(The following was in the ‘Book News’ section of my weekly Nonfiction Views series for the DKos Readers and Book Lovers Group, but I thought it was worth a stand-alone diary. I’ve expanded the content a bit as well.)
The American Bookseller Association came under withering criticism from booksellers and others for including a copy of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters in their monthly ‘White Box’ of books, advance copies and promotional materials sent out to 750 independent bookstores. The ABA quickly issued an apology, which was strong in some ways, but was quickly criticized for the way it opened in the passive voice:
An anti-trans book was included in our July mailing to members. This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA’s ends policies, values, and everything we believe and support. It is inexcusable.
We apologize to our trans members and to the trans community for this terrible incident and the pain we caused them. We also apologize to the LGBTQIA+ community at large, and to our bookselling community.
Apologies are not enough. We’ve begun addressing this today and are committed to engaging in the critical dialogue needed to inform concrete steps to address the harm we caused. Those steps will be shared in the next three weeks.
CEO Allison Hill that evening sent out an email to members which dropped the passive voice and kept the strong apologies. She also added an apology for another horrible error the ABA committed the previous week: they posted a promo for Blackout, a new YA novel featuring interlinked stories by six authors of color, but accidently used the jacket cover of Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation, by the odious rightwinger and Blexit founder Candace Owens.
This week we did horrific harm when we included an anti-trans book in ABA’s July box mailing to members. Last week, we did terrible and racist harm when featuring the bestseller Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon with the wrong cover image, conflating it with an image of the cover of a book by a different Black author, a right-wing extremist.
We traumatized and endangered members of the trans community. We erased Black authors, conflated Black authors, and put the authors in danger through a forced association. We further marginalized communities we want to support.
There is nothing that I can say that will make this right.
She also reiterated that they will report on changes to their procedures within three weeks. They also canceled online events this week to focus on the issue.
Personally, I’m mystified that such a book made it into the White Box. That should have been rejected at the outset. Irreversible Damage is published by Regnery, the obnoxious rightwing publisher that became famous in the swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004. As far as I’m concerned, all Regnery books are crap and none are worthy of ABA publicity.
Of course, Regnery is outraged by the ABA’s apology. Their president Thomas Spence wrote to Publishers Weekly:
"The only explanation I can think of for the ABA's statement that credits them with a rational (though dishonorable) motive is that they're trying to drum up publicity for their annual Banned Books Week promotion, coming in September (this year's slogan: 'Censorship Divides Us'). Perhaps finding books that have been 'banned,' in any meaningful sense, is so difficult that they have been forced to do the dirty work themselves."
Spence also, of course, defended the anti-trans book in question.
Other right-wingers have begun latching onto the controversy as part of their ginned-up ‘woke’ crisis propaganda. Liam Edgar at the Tampa Free Press mocked the ABA’s use of words like ‘violent,’ ‘danger’, and ‘harm’ in recognizing the potential real-world consequences of their two errors:
“These were egregious, harmful acts that caused violence and pain,” [ABA CEO Allison] Hill said, without offering any proof that anyone was actually injured because the ABA promoted two books.
In her lengthy statement, Hill added, “The process to inform those steps will include listening to impacted members; conferring with members of ABA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee; institutionalizing more of our diversity, equity, and inclusion work; revising our internal procedures and checks and balances; discussing with our team the impact of this violence on our members and our colleagues; changing the submission, vetting, and distribution process for the box mailing program; automating some of our online content to eliminate unconscious bias; reviewing all of our programs and communication; and more.”
“Though we know the harm these actions caused is obvious to those impacted and many others, we will also share resources that speak to why these acts are violent.”
Please do, because all of this “harm,” violence, and “danger” is lost on those of us afflicted with common sense.
Common sense? I’d call it a hateful and willful ignorance of the the daily and sometimes violent racism and anti-LGBTQIA+ people deal with every day.
Right-wing pundit John Stossel also jumped in to mock the ABA for saying their mistake could have the consequence of promoting verbal and physical violence.
As an ABA member, I’ve already received several emails this week with further statements, updates on the actions they are taking, and reiterating their promise to report their plans within three weeks. I believe they will faithfully follow through.