OMG, they’re like, totally using Afro Picks… in 2010?! What were the people in charge thinking?! (roll eyes here.)
Apparently some tweople are upset about PublisherWeekly‘s cover image this issue. The topic is “New books and trends in African-American publishing” and the headline they went with: “Afro Picks!”
Via PW’s twitter, the image wasn’t from a specific cover shoot, rather from the book Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present by Deborah Willis, and this photo is called Pickin’ by photographer Lauren Kelly. The story is about ‘picking’ books, but some folks on twitter aren’t amused. Check out the feed and see what you think. (#afropw)
I personally don’t see it as a huge issue – however, based on some of the opinions I’ve caught on twitter it seems folks feel PW is not the right place to use such an image. A few (probably permed or weaved folks, just sayin) black people have tweeted that such an image would have been ok in the 70s or on a magazine with a more black readership. My issue with this sentiment is that, a) its an image from a book that they’re reviewing, and b) if it was of any non-black ‘artsy’ image it would be A.O.K. Afro picks are still in use today people, folks still have fros and still believe in freeing themselves from the institutionalized envy of straight flowy hair that just isn’t what we came with. Its unfortunate that more people are weaved and chemically altered and don’t even connect with images like this, black or white. One woman even said this somehow reminded her of the south and picking cotton. Seriously lady?! Put the perm and glue away.
Another thing about this image is that it is extremely close to the video of Questlove putting the picks in his hair to break the “Most Afro Picks World Record.” We got a few comments chargin him with ‘coonery’ when we posted it but again, this man wears an afro every day of his life and uses afro picks so if he wants to attempt it, why not? It wasn’t a wig, it wasn’t speculative, it was what it was. And it was 2009. NOT 1970. What I think is sadly revealed in those comments is that they mostly come from our other black people who are somehow “beyond” the afro and don’t even realize that images like this do not mean we are in some timewarp where afros = militant, Black Panther-esque extremes and where they must assert that they are “not one of THOSE black people.”
The fro is not to be feared, and while it is very much our past, it is VERY much our future.
Pick Fros Not Fights!
Related response from neptuniansoul here.
PW’s twitter feed after the jump -
Sigh – the concern – as many of us explained – was not the Afro. Or the Picks. It was the tagline – in context of the enclosed article and a publishing industry that thinks that’s the totality of what we are. Calvin and his supporters seemed to turn valid arguments about the timing and choice of his pun on an indictment on Afros and then throws in arguments that most of us arguing against his selection must be chemically altered.
So what’s the point of continuing the debate? Publishing is a world that prefers our work only if it fits a certain archetype and ignores the vast diversity within the “clan.” Calvin only reinforced by making it clear there is only one acceptable image. Then reduced our body of work to “Afro picks”. Had he run the image without the pun no one would be complaining as the image itself is provocative.
But leave it to our own race to fail to read the actual responses and make a conclusion not in evidence. Publisher’s Weekly – not exactly a bastion of diversity across the board – gives African American titles a single annual edition and once again relegates us to the African American section of the bookstore where titles often fail to attract broader readership.
Until we – as a people – get some clues about our own racial make-up (for instance, why attack people of color who do NOT wear fros as being suspect or less worthy?) we’ll never advance.
We don’t need to worry about external racism because we’re too busy screaming at each other and tearing each other down.
But as for the cover – Calvin reinforced a problem that AA authors have expressed for years. That we want to embrace all aspects of our heritage – not continue to be stuck in the same box where mostly white editors assume we aren’t “authentic” unless the voice fits a certain stereotype that rings true to them. Sorry – I’ll pass, on the test and Calvin’s poorly placed pun on an otherwise beautiful photograph and a very serious problem in publishing that blocks good work from seeing a broader audience. Calvin didn’t “fix” or even “draw” attention to the issues at hand. He simply reinforced them.
Of all the images to express disapproval over! Gosh! What the heck is so offensive about an artistic display of the Afro pick–a symbol of racial pride for those of us coming of age in the 1970s? I would anticipate that whites would cringe at the sight of clenched fists and that may be why the artist chose sandy brown over the traditional black pick. However, why black folks would take offense is beyond me. This photo–compelling and culturally rooted–grabbed our attention. If the sister had graced the cover in a wonder weave cascading down her back, we would have given the cover a cursory glance and opened up to check out the contents. Another example of how as a people, we have become immune to what should be considered offensive: the obliteration and co-opting of black culture.