By Ash-Lee W. Henderson
A little over two weeks ago, a fellow Barnes & Noble employee at our Johnson City, Tennessee store informed me that our store would soon display an "endcap" African American fiction promotion. An "endcap" is a set of small, plastic book holders layered on the end of one of our long bookshelves. If our customers bought the books being promoted, my co-worker explained, our corporate office would enlarge the African American Fiction section. Not only would it promote the purchase of books by Black authors, but it would also give our corporate office an idea of where the demographic is for said product.
Imagine my surprise, rage, and utter sadness upon the arrival of the endcap display: by "African American Fiction" Barnes & Noble's corporate office meant, exclusively, titles such as Bitch, Candy-Licker, Thong on Fire, Thug-a-licious, Thug Matrimony, and Girlz in Da Hood. Not only were the titles offensive, the cover art was as well. For instance, on Thong on Fire the cover depicted the backside of a young woman, from the waist to the backs of the knees wearing an extremely short skirt, with the lower part of her buttocks showing along with the thong underwear she happens to be wearing.
I immediately began voicing my opinion about the promotion to my fellow employees, who were also shocked and, many, appalled by the endcap. They informed me that if, given a choice, they would not allow the promotion; but the corporate office made the endcap and all the titles on it mandatory. My co-workers are wonderful people who support me in spirit if nothing else but feel helpless to do anything because either as young people (college students and otherwise) the Barnes & Noble paycheck is their means to pay bills, or as older people they depend on their job to support and provide health benefits for their families. They would talk about it to an extent, but weren't willing to put themselves at risk for dismissal.
I also voiced my opinion to store management who encouraged me to put my thoughts on paper and present it to our district manager who would be visiting the very next day. It is important to note that if it had been up to store management, the endcap would have come down in our store; however, that, alone would not have remedied the situation, considering the promotion would be up in countless other Barnes & Noble stores across the country.
When I spoke with the district manager the next day, I told him why I was offended by the endcap, informed him that by keeping the endcap up Barnes & Noble was blatantly perpetuating racism and sexism in their stores. I told this district manager that Barnes & Noble was reinforcing negative stereotypes that Black people, such as myself, have been trying to erase for years. I said it might remedy the situation to include literary authors---Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Ernest Gaines---on the endcap, along with the authors like Zane and Omar Tyree and Eric Jerome Dickey. The district manager let me know that he "understood" why I was upset, and would roll the issue up to higher management.
It seems the district manager's take away was that the signage is the biggest problem. The next time I came to work, half expecting to see Their Eyes Were Watching God or Giovanni's Room on the endcap, I found that the only thing changed was that the sign had been taken down. The Barnes & Noble management seems to believe that if they don't classify it as "African American Fiction" and just sell it without a sign, people won't be as mad.
My loyalty to Barnes & Noble as a corporation died. I hoped that they wouldn't make a penny until the endcap came down. I spoke boldly and loudly to other employees about the promotion and to my friends who came in to the store to shop or visit me. Before long, I was paged to the store managers' office, where three managers were waiting. Once I was in the office, with the door shut, one of the managers said that sometimes, especially in business, the wheels of change turn slowly and that the issue was being discussed on the regional level. I was asked, in the meantime, to refrain from speaking about the issue on the book-floor to employees and in front of or directly to customers, to avoid upsetting them. She advised that, like her, I should just ignore the endcap's existence until it came down.
I informed the managers that I would not promise to ignore the existence of the endcap, but I would try to limit my discussions about the endcap on the floor. This has so far not been a possibility because my conscience urges me to speak about the issue and employees and customers are also concerned about the issue and want to discuss it.
It became very clear that I needed to sever my relationship with Barnes & Noble before they did it for me. I am currently working out a two weeks notice out of courtesy for my fellow employees.
Now, my focus is on exposing this issue. I understand that Black people write these books, that in some stores around the country there is a demographic of people who buy them. Nonetheless, the fact that Black people write and purchase the books, does not make it ok for Barnes & Noble to categorize these books as exclusively representative of "African American Fiction." Is it ok to support these authors, or the stores that sell them, even though they perpetuate sexist stereotypes and objectify Black men and women? Is it ok to buy products in stores that objectify women and people of color?
For me, it's not acceptable, and if you have a problem with what is occurring at Barnes & Noble you should join me in taking direct action. Urge the Barnes & Noble corporate office stop promoting the sale of authors who represent African Americans as no more than thugs, bitches, and prostitutes---and who characterize predominantly black, low-income neighborhoods as more than crime riddled ghettos, flooded with gang activity and everything un-holy. Images like these perpetuate stereotypes of Black people.
Write the corporate office and management of your local store and/or editorials to your local papers.
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Customer Service Department
122 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10011
telephone: (800) 422-7717
e-mail: customerservice [at] bn [dot] com
fax: (212) 352-3660
Barnes & Noble store locater:
http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/stores/find_a_store.do
Spread the word to your friends, family, clergy, and others. Stop in at your local Barnes & Noble, see the endcap/table, and tell management your opinion of the promotion. Every voice matters. Barnes & Noble will not take action unless they fear the loss of customers and therefore revenue.
Ash-Lee W. Henderson, 22, is a student/activist at East Tennessee State University.
UPDATE 9/23: Ash-Lee has an update to this post here. Comments will work better on the update. Some of the words in this post were were tripping the spam/security settings on my webhost’s servers, making it difficult for people to submit comments over here. ---BG
UPDATE 9/26: We're collecting sightings of the endcaps and interactions sith B&N over here.
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