As child in elementary school, I distinctly remember being excited every time my teacher passed around the Scholastic Magazine. The paper of the magazine was thin, like newsprint. I’d fold the corners of the pages that had books I was interested in. Many times, I didn’t see anything and folded zero corners of the pages. It would be some time before I came to understand and question the power of a large corporation and its selection of what books it deemed worthy, in essence, to sell to young readers, teachers, and schools.

In October, Scholastic issued a statement to its authors and illustrators, detailing the corporation’s decision to create a separate section of their book fairs where books that included characters and issues related to sexuality, gender, and race could be found. How a book is determined to include race as part of its content, and another doesn’t, eludes the fact that racism is a category created to deliver relative privilege and risk to human beings. In their statement to authors and illustrators, Scholastic framed their decision to segregate books as a way of supporting “an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians, and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted.”

Find the full essay here, in Beacon Broadside.