Lack of Diversity in Literature: Its impact on a young black adult
I’ve always wanted to be a writer. When I was six I dreamt of writing children’s books, and by ten it was award winning fiction novels. By twelve all those around me were ready for my first poetry collection. My dreams of writing poetry persisted all the way to sixteen and by then I had a grocery list of awards, won in every competition I participated in and had successfully established myself in multiple poetry communities. Through all this what I always remembered was advice I heard from my mother, my teachers and every poet and author I met, “To be a successful writer you have to read.”.
When I was sixteen I stopped writing because it felt too personal. Despite my decision to never writing parts of myself for an audience again, I somehow convinced myself that activism, through articles and essays, was the career path for me. So here I am: Malaika Minyuku-Gutto, aged eighteen, diving into key conversations at Cohesion Collective on a monthly basis to help readers see that discussing diversity, equality and inclusion should be part of our everyday lives.
I identify as a non-binary, black, queer, young adult. I’m the exact opposite of the people whose voices are heard most in professional spaces. I’m part of the relatively new wave of people coming into professional workspaces, and with that comes a new way of thinking. Everyone’s voice matters, and young people like myself have a lot of valuable insight we would like to contribute to the world we live in.
In 2020, the #BlackLivesMatter Movement was widely reported on. The year was filled with conversation, media coverage and attempts at change on a significantly large scale. Many people took the issues seriously, talking more about diversity and elevating black voices. The bookish community is one that had intensive conversations on the issue. With reading being a major part of my life, I was relieved when 2020 was a year of activism and honest discussion within the bookish community.
Every community has influencers, and the bookish community is no different. Naturally, the influencer space is dominated by privileged, white content creators who maintain mainstream media standards. Despite how many content creators are in the space, the ones that gain popularity and have substantial influence are mostly white, cishet American/European people who are wealthy enough to have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of books in their personal libraries. The bookish community has always had major influence in what books gain popularity. With the influencers pushing specific books into the spotlight, and subsequently solidifying those books’ ability to become bestselling or award-winning literature, it is no surprise that most of the popular books we see highlighted are English books written by white men. Stories by straight, white men that mirror the voices within the bookish community that are most easily heard and are the stories that are most likely to dominate the shelves. Major publishers dominating the space, and major influencers promoting their books, ensure that very particular types of authors and stories stay at the forefront of the book sphere.
This is by no means new phenomenon, the cycle of keeping particular types of stories popular is one that’s been around for centuries. White European and American voices dominate the classical literature space despite books being written all around the world in a truly diverse collection of genres, languages and cultures. Many celebrated classics are often racist, sexist or homophobic with little to no genuine representation within them. The books often reflect privileged white perspectives. If you didn’t read Othello in high school, black people simply wouldn’t exist in Shakespeare’s world.
Modern classics continue to repeat history. Indie authors, and authors outside of Europe and America, don’t get the same levels of recognition for the literature they produce. LGBTQIA+ and non-white authors don’t get the same levels of recognition as their straight and white counterparts, and women don’t get the same levels of recognition as the men in the industry. The inequalities in society are reflected in the bookish spaces in every regard down to the ability to get published at all.
2020 brought on change in the space as diversity when it came to the books we read and the creators we follow became a highlighted topic of conversation. The #BlackLivesMatter Movement solidified this new era of influence in the bookish community as the amplification of black voices became the forefront of influencers content.
Guilt over their obvious lack of diversity, which was now under a microscope for public scrutiny, drove influencers into actively working to correct their flaw. The influencers that had always been there were suddenly taken seriously due to their ability to tick off diversity boxes, specifically black creators who got their long-deserved recognition. This was also reflected in the books that influencers pushed to their audiences.
Bookish influencers took notice of their compliance in this reality and decided to bring on change. Books from all over the world written by and about different races, sexes and sexualities gained popularity as people made focused efforts to read more openly. Many people created and started participating in challenges that helped them explore books with wider variety.
At first glance, this shift towards diverse reading seemed like a change that was long overdue, and it was a celebrated moment within the community. However, this was an idealistic view of the reality. Jesse of Bowties and Books was one of the many influencers who pointed out some of the flaws in this approach, it was a noticeable guilt response.
This sudden shift to acknowledgement had been disingenuous. The reality of the matter was that people were attempting to meet diversity quotas that they hadn’t considered important before. In order to avoid scrutiny, people had followed the trend and made diverse reading into a quota that had to be met. Instead of diverse reading being a place of exploration and enjoyment it quickly became about making your end of year reading statistics look pretty. Mentalities hadn’t changed, and people were doing diversity challenges for the public and not for their own personal growth. This did a major disservice to the authors as their books were being highlighted out of obligation and not out of true admiration for their work.
Everyone’s story and voice matters. Our reading habits have a direct effect on the people we are and the opinions we hold. Every book, article, essay or poem we read gives us new perspectives that we carry with us into our everyday lives. It is important to acknowledge your biases and set them aside as opposed to maintaining your bias and doing what is required to not suffer consequences for it.
We carry our reading habits, as well as the opinions and the views we develop from the books we read, with us into every aspect of our lives, including the organizational spaces we work and exist in. When reading, we have got to be open and diverse in order to gain multiple perspectives instead of sticking to the conventional straight, white, western ones. When going into organizational spaces it is important for us to remember that everyone’s voice deserves to be heard, not to meet diversity quotas, or to avoid public scrutiny, but because their stories have always mattered and they have always deserved a seat at the table.
It’s important to become inherently diverse in our research, knowledge spaces, and reading in order to truly start shifting the dynamics both within our own personal lives and within the organizational spaces we’re trying to work in and transform. Change cannot be created in a bubble. We are in no ways equipped to bring diverse content and ways of thinking into our organizational and work spaces when we don’t practice inclusive content consumption in our personal lives.
Working towards genuine change and putting effort into avoiding ignorance when it comes to your media consumption choices is something that everyone should do. You can work towards change in your reading lifestyle by making efforts to read as inclusively as possible, from the books you pick up, to the authors you support. It’s important to also do this for your children and help them build a mentality that prepares them for the future world. Being open to your biases and directly tackling them will allow you to smoothly transition into more progressive reading habits. When you take deliberate steps to change your approach to reading, you can build a stronger foundation for your opinions and views on diversity and inclusion.
Written by: Malaika Minyuku-Gutto, content contributor for Cohesion Collective,
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