THIS WEEK


to The Bookseller, a Black staffer at a major retail


chain has voiced frustration that monocultural shops may be letting down their customers


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Esan Swan @EsanSwan


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hen Liz started part-time at a Waterstones bookshop last autumn, she was shocked but not surprised by the lack of ethnic diversit at her location. Choosing to speak to The Bookseller under a false name to protect her identit, she said the job was the first she’d had without seeing a Black colleague.


Liz said that although her colleagues are


lovely, and most are self-aware and socially conscious, there are times when she thinks overall, the lack of diversit is a problem. She believes her experience is representative of a broader issue within the UK. “I think it’s largely based [on] the socioeconomic situa- tion in the UK, mixed in with its classism and covert racism,” she said. Before starting at retail giant Waterstones, which employs more than 3,000 booksellers across 280 bookshops, Liz said the chain never really struck her as being particularly multicultural. “But I also was really surprised because I was wondering, ‘How?’, in a way,” she said, “Like, how am I not working with anyone else Black or [minorit] ethnic even? I’ve noticed a few Black people my age and people from ethnic minorities feel like they [are not] allowed to be in certain spaces.” In an email statement to The Bookseller, a


Waterstones representative declined to give a breakdown of staff ethnicit or put forward staff to be interviewed, but said: “We are very aware of the importance of creating a workplace that is diverse and inclusive. We have been actively looking into diversit and inclusion within our bookshops as a priorit over previous months.” As part of this, Waterstones, which owns Foyles and


12 20th May 2022


The Black Issue 2022 Diversity in book retail


Talking shop: Black booksellers speak of frustration at sector’s slow progress Speaking anonymously


MALCOLM RICHARDS, OWNER OF EXETER INDEPENDENT BOOK BAG


Blackwell’s, has partnered with Diversit in Retail, an organisation that helps companies to create diverse and inclusive environments, which has led to the creation of an inclusion survey. Waterstones said the survey is still a work in progress, and the results haven’t been fully analysed yet. “Once it is available, we plan to use what we have learnt to implement a targeted Equalit, Diversit and Inclusion strategy, which will include identifying and puting into action changes to improve the diversit of our workforce.”


Damning data


Publishing as a whole has long been the focus of scrutiny over the lack of ethnic diversit represented in bookshops and on bookshelves across the country. In 2019, Sheffield Hallam Universit and Arts Council England published a report,Time for Change, about the representation of people or communities of colour in the UK children’s literature sector. In the survey, only 9.6% of respondents were not white British, and this figure has increased only marginally since 2008, when 9.3% of respondents were not white British. The report also highlighted that of the 42 UK publishing houses surveyed by the Publishers Association, 11.6% of the workforce was from communities of colour, which at the time was lower than the UK population


DESIREE ASOMUYIDE FOUNDED INCLUSIVE BRAND LITTLE OSO


(14%) and significantly lower than the London population (40%), where nearly two-thirds of respondents were based. Things appear to be changing in other areas. According to the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, there is a positive increase in children’s books featuring a minorit ethnic character (to 15%) in 2020, up from 10% in 2019 and a substantial increase from the 4% reported in 2017. Yet between 2006 and 2016, only 8% of YA books by people of colour were published, according to the International Journal of Young Adult Literature. Desiree Asomuyide, a first-time children’s


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