"Non-Hispanic white people account for 60 percent of the U.S. population; in 2018, they wrote 89 percent of the books in our sample." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html

"The heads of the “big five” publishing houses (soon, perhaps, to become the “big four”) are white. So are 85 percent of the people who acquire and edit books, according to a 2019 survey."

"In a 1950 essay titled 'What White Publishers Won’t Print,' Zora Neale Hurston identified the chicken-or-egg dilemma at the heart of publishers’ conservatism."

"White people, she wrote, cannot conceive of Black people outside of racial stereotypes. And because publishers want to sell books, they publish stories that conform to those stereotypes, reinforcing white readers’ expectations and appetites." [1950 = 2020]

"“It’s amusing to me when publishers say that they follow the market,” said Ms. L.L. McKinney. “They’re doing it because of tradition. And the tradition is racism.”