Melville House Books

PW's controversial "Afro Picks" cover

Barely a month after finding itself in hot water for having no women on its best books of the year list, Publishers Weekly magazine found itself embroiled in another controversy over a cover (see image, right) that many are calling racist. Or, as a headline on the Daily Finance website put it, “Afro-themed image on a magazine cover shocks industry, ignites firestorm.”

As a slightly less sensational report by Carolyn Kellogg on the Los Angeles Times‘ book blog Jacket Copy explains, “The magazine — which posted the cover image, as it does every week, on its own website — dedicates an issue annually to African American publishing. But something about the picture and the phrasing got on people’s nerves,” and before long, “Twitter burst into a heated discussion, using the hash tag #afropw.”

According to the Daily Finance report, HarperStudio editor Julia Cheiffetz “sounded the first alarm in the imprint’s blog: “Publishers Weekly, Have You Lost Your Mind?” It was all downhill from there.

By yesterday, the situation had gotten bad enough for the person from PW who’d chosen the cover to make a statement:

The resulting response to the choice of that particular image and that coverline was not anticipated by the person most closely involved with this week’s cover. That person was me, PW senior news editor, Calvin Reid. I organize, edit, and oversee the annual feature story on black books. I chose the cover in collaboration with the magazine’s creative director and I wrote the coverline, Afro Picks!, which was intended as a pun to highlight a story that “picked” new black titles of interest. The image was reminiscent of the 1970s and appealed to me, someone who grew up in the middle of the 1970s-era wave of black pride, black power and big afros with big afro picks stuck right in the back. To me it is a sweet, tongue-in-cheek funny and striking image of quirky black hair power. And while it never occurred to me that anyone would be offended by these images, I was very wrong and I have to acknowledge that. Quite a few people were offended by it and outraged by what some perceive as a disparaging or degrading image of a black woman. I certainly regret offending anyone and while I still love that image, I intend to think long and hard about whatever image is chosen for next year’s cover.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.