In which I finally talk about that Dragon and the Stars Cover

You know, with the Lunar New Year coming up and everything, I almost didn't want to post about this because it hurts me and every time I work on my draft of this post it just comes out sad and angry and hurt and inarticulate, and I hate how just the sight of one cover can make me feel so small. But then, as it goes, I should try and clear out and clean up all the bad air before the coming of the New Years so.

There's a new anthology coming out called The Dragon and the Stars. It is suppose to feature SFF stories written by the ethnic Chinese diaspora. This is how the cover looks like. (I refuse to upload the image up here. Absolutely refuse.)

I can't - I can't even begin to tell you how much this cover hurts and frustrates me. WHY is a western dragon considered representative of a SFF short story collection of the Chinese diaspora WHY. I'm just so insulted that the cover makers thought that a stock western dragon will do because All Dragons Are The Same and of course if we had to choose between a "western" or an "eastern" dragon, a western dragon is gonna work better because obviously all western ideas can speak for cultures and people all over the world. FAIL FAIL FAIL. This isn't even like, the wrong dragon kind of problem (though that does piss me off. If we really needed a dragon to be on the cover, our dragons aren't good enough or something?), it's the whole notion that a stock image of a distinctively western cultural icon can be used to represent other cultures, that ASSUMPTION of its universality that angers and hurts me. Your dragons cannot take the place of our stories, and the thoughtless-ness of this decision to do so appalls and astounds me. I do not need stereotyped eastern dragon covers, nor am I asking for one. There are ways to make a cover that represents the Chinese culture reflected in the stories without resorting to stereotypes, like the cover of Ying Chen's anthology A Banquet of Hungry Ghosts, for instance.

And you know, I may have carried on being angry and refusing to post, but then sometimes people are awesome and help heal wounds. Awesome, amazing people like Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who made a fancover for this anthology that made me smile and feel like I can try talking about this again and go, hey, here's a cover I'm willing to share with everyone:



DISCLAIMER: I did NOT make this cover allllllll credit goes to Silvia Moreno-Garcia

(I swear I'll have happy things to post about in this blog soon. Really! That giveaway post is comingggggg.)

The Faces of Covers: On Whitewashing and Fantasy

Piming out some manga. Because I can.

Bloomsbury has decided to change the cover of Magic Under Glass. Here’s the link to their statement. I suppose I should be ~*happy*~ that they apologized, as vague their statement on what offense exactly are they apologizing for (it feels more like one of those apologies where the person goes “I didn’t know what I did to offend anyone and I’m sorry”, as oppose to, you know, an “I’m sorry for whitewashing covers, I know now that this practice is wrong, and I will take steps to ensure that this won’t happen again”, kind of apology). But whatever, I’m not really interested in giving out cookies. For now, I’m cautiously optimistic as I wait for the new re-jacketed cover. In the meantime, however, I’d like to discuss a few things.

This is what it means to put a POC face on a cover: the reader has the power to imagine that the protagonist isn’t white. It has been discussed that when we read, when there is no significant racial markers there is a big tendency to assume the characters are white. A white face on the cover reinforces this default. I find that, for contemporary or historical set pieces (aka, anything set in the “primary” world), it’s much easier to call out whitewashed covers because it’s harder to ignore the racial markers or justify whitewashing when we have evidence to the contrary. However, fantasy stories, particular secondary world type fantasy wherein the world is clearly not the world as we know it, the voices raised to defend its whitewashed covers get louder. It wouldn’t matter how many times you lift out quotes from the text that cite character so-and-so is dark-skinned, there will be those who insist that they pictured a more olive-complexion than anything, or, my most hated commentary, a protagonist “with a tan”, and defend the cover, saying Why can’t they by white? And follow up with an argument that these are “made-up” races and the rules in our world don’t apply. (This is what I've been seeing, anyhow. In an attempt to be more clear, I’m not saying that whitewashing is less problematic in contemporary or historical fiction, I’m saying that I see more crazed arguments to defend whitewashing in secondary world fantasy.)

Let me say this about the made-up races statements: stories invented aren’t made in a vacuum. This includes fantasy. The stories created in the fantasy genre borrow heavily from our world, through mythology, culture, and whatnot. Therefore, in short, the humans depicted in fantasy are reflective of our world and racial depiction does matter.

As for the whole “why can’t they be white” argument, by choosing to embrace a world wherein everyone can be white despite when faced with contrary evidence within the text itself, you are buying into systematic racism that assumes the default will always be White, down to even in your imagination when visualizing fictional characters.

(On a tangent, I find such remarks irksome because damn, it must be nice to be able to assume that every frickin person looks like you even when up against evidence to the contrary. [/snark])

Giving this cover a POC face will heal our stunted imagination to assume all characters are white by default. We, the audience, nowadays are so used to absorbing visual data (helloooooooooo television. ♥), hence making covers a very powerful tool in marketing and in affecting the impressions on the reader. By giving the cover a POC face, you’ll allow the dark-skinned girl in OUR world to dream of being a heroine in her own imagination. That is something I believe is worth fighting for.

With that said, I hope we as consuming readers can continue fighting the whitewashing of covers. Whitewashing isn’t a one-time mistake, but an ingrained racist business practice in the publishing sector. To name a few off the top of my head: Whale Talk, She’s So Money, Mysterious Benedict Society, and The Dragons and the Stars (Which I’m still trying to talk about, and I’m working on my post. But, I suppose I will confess: when I saw Liar and Magic Under Glass, I was fuelled with rage. But when I saw The Dragon and the Stars cover, it was like a physical blow, and I felt like crying, a sentiment akin to defeat. But it’s been a couple days since I’ve seen that cover, and, I think, I have distanced myself more from the initial pain and can try and talk about it relatively soon.)

And do consider supporting POC books by seeking them out. My biggest and personal favourite resource is Writers of Color 50 Books Challenge, and Susan has an amazing link roundup to POC resources. Check it out.

STOP FAILING BLOOMSBURY, aka The Bloomsbury Whitewashing Cover Legacy, Redux

So, I'm sure that everyone remembers the Liar cover controvery, right? (And if not, here's a gathered links roundup to find out.) There was a big brouhaha over it, then Bloomsbury decided to redo the covers and we all sighed with relief, thinking that after all the emails and blog posts and comments, Bloomsbury finally realized that whitewashing is not down.

Then, I come acroos this post

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

Okay, basic summary of the situation: There is a debut novel out there called Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore, and our protagonist is apparently written into the text as dark-skinned.

UNVEIL COVER:



... Damn, I don't know about you, but that girl there sure looks whitey-white to me!!

And GUESS WHO MADE THE COVER FOR THIS BOOK? That's right, BLOOMSBURY. Aka the same publishing house who did the Liar cover. Dun, dun, dun.

It was like Bloomsbury's last minute change to the Liar cover was just a bandaid. Oh the blogging audience is protesting, we'll change the Liar cover so that they'll stop spreading the bad press! Surely there's no actual truth to the idea that whitewashing is a long, historical problematic practice in the publishing land that still continues to this day and we are only appeasing the crowd because we're benevolent like that!

Well you know what, Bloomsbury? You just lost yourself an audience member here. As they say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me TWICE, shame on me. I'm sure that Magic Under Glass is a lovely novel, but I won't pay a cent for it if it means I have to support this particular publishing house. I can wait for a copy to turn up in my library or in a second hand bookstore to read it, thank you very much. There are other publishing houses starting up that BELIEVE in diversity (such as TU Publishing and Verb Noire) and I believe my money will be better spent there.

Also, I'm simply FILLED with curiousity over the history in Bloomsbury's whitewashing cover practices. Will do my best to look into that, but for now, will be off to write Very Angry Emails to the marketing staff. Later, peeps.