Black History Month - Tokenism & Forced Diversity

I confess to being a little taken aback today at the audacity of Barnes & Noble's diversity push for black history month. It seems that rather than acknowledging actual black authors, B&N decided to simply take classic literature and give them new covers portraying black people.
We have a Black Dorothy Wizard of Oz Black Romeo & Juliet and Black Frankenstein!!! So some teenager goes to buy a book thinks yay its about folk like me but hope because inside the covers everyone's white.
No wonder folk are up in arms and B&N have now been forced to abandon their project shock horror!
I have to say though, that I imagine chaos would ensue had they done that with black author's books and turned them white! Forcing diversity rather than actually making an effort is pathetic.

www.adweek.com... rnes-and-noble-pulls-diverse-book-covers-campaign-after-online-backlash/

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport

Who cares.

Personally (which holds no merit as a white straight male), I see anything like this as corporate pandering.

Lets be real. Corporations don't give a flying **** about any minority or identity group. They care about money. Anything they offer through adverts portraying anything different from the above is lip service.

They don't care what you do in your bedroom any more than I do. It makes no difference to them or me, yet they'll do the whole LGBT flag thing...

And this ladies and gentlemen is called capitalizing.

a reply to: PhyllidaDavenport


I agree with you success takes striving for .....and the euphoria that comes from

achievment whether you are black or white or inbetween.

Diversity cannot be forced it has to grow.........

The same thing is being done in the entertainment industry, you've got the BAFTA's

and Oscars trying to do something similar........ Not the BEST of films or

entertainment, but the shoeing in of diversity

Oh I don't disagree at all its all about the money nowadays and any minority is fair game its still sickening though and downright annoying. To think someone actually sat down and thought this was a good idea!

a reply to: CriticalStinker

a reply to: eletheia

Forced diversity etc is having the opposite effect on many people and is, in fact, quite possibly bringing back rampant racism that was so prevalent in the 80's, by making other people/groups feel excluded or preached to.

The rebooting of movies just so they can star women or black women causes resentment

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport
a reply to: eletheia
Forced diversity etc is having the opposite effect on many people and is, in fact, quite possibly bringing back rampant racism that was so prevalent in the 80's, by making other people/groups feel excluded or preached to.
The rebooting of movies just so they can star women or black women causes resentment

Again I can't disagree with you. It is virtue signalling at its best but in the

long run sooooo patronising.

I know someone who works for a very large corporation doing a strenuous job

moving displays in stores, It is heavy work and moving between customers

while doing so. This company has employed a disabled black man (token

and virtue signalling come to mind) to do the same job .

I am in awe of what some disabled people can achieve especially in sport

but in this instance it is stupidity .........but hey!! they can now consider

themselves diverse and trendy....... till he hurts someone, or gets hurt

himself!

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Uh -huh. Hypocrisy, greed and dimwitted good intentions aside, it is a shame such actions are arguably necessary to raise awareness of the disenfranchised and threatened in the herd.

All part of the grand action/reaction of 'hystery.' ('his story' is now reGrettable, too ... i know, not punny)

a reply to: Baddogma

Uh -huh. Hypocrisy, greed and dimwitted good intentions aside, it is a shame such actions are arguably necessary to raise awareness of the disenfranchised and threatened in the herd.

Personally (and again, I guess I can't really speak for the groups you speak of since I'm not part of one) I think we're past the point where there are large groups who are disenfranchised due to their identity.

I don't see how corporations capitalizing off of perceived disenfranchisement from the system helps anyone except the corporation.

In the Western World of 2020, who doesn't have the same opportunity as another demographic?

I think the only arguable one is poverty... And even that is a speed bump. We all get dealt a different hand.

I don't see how feeding bias confirmation to someone that they got dealt a bad hand is going to help them. To me it seems that the more you feed into the "woe is you", the more people feel like they're restrained by their circumstances.

So basically:
"Let's portray white characters made by white writers as black people so black people can ride on the success of white writers, since black writers aren't good enough to have their work featured here."

The classics in “black face” lol.

Now I think is the time for me to remake "Pretty Woman" with a full Black Tranny cast. It will win every award out there since Hollywood would make it the winner to show how fair and welcoming they are. I will be the greatest film maker in history.

This whole thing is stupid, I was talking to a friend of mine who was complaining about not getting any recognition for busting his butt to out perform his co-workers. I said are you up set because you think it was you are black, or because your management doesn't care? He said it was because he's black. I told him he's wrong because it's because his management doesn't care about their workers. He said bull, and I told him to talk to other non-black workers. He found out the hard way it's because of "stratusism" and not "Racism" as to why his efforts were ignored. Now he thinks he needs to rethink a lot of things. Good for him for seeing the world as it is.

Black history Month is a joke by singling out one group of people from the others. This is racism at it's finest, but since they use it as a good thing you can't call it that … can you?

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport
I have to say though, that I imagine chaos would ensue had they done that with black author's books and turned them white! Forcing diversity rather than actually making an effort is pathetic.

"Divergence" (the film) is an interesting portrayal of what happens when society takes the bold leap and quarantines four different psychological tendencies rather than racially discriminating : Obedience vs Aggression vs Brainiacs, Diplomats.. Someone (scriptwriter) was aware of what happened on Venus and Mars. Why this film franchise is so lowly rated is surprising to me. Also a victim of truth telling is the "Maze Runner" franchise.

News Flash! There people that I don't like. I'm sure there are people you don't like. Some of them may have different colored skin. Doesn't matter you can't "force" me to like someone. That will just make me hate them more.

Act I, scene I. Corporate boardroom. Barns & Nobel

CEO: “how do we sell this black history month? We don’t really have black customers....”

A: “Black people don’t really write the books we sell, either. We do mostly public domain crap from your high school Am Lit class of 30 years ago.”

B: “If only a black person had written, say, Gone With The Wind”

CEO: “Or at least if the classic movies had been Black actors. People really only buy our reprints because they remember a movie from their childhood. If we could put black actors in those old movies.... Hey, I’m a genius! I’m giving myself a promotion!!!”

B&N stock is in a permanent tailspin. Half of their profits come from the Starbucks store inside, anyway

I want a white history month and an Asian history month blah blah blah.

I started watching a new adaption of some Agatha Christie novel the other day on TV - I was very bored at the time - it was set in Middle England in the 1930's I think. Every other character was Black or Asian.
I turned it off.

It's stupid and it gets on my tit ends.

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport
I have to say though, that I imagine chaos would ensue had they done that with black author's books and turned them white!

I'd read Uncle Tom's Cabin if the main protagonist looked like Brad Pitt.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport
I have to say though, that I imagine chaos would ensue had they done that with black author's books and turned them white!

I'd read Uncle Tom's Cabin if the main protagonist looked like Brad Pitt.

Or Othello if...wait!