Dear New York Times: Um, Here’s What An Actual Sensitivity Reader Does

In 2014, calls started to spike for more diverse books. And publishing houses and writers responded – with white writers writing more books about people of color. Dhonielle Clayton, who co-founded We Need Diverse Books and the Cake Literary Agency and who has a book of her own coming out in February, says the freak-out about sensitivity readers should really be focused there: “The fact is that sensitivity reading is a band-aid over a hemorrhaging problem in our industry. That’s what we should really be talking about — that’s what real censorship looks like. The systematic erasure and blockage of people of color from the publishing industry.”