White Men Are Being Excluded from Publishing O No

This is suddenly a new talking point on the MAGA Right:

 

The premise is that all of a sudden white men cannot get publishing contracts. All the books being published are by trans people, or brown people, or gay people or, you know, girls.

Is this true? (Spoiler: No.)

(It's interesting, also, that they don't count gay men as men. Only cisgendered white guys are actual men in this view of the world.)

The author of this opinion piece tries hard to make it seem true by setting her terms very carefully: white men who were born after 1984 (Why 1984? You got me). Her "evidence" is other opinion pieces which make exactly the same argument. She also notes that people's lists of favorite books have fewer white men on them than previously.

(Since I follow several threads about books on Reddit, where very nearly no one except white men ever get recommended, I suspect she is setting her terms carefully here as well.)

Does she give evidence? Does she look at who is actually being published, who is actually being reviewed, who is actually winning awards? Don't be silly. She feels like white men can't get published, and her feelings are what count.

A. R. Moxon takes a deeper look here. As she notes at one point, the only actual primary source cited in any of these opinion pieces notes that while women are published more now than men, white men are publishing more ever, and clearly more than they did in the past.

Having to share space in the publishing world is, for the reactionary MAGA and for (some) white men apparently, the exact same thing as being discriminated against.

Since we're going to talk about feelings and anecdote instead of evidence, I'll retell a story I have told here before. When I was in graduate school, where white men were all we read and all we ever heard about, I did deliberately start reading more women writers. My (right-wing) brother came to visit, glanced at my bookshelves, and said, "I see you just read women now."

I was pretty sure that wasn't true, so I insisted we do a count. No shock, given the reading requirements of my classes, I had about twice as many male writers on my shelf as women. My brother saw a couple of titles by women, and he felt that meant I was only reading women.

Another anecdote: I was in an actual bookstore yesterday, the local Barnes & Noble, looking at the new publications. There were indeed a lot by women and brown people and brown women and LGBTQ people. There were also a lot by white men. I picked up one, which had an interesting title. The author's photo showed a serious young white man looking serious. The book was about some other young white man's feelings. I read the first page and was so bored I could not go on.

There were also tons of book by other white men there, including a new one by John Irving, who I was sure had to be dead by now, and about six by James Patterson (surely he is dead by now?) and some by white guys I feel must be dead by now. But our MAGA opinion holders are insisting we only count men born since 1984, so I guess those guys don't count.

Anyway. White conservatives sure like to pretend they're being discriminated against. It's pretty hilarious.