Read on Twitter
Yo @ExclusiveBooks that Joanne x Eusebius convo was not only EXTREMELY condescending it was also factually shaky and deeply ahistorical. Black literary platforms have been working to create content since COVID but @JoanneGJoseph gets to erase all of that? No way how disrespectful
Also to laud someone like Jenny Crys Williams as some kind of beacon when she also is the person who asked BEN OKRI what he had written?? A person who treats black authors like strange peculiarities and assumes white books are good books.
I remember having to work SO hard at City Press with Charl to change that tide, to make sure the books page was reflective of its readers. Have had hard conversations with MG and Books Live about which reviewers are appropriate for which books. But THIS IS THE NARRATIVE?
Platforms like @CheekyNatives and @_BlackBirdBooks have done the work - but we get a reductive, poorly researched response from someone not even in the literary circle? Who is not abreast of the space and all the people working in it? No man also you @Eusebius I’m disappointed.
This whole saga has really fucked me off so immensely. I hate erasure when it’s politically motivated, I hate it more when okes just couldn’t be bothered to go beyond their limited understanding to present a balanced picture
Like NALI BALI exists and disseminated children’s lit through mass media, physical and virtual reading groups with kids and parents before and throughout COVID but “things have quietened down”. Sometimes ppl must turn down speaking engagements if it’s not their lane pls pls okes
Actually also that line about tech democratising the process is literally first year level technological determinism, and we KNOW (Dahlberg, Wasko etc) that that isn’t at all how tech and the internet works so lol and secondly THE PLATFORMS ALREADY EXIST.
Similarly what we know is that it’s not just about access to literature, it’s about access to literacy (both reading and tech wise). So my confusion is around how putting this whole interview series on Twitter helps if that is not at all the cross section where we have challenges
I really need okes to read Rod Amner’s work urgently cause wow people are really not doing the work to understand the beast they are fighting
