“With your help, Rochelle Humes and Little Box of Books are going to send thousands of diverse and inclusive storybooks to primary schools all over the UK. We want our children to grow up to be anti-racist, to grow up understanding that ‘normal’ is different for everyone. We need children to understand and celebrate diversity and to see themselves represented in all aspects, and at all levels, of society. Change begins with children.” Great initiative that can use some dollars if you’re looking to financially help. “So, back to the previous line of questioning; why didn’t you hear about The Nightmare-Verse, or many other stories by Black authors? Because our books don’t center on Black pain. In the industry, stories about police brutality, the struggle, poverty, etc. have been dubbed “issue” books, and it’s a not-so-secret secret that if your book doesn’t fall into this category, it won’t get any real push or marketing. These are the “right” Black books I referenced earlier. Nearly all other Black books are treated as less important. They’re denied the time and resources needed to make them successful. They’re ignored by the industry, by librarians, by awards committees, by schools, and yes, even by certain readers. Unless, of course, there’s a protest going on. Then everyone wants those ally cookies, nom nom.” L.L. McKinney on publishing’s commodification of Black pain. “On social media the night of the premiere, you had white people on Twitter at first assuming it was fiction, then being rightly horrified to find out it wasn’t, and then you had a lot of black Twitter being grateful that someone had finally dramatized this event for a mass audience. The day after, a friend sent me a tweet with a Google Trends search for the Tulsa massacre, the graphic showing the spike overnight from Sunday night to Monday morning of how many people were Googling it. That, to me, was exciting. Seeing how valuable storytelling can be in getting people to know the history of their country and the world, it was very gratifying. It is something that deserves to be told, and if we can play a small part in helping people learn more about America, then I was really happy with that.” HBO’s Watchmen writer, Cord Jefferson, on the show and *gestures wildly at everything.
