Is Barnes & Noble racist or sexist, or just oblivious? [ Edited ]

[pdx]

I recently purchased my first Nook Simple Touch and noticed that the author screensaver has almost all white men...only one woman and no non-white people.

Doesn't anyone find that strange? I'm a white guy and I found it strange...If I were a woman or person of color, I'd be pissed off.

There are plenty of authors they could have used, some of them peers or even predecessors of the existing screensaver writers...Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Carlos Casteneda, Sun Tzu, etc.

Seems like a stupid mistake they should correct in the next update.

[Marty-TX]

I see three Bronte Sisters, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. Looks like "only one woman" was a mistake on your part.

[MacMcK1957]

I just want to know how they're going to do Sun Tzu, since there are no pictures of him and the screensaver portraits aren't labeled.

[kamas716]

If I was still using the stock authors screen saver, I wouldn't mind seeing Dumas or W.E.B. DuBois.  But, I've loaded my own photos on and use that now, so no big deal.

[Melissa19]

I prefer the nature screen savers to those people staring back at me. And a picture of the ocean would be a nice addition. Try nook-look.com

[roustabout]

"Carlos Casteneda" 

Whiskey, Tango Foxtrot. 

I realize the old coyote was taught to well-heeled college students in latin american studies courses for quite some time -  even after folks in the other departments realized that everything he'd written was lies (outside of Latin American Studies curricula, folks had figured out much of the problem while Nixon was still in office), and that his following had degenerated into an imploding sex and suicide cult. And also after most folks realized that the writing and ideas had pretty much nothing to do with anything - with any culture or body of literature.

If you're looking for a brown skinned token, maybe pick a different one next time?  The joker you've drawn doesn't illustrate enlightment as much as the folks so brilliantly skewered by Phil Ochs thought (and apparently still think) he did. 

Some thoughts on folks I wish I could find in Spanish, for friends I've recommended Nooks to over the Amazon products - and then found that Amazon has a much stronger selection of Latin American and Spanish literature actually written in Spanish:  Borges, Garcia Marquez, Garcia Lorca, Neruda, Vargas Llosa, Fuentes.

[bobstro]

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pdx wrote:

I recently purchased my first Nook Simple Touch and noticed that the author screensaver has almost all white men...only one woman and no non-white people. [...]

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Are you certain all those you're counting as males actually are?

[MacMcK1957]

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bobstro wrote:

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pdx wrote:

I recently purchased my first Nook Simple Touch and noticed that the author screensaver has almost all white men...only one woman and no non-white people. [...]

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Are you certain all those you're counting as males actually are?

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I was unsure about the Gertrude Stein portrait too.

[pdx]

Thanks for the nitpicking responses...you've all done a wonderful job of missing the point!

[keriflur]

Well, I, for one, have always found that the best way to get a company to do what I want is to call it racist and sexist.  It works every time.  Honest and open dialogue is for fools.

[keriflur]

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pdx wrote:

Thanks for the nitpicking responses...you've all done a wonderful job of missing the point!

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And, just so I'm clear, how is pointing out that there are quite a few women in the images nitpicking?  What, they're still sexist, just because you say they are?  *rolls eyes*

[roustabout]

"you've all done a wonderful job of missing the point!"

Right you are, we've all fairly politely avoided the key sentence in your original post:  "If I were a woman or person of color, I'd be pissed off" 

I thought we were all being very civil, really.   

[AlanNJ Inspired Bibliophile]

If you couldn't add your own screensavers to the Nook (which of course you can) then this topic would have some validity.  As it stands it really doesn't have any validity as far as I'm concerned since you're not limited to the factory installed screensavers.

The fact that it got so many responses is amazing to me.

[Byteguy]

Anybody alive or reasonably current has an agent or foundation looking out for them and would need an agreement before B&N could use them.

B&N had these authors already for their in-store posters.

Personally, the Bronte Sisters scare me.  I demand to know why B&N feels it has to frighten me into constantly reading my Nook to keep them away.

[MacMcK1957]

Seems to me there's all sorts of ways they're not representative of something.  I count ten images, of which 7 are men, 3 are women (including the Bronte trio).  One is classical, six are 19th century, three 20th century.  Two are gay (maybe three, not sure about Homer).  Eight are American or English (counting Conrad), one French, one ancient Greek.

No Twain, Hugo, Dumas pere or fils, Alcott, Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, Chaucer, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Virgil, Scott, Stevenson, Wells.  Nobody in the last 50 years except Vonnegut.  Think of your five favorite authors. Probably four aren't there.

So if you want ten pictures to represent all of literature, and be inclusive of everyone, how do you do it?

[msmoonlite]

I'm Black. And I'm a woman. I prefer the outdoor scenes, personally. Not offended at all.

[frantastk]

Nope. Doesn't bother me in the least. As a woman of Japanese decent, I have far more pressing concerns than who the dead authors are on the B&N screensaver. I think they used these images because these were the author art they've been using for years in the stores. The first thing I did was put my own screensavers on it, anyway. Those pictures have always scared me just a bit.

[DeanGibson Distinguished Bibliophile]

Owning a Nook 1st edition, I just extracted the "cities" screensavers from the Nook 1st edition and copied them to the Nook Touches.

If I get permission from B&N, I'll make them available for download in a .ZIP file.

[AlanNJ Inspired Bibliophile]

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DeanGibson wrote:

Owning a Nook 1st edition, I just extracted the "cities" screensavers from the Nook 1st edition and copied them to the Nook Touches.

If I get permission from B&N, I'll make them available for download in a .ZIP file.

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There are actually LOTS of screensavers here on http://www.nook-look.com/.  Check there and it will probably save you the problem of navigating B&N's legal department although I can't see how a screensaver could be copyrighted for one B&N device and not another.