I'm going to get onto my political platform here for a mo...
I'm going to get onto my political platform here for a moment - and PLEASE READ AND SHARE this post.
Publisher Simon & Schuster have this week signed a $250,000 book deal with 'journalist' Milo Yiannopoulos.
The book in question, 'Dangerous', to be released in 2017, will look at the rise of Donald Trump. Yiannopoulos, a member of the so-called 'alt-right' movement (a rebranding of white power advocates) has described trans-gender people as 'mentally ill' and labeled feminism as 'cancer', was banned from the social media website Twitter due to racial abuse directed towards Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones.
The Chicago Review of Books announced on Twitter that it would not review any Simon & Schuster books next year because of the publisher’s “disgusting validation of hate”.
Simon & Schuster have stood by their decision to publish this book, under their imprint Treshold Editions, which focuses on books by conservative voices, including Rush Limbaugh and President-elect Trump. Danielle Henderson, a writer whose memoir is expected to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2018, said on Twitter: “I’m looking at my @simonschuster contract, and unfortunately there’s no clause for ‘what if we decide to publish a white nationalist’.”
My own book, "Diary of a gay teenage zombie", deals with the struggle of growing up as an LGBT person. In writing a book discussing themes of societal isolationism and empowerment of disenfranchised youth, I had come to hope that we were living in a world where the lives of people who live as 'outsiders' would be able to improve, and where messages of positivity would be able to grow. This dream, it seems, has taken another step back today. Simon & Schuster have decided to grant a platform to a figure whose hate speech has brought him a large following. Rather than condemning such hate, it has equipped it with a megaphone and a very tall perch on which to stand, purely in the name of earning a profit.
At first, I wanted to follow others who had suggested a boycott of Simon & Schuster. But I realised that, in doing so, that would harm the other hard-working authors who diligently strive to earn a living. Instead, I ask that you help draw a line against the spread of this hatred, by sharing this post. Share it with your friends, your family and any groups that you might be a part of... and then write to your local bookshops. Write to Borders, and Waterstones, and Blackwells, and any others in your city, your home area. Write to them and ask them - beg them not to stock this book. If Simon & Schuster are so blinded by the pursuit of profit over social ethics, then doing our best to minimise their bottom line is the best course of action that we can take.
Again, please share. And thank you.
Publisher Simon & Schuster have this week signed a $250,000 book deal with 'journalist' Milo Yiannopoulos.
The book in question, 'Dangerous', to be released in 2017, will look at the rise of Donald Trump. Yiannopoulos, a member of the so-called 'alt-right' movement (a rebranding of white power advocates) has described trans-gender people as 'mentally ill' and labeled feminism as 'cancer', was banned from the social media website Twitter due to racial abuse directed towards Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones.
The Chicago Review of Books announced on Twitter that it would not review any Simon & Schuster books next year because of the publisher’s “disgusting validation of hate”.
Simon & Schuster have stood by their decision to publish this book, under their imprint Treshold Editions, which focuses on books by conservative voices, including Rush Limbaugh and President-elect Trump. Danielle Henderson, a writer whose memoir is expected to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2018, said on Twitter: “I’m looking at my @simonschuster contract, and unfortunately there’s no clause for ‘what if we decide to publish a white nationalist’.”
My own book, "Diary of a gay teenage zombie", deals with the struggle of growing up as an LGBT person. In writing a book discussing themes of societal isolationism and empowerment of disenfranchised youth, I had come to hope that we were living in a world where the lives of people who live as 'outsiders' would be able to improve, and where messages of positivity would be able to grow. This dream, it seems, has taken another step back today. Simon & Schuster have decided to grant a platform to a figure whose hate speech has brought him a large following. Rather than condemning such hate, it has equipped it with a megaphone and a very tall perch on which to stand, purely in the name of earning a profit.
At first, I wanted to follow others who had suggested a boycott of Simon & Schuster. But I realised that, in doing so, that would harm the other hard-working authors who diligently strive to earn a living. Instead, I ask that you help draw a line against the spread of this hatred, by sharing this post. Share it with your friends, your family and any groups that you might be a part of... and then write to your local bookshops. Write to Borders, and Waterstones, and Blackwells, and any others in your city, your home area. Write to them and ask them - beg them not to stock this book. If Simon & Schuster are so blinded by the pursuit of profit over social ethics, then doing our best to minimise their bottom line is the best course of action that we can take.
Again, please share. And thank you.
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