Tildes Book Club - Alternatives to handle goal to read books representing diverse and disadvantaged perspectives
So I have been reflecting on the statements of many members of this book reading group that they want to include books from diverse perspectives. Talking about next year and looking at our current voting results, I see three options and I would like us to vote on which the group prefers.
First, we could accept a very long list from this voting thread and cut off choices just after Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. That would delay new nominations for over a year.
Second, we could elevate Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and possibly Demon Copperhead to the top of the list in a sort of affirmative action.
Third, we could agree that our next nomination thread (for a smaller list of books) would exclusively be taken from groups that are disadvantaged in some way. An incomplete list of such disadvantage would include being from a poor or formerly colonized country, being an immigrant or refugee, being a political/ethnic minority such as basque, romani or catalan or kurdish, being indigenous, being poor or ethnic minority in a dominant country, being a sexual/gender minority, being disabled etc.
Generally I don't think it's a good idea to change the rules after holding a vote, but I can appreciate the intent behind this. I voted for (and nominated) Kindred partly because of the sentiment some had expressed for wanting more diverse titles, and for which I agreed.
I feel the best approach would be to integrate some of these titles into the main list, and read one every three months or so. However, a separate nomination process is probably necessary. I've nothing against the current candidates, but I feel it'd be better to give all eligible titles a fair shake. Perhaps next month we could hold a separate nomination+voting thread, and merge the top few votes into our current lineup? That would give folks time to find good nominations, and break up the voting process a little bit.
I'd like to also mention that I'd consider Nico Lang's American Teenager to be eligible for such a list, since it offers a unique perspective from a minority. I understand one of the goals is to offer perspectives from other countries/cultures, too, though, so ideally we'd find a good balance there.
I like this idea. And I support the goal of intentionally including broader perspectives and experiences in the book club.
Perhaps take the top four "true winners" from the current nominations, then hold a new nominations thread where we can include any books from the previous list, plus additional nominations. Then take the top two from that process and interleave them with the other four? (Or same idea, but with whatever ratio and list length we reach consensus on).
In the nominations thread, people could identify the ways the author or topic falls into these categories.
I too think this, in my opinion, might be the most equitable kind of solution. I love reading different perspectives and challenging myself to see different perspectives. I suspect Tildes trends white and male and I think to acknowledge that is to artificially raise up some titles over others. I think maintaining the current list and examining which "diverse perspective" were voted highly and vote on which/when to leaf them into the lineup is about as good a plan as I can think of.
Thanks. I agree about Americans teenagers and didn't intend to ignore it
We should hold a later nomination process exclusively for books with authors or main characters who are from disadvantaged/non majority groups.
We should read currently nominated books representing nondominant/ disadvantaged perspectives in addition to the list of top vote receiving books.
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We should include all nominated books up to and including Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.