“A handful of publishing houses account for a majority of the books published in the United States. In these companies, the question is not how many people of color they employ at decision-making levels, but whether they have any at all”

“For the first five years that I was writing for The New Yorker,” says a longtime contributor, “the closest I ever got to a person of color was a young white fact-checker with dreads.”

The editor had become the number-one topic at every Hamptons din­ner party, where people gossiped about his temper, his flashy clothes, about the gun he sup­posedly keeps in his desk...