I find this whole idea of simply painting a main character black to be nothing short of obscene and repugnant. It’s as those none of the decision making execs at either B&N or PRH have even read any of the texts that they planned to include in this scheme. As you say, it’s nothing short of literary blackface. How they imagined any response to this blatant attempt to capitalize upon Black History Month being in the slightest bit positive is beyond me. The fact that they obviously envisioned making money from Black people, who they somehow assumed would be flocking to buy copies of classics with a character coloured black on the cover, is offensive beyond measure. Not only is their use of black faces on these new covers absolutely, incredibly wrong, there also seems to be a nasty lurking assumption floating in the background that members of the Black community wouldn’t even realise that alteration was as superficial and unsuccessful as it actually is in these books — that nobody is intelligent and well read/educated enough to understand how and why this ‘blacking up' is so wrong. Also that nobody else will care either. All of it is so so wrong. Black people are absolutely right to be offended and angry. I’m offended and angry. Everyone should be. Just goes to show how very little change there has really been in the understanding and challenging of underlying systemic racial issues. We (all of us, the human race) need to do better. We need to treat each other better, the majority of people don’t seem to care very much at all.