diversity in books

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Woman is roasted on Twitter for calling diversity in books ‘unrealistic’

Actually, we need more diversity in books.

 

Tiffany Kelly

Internet Culture

Posted on Oct 27, 2017   Updated on May 22, 2021, 1:03 pm CDT

Books allow us to see the world through someone else’s perspective. Reading books only by people who share a similar background negates this point. But one woman thinks that not all books need diversity in characters and settings. She apparently just wants books for and about white people.

“Can I just be controversial for a minute? I don’t want diverse books. I want realistic books,” she tweeted along with an image of a longer block of text on this really terrible take.

https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/923643730229329921

The woman has since deleted the tweet and made her account private. (If you’re wondering where she lives where neighborhoods of only white people are considered “realistic,” it’s Vermont, according to her Twitter profile.)

But also, the issue is not that specific books need to be diverse. It’s that books as a whole need to be diverse. Like… how did that go over her head?

The tweet was screenshotted before it was deleted, and people began rightly tearing it apart. The woman’s “Can I be controversial for a minute?” opening line turned into a meme.

https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/923645508253609985

https://twitter.com/justinaireland/status/923631840694595584

https://twitter.com/BookishFeminist/status/923725159219060736

https://twitter.com/justinaireland/status/923631253374554112

Do we really need more books about white people living in the suburbs?

No. No, we don’t.

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*First Published: Oct 27, 2017, 11:29 am CDT