and Laura Silverman claim to be chronic pain sufferers who lead the attack on her, which Justina and LL McKinney and Heidi Heilig join
LL McKinney is enraged with Jodi Meadows for being white and writing a black main character, and her main character getting a black-girl-in-a-dress cover before a black author can have it. Repeatedly attempts to stir the Twitter community in an attack on her.
Justina states bisexual means attraction to two genders. Tristina Wright attacked Justina Ireland for biphobia. Temporary withdrawal of Justina from social media. LL McKinney refrains from joining the attack and Heidi Heilig squirms awkwardly and receives mild rebukes for not daring to speak against Justina.
TheB00kwitch attacks The Black Witch by Laurie Forest for racism. Justina Ireland, Tristina Wright, LL McKinney, and Heidi Heilig are all onboard going after the book for racism.
#Metoo attacks on authors for sexual harassment. Many male authors are named, including James Dashner and Jay Asher. Tristina Wright named by someone who says she’s a teenage girl. Justina Ireland joins up with LL McKinney and Heidi Heilig others to take her down
Maggie Stiefvater is assailed for writing about a Latino family. Twitter uproar ensues. LL McKinney is upset with a white writer writing poc.
An American terrorist gets outcry and canceled
Similar book about a terrorist at a library
Some book in bad Ebonics offends Justina and co and gets canceled
Tristina Wright leads Twitter against VOYA for being biphobic.
Laura Moriarty’s book about Muslims in a concentration camp is attacked by Justina Ireland, Heidi Heilig, LL McKinney and the usual suspects. A book with the same premise is shortly sold by a Muslim author to great acclaim.
Sarah J Maas’s books are assailed for not featuring enough people of color, for having a dead person of color, for not enough gay representation. The usual suspects participate.
Amelie Zhao is assailed by Ellen Oh and LL McKinney for a racist book and withdraws her book. Public backlash drives Ellen Oh off social media. One author in this attack Kosoko Jackson.
The author of Children of Blood and Bone attacks Nora Roberts for plagiarizing her title. Most of the YA world sides with Nora Roberts.
LL McKinney and others upset over a book by EJ Levy that they say misgenders and with Little Brown for permitting it
Kosoko Jackson’s book is assailed by someone named Tamera for Islamophobia due to having a Muslim villain during the Kosovo genocide. Heidi Heilig has blurbed the book. She recants instantly.
A bunch of other deb Reese things with regards to books about native Americans
A bunch of other #metoo scandals —-
And that’s just what I remember. Does anyone remember any others? There needs to be a ya twitter scandal wiki.
I know there’s probably some Cassandra Clare stuff I’m not remembering, too
It’s actually funny when you realize how insane these people are.
Let them rage. Just don’t let it upset you and raise your blood pressure like it does theirs. Looking at the massive list, I can’t imagine how stressful it would be to get upset so often over so many inconsequential things. They will fight a war without end until their last days at this rate because there’s always going to be something upsetting and oppressive tormenting them
I just pre-ordered my copy of Blood Heir. Here’s the book’s current ranking in Amazon as of May 1, 2019, 11:00am:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#10 in Teen & Young Adult Girls & Women Fiction
#22 in Teen & Young Adult Fantasy Romance
#32 in Teen & Young Adult Epic Fantasy
It’s hard to say if how the release of her book is affected by the criticism of her book that caused her cancellation. Only if her book hits #1 in Amazon Best Sellers Rank at some point in time can anyone say that the self-cancellation didn’t affect book sales. Because, honestly, who can know?
The New York Times interviews Amélie Wen Zhao on her self-cancelation and revisions:
New York Times: She Pulled Her Debut Book When Critics Found It Racist. Now She Plans to Publish.
Amélie Wen Zhao canceled publication of her young adult novel, “Blood Heir,” because of online criticism. Then she decided the critics were wrong.
“What I sought to interrogate and critique was the modern-day epidemic of human trafficking and endured labor,” Zhao said. “It wasn’t something I had seen in Y.A. literature.”
After Zhao decided she wanted to release the book, she and her publisher sought feedback from scholars and sensitivity readers in an effort to resolve any ambiguity around the type of indentured labor depicted. They had academics from different multicultural backgrounds, as well as one who studies human trafficking in Asia, evaluate the text, and Zhao added new material and made changes based on their comments. They had additional sensitivity readers vet the book for racial and other stereotypes.
And this from Publishers Weekly:
According to an interview with Zhao just published in the New York Times, Zhao reread her novel several times, “examining the plot and characters to see if the critics were right. She decided they weren’t,” but still made some revisions. Delacorte then sent the revised version of Blood Heir to scholars and to sensitivity readers to evaluate the text, and Zhao made further revisions based on their feedback.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/79914-controversial-ya-novel-pulled-by-author-to-be-published-this-fall.html
Thank you for all of your work.
It’s disturbing to see how YA has disintegrated into Twitter Tribunals, astroterm campaigns as seen in the comments section here, and blatant censorship disguised as “protection”, but not entirely surprising. A few years back the mainstream Sci-Fi/Fantasy community had to come to a reckoning with the issue of Winterfox/Requires Only that You Hate, a sociopath who hijacked “woke” discourse in order to play the perpetual bully and to shut down other Asian authors-perceived-as-competitors. You can read Mixon’s Hugo-winning blog on it, the tactics and subterfuge, cultish behavior and ulterior motives are fairly identical. The augmentation of the Culture Wars vis-a-vis Trumpism has only exacerbated the extremist ideological trends, to the point that extreme leftists now mirror the Moral Majority concern-police of the 1980’s.
I don’t read YA, but will be checking out Amelie’s work.
Some will say that all’s well that end’s well since Blood Heir now has a release date, but I think the fundamental issue comes down to censorship. The issue with this YA trilogy is that the worldbuilding fantasy was created around a controversial construct: a world where race isn’t an issue. Apparently Martin Luther King, Junior is allowed to dream about such a world, but no one is allowed to write about it. Even in Young Adult Fantasy. Let me repeat … even in fantasy meant for an adult audience. Is this really the world that we want to support? If so, then perhaps we all live in a dystopian world where we are expected to believe “alternative facts” and censorship is the new reality. Maybe wizards living among humans is a go, or vampires that sparkle in sun, or even a kind of gladiator Olympics for kids who have to fight to the death. But for anyone who hopped on the bandwagon to censor Blood Heir, beware. Be careful what you wish for. Because just as Amelie Wen Zhao left China where censorship is the norm, you are imposing it on her.