Author Malorie Blackman, Britain’s first black Children’s Laureate, has received a torrent of racist abuse following an interview with Sky News, in which she was grossly misquoted.
The writer, who is renown for her critically acclaimed Noughts and Crosses series, spoke to reporter Richard Suchet of Sky News about the lack of diversity in children’s literature, pointing out the importance of seeing one’s self represented in literature as well as the importance of being introduced to other cultures through reading.
“That’s not to say that children and young adults only want to read about themselves… you want to escape into fiction as well and read about other people, other cultures, other lives, other planets and so on,” Blackman said. “But I think there is a very significant message that goes out when you cannot see yourself at all in the books you are reading. I think it is saying ‘well, you may be here, but do you really belong?'”
The interview was published on the Sky News website accompanied by a deliberately provocative and inaccurate headline claiming that Blackman said “Children’s Books ‘Have Too Many White Faces’”, which resulted in Blackman being racially attacked on twitter and in the comments section of the article. The headline was soon changed, and Sky apologised after Blackman complained about the quote, saying, “Not once did the phrase in the banner headline pass my lips because I don’t think in those terms”. However, the damage was already done and the abuse unfortunately continued, causing the writer to take a break from the social media site.
After receiving support from her fellow writers, Blackman returned to Twitter refusing to back down from her abusers. She said: “Hell will freeze over before I let racists and haters silence me. In fact, they just proved to me that I was right to speak out. So thanks so much everyone for your support. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. I walk hand in hand with you. #WeNeedDiverseBooksUK.”
This, unfortunately is not the first time that black media figures have been racially attacked after highlighting the lack of diversity in Britain’s cultural arena. And while some measures are being put in place to better represent Black and Ethnic Minorities in various institutions, these attacks only serve to highlight the fact that these problems need to be addressed on a greater scale.
