a penguin monopoly means penguin controls 1/3 of books that come out. the penguin classics line has forced westernized and european classics down society’s throat and tied them to literary merit since forever, which alienates young black readers from reading or becoming writers

the "classic books" imprint and its ties to whiteness and its prominence in schools makes me especially wary of this particular publisher as the one swallowing the others

the penguin classics line interrupted my journey as a writer...maybe generationally specific, maybe not, but the way my schools sang the books of this collection to high praises like these were the ultimate bar that writers should to aspire to, and all the books were wh*te.......

so then i was like "no, this is not where i find inspiration, the oppressor's experience is not my own" and the white women were like "PRISON" and started ushering me into functional development and writing Fs on my report card where As were earned

and then, despite all odds, i somehow manage to earn a degree within the abusive parameters of academia, and barely make it out alive, only to get a deal at penguin and be treated like actual dirt, by the institution that the other institution was enforcing

so when i think about penguin achieving more dominance in the publishing market (and the world) i think of black people having less representation, less humanity, less voice, and less access to *anything* in life that institutions of "merit" and "prestige" deny us

when it comes down to kids who have to grow up in a world reflected by a single WASP-network conglomerate's understanding of their culture, those kids will have it even worse than i did, and have even less room to escape this abusive institution, less room to make it out alive

it's mind-boggling that the world continues to move this way, that empathy is steadily eroded by an intentional self-serving lack of awareness, this "if my money is good, then fuck them kids" mentality that poisons the mind of anyone forced to survive in a capitalist world