Podcast Summary
Podcast: Conversations With Coleman
Host: Coleman Hughes
Guest: Adam Szetela
Episode: How Sensitivity Readers Made Publishing More Racist
Date: August 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Coleman Hughes interviews Adam Szetela, PhD in English and author of That Book Is Dangerous: How Moral Panic, Social Media and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing. The conversation dives deep into how social justice ideology and the rise of “sensitivity readers” have influenced, and in Szetela and Hughes’s view, damaged the publishing industry—especially in the young adult (YA) fiction sector. They discuss the origins and operations of sensitivity reading, unintended side effects such as increased stereotyping, the ambiguous line between authenticity and stereotype, and the chilling effect on creative freedom. With sharp critiques, the discussion also explores broader topics about who gets to write which stories, diversity in publishing, and the unintended racial essentialism that the sensitivity reading trend may have encouraged.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is a Sensitivity Reader?

• Definition and Origin
  • Sensitivity reading is recent—term only appearing around 2016.
  • Reading by someone who “shares a marginalized identity” with the character(s) to spot potentially offensive or ‘inauthentic’ content.
  • Quick commodification: people self-declare as sensitivity readers via social media, often with little to no formal credentialing.
• Industry Impact
  • All major publishers (the “Big Five”) now use sensitivity readers regularly, as do indie presses and, increasingly, journalism outlets.
• Reductionism and Incentives
  • Szetela critiques the role: “The basic premise is profound race reductionism... that if I bring in Coleman Hughes, he can point out where I’m being inauthentic because he has some insider knowledge of Black culture that I would never be able to fully understand.” [05:52]
  • Incentive for sensitivity readers to find problems (“If you invite a ghost hunter … do you think they're not going to find ghosts?” — Coleman, [10:15]), thus creating perverse economic and creative incentives.

2. The Paradox of Authenticity vs. Stereotype

• Fine Line in Writing
  • Both express how hard it is to write characters outside one’s own background without risking accusations of stereotyping or inauthenticity.
  • “If you have five Black people who just act like white people, then you get accused of colorblind racism.” — Szetela [21:51]
  • Sensitivity readers can sometimes reinforce the very essentialist and stereotypical thinking they’re supposed to guard against.
• Irony
  • Books celebrated for their “authentic” portrayal may actually trade in stereotypes if written by “the right identity”—i.e., Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give: “...it's literally full of the very worst stereotypes about black people... But because Angie Thomas has all the identitarian credentials… her book was hailed as this amazing phenomenon.” — Szetela [16:34]
  • Privileging of “lived experience” often leads to gatekeeping over who can write what.

3. The Sensitivity Reader Economy & Its Perverse Incentives

• Many sensitivity readers are also aspiring writers or industry insiders who gain both influence and money by stirring up and then “solving” publishing controversies.
• “They're there starting the fires and they're also there offering solutions, and in some cases highly lucrative ones.” — Szetela [12:02]

4. The Dynamics of Race and Identity in Literature

• One-Way Scrutiny
  • Sensitivity reading typically only scrutinizes depictions of marginalized groups by outsiders, rarely the reverse.
  • “Despite all of this ostensibly taking place in the name of anti-racism, there’s some profoundly racist assumptions embedded... White people are complicated individuals. African Americans... treated as part of a homogenous group.” — Szetela [31:31]
• Power of the Mob
  • Even authors who are themselves “professional sensitivity readers” can be targeted (e.g., Kosoko Jackson) [24:34].
  • The goalposts for authenticity and acceptability are constantly shifting, making it hard for even the most conscientious writers to keep up.
• Publishing as Loss-Averse
  • Major presses now use sensitivity readers as “disaster insurance” in a fickle, social media-driven outrage ecosystem.

5. Harm, Danger, and the Decline of Creative Risk

• Szetela’s book title uses the term “dangerous” unironically: many in the industry genuinely claim books are “harmful.”
• Hughes critiques the slippery concept of “harm” when applied to literature: “There’s a level of concept creep… I don’t think I've ever been harmed by a movie… The market of moviegoers... is smart enough to punish those kinds of stories.” [38:36]
• Overuse of “harm” undercuts artistic complexity and the audience’s sophistication.

6. Bigotry in Fiction: Writing Flawed, Offensive, or Bigoted Characters

• Industry pressure now demands that “bad” characters suffer immediate comeuppance—flawed or bigoted protagonists must be explicitly condemned in-text or by other characters.
  • “What you don't want is a conversation with two characters where one says something racist... and then the narrative just continues on. What you want is a character who can be a voice of reason and counter that.” — Szetela [51:17]
• This derails realistic storytelling (citing American Psycho, No Country for Old Men, and The Sopranos as examples of stories with uncondemned, complex bigots).

7. Soft Censorship vs. Hard Censorship

• The right uses direct legislation (e.g., book bans); the left leverages “soft” censorship via culture, social media, and internal industry policies.
• “At the end of the day, if it produces the same outcome, then it should provoke the same concerns among readers.” — Szetela [56:03]

8. Conservatives in Publishing

• Conservative imprints exist in nonfiction and memoir, but conservative fiction is nearly absent in mainstream publishing.
• Reading habits reflect some ideological splits, but industry bias and market forces reinforce left-leaning dominance.
• “There’s enormously rigid-minded progressive people and a lot are on the New York Times bestseller list in fiction. If my only goal was to write a NYT bestselling novel… better if it could be sort of either explicitly or more implicitly advocating some sort of progressive viewpoint.” — Szetela [62:47]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On how sensitivity reading started:
  “You don't actually see the term sensitivity reader appear on Twitter until 2016… This woman, Justina Ireland… built a database of sensitivity readers.” — Szetela [05:52]

• On the absurdity of the system:
  “It still sounds absolutely ridiculous to me when you say it out loud. And it doesn't sound any less ridiculous to people who work in the publishers who are not on board with this but who go along because it's sort of the in fashion thing to do.” — Szetela [08:55]

• On the shifting standard:
  “If you're a white guy and you have a book with five Black characters who like to play basketball and eat collard greens, that's gonna get absolutely eviscerated. But if you have five Black people who just act like white people…, then you get accused of colorblind racism.” — Szetela [21:51]

• On reductionism:
  “The way around that is to hire a sensitivity reader… At the end of the day, what we’re essentially talking about is a very elaborate way of saying, I have a Black friend in publishing.” — Szetela [22:38]

• On performative wokeness:
  “[Publishing is] going to basically turn them into the university. And, you know, as we have seen... it's not going to surprise me if they start to receive the same sort of negative sentiment that academia has had.” — Szetela [30:53]

• On harm and elitism:
  “Once you're using that language and you're generalizing about people's harm, I don't agree with that at all for a number of reasons. And because that's the language that's used, the publishers themselves are panicking and hiring people like sensitivity readers.” — Szetela [41:36]

• On class and status in outrage:
  “It’s not the Black dude at the local homeless shelter who’s outraged over the latest book deal... this is a very clear class of highly educated, left-leaning, often affluent people...” — Szetela [45:22]

• On the inevitable universality of accusations:
  "I want to create a board game called 'You're Racist,' where every decision on the board game somehow leads you to being a racist in the end." — Szetela [27:19]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:29] The Amélie Wen Zhao Controversy and Sensitivity Reader “Mobility”
• [05:52] What Are Sensitivity Readers and How Do They Operate?
• [10:15] Incentives and the Ghost Hunter Analogy
• [15:30] The Paradox of Stereotyping vs. Authenticity
• [17:49] The Line Between Stereotype and Cultural Authenticity
• [21:51] Colorblind Racism vs. “Racial Authenticity” in Publishing
• [24:34] Sensitivity Readers Turned Targets
• [27:19] The No-Win Game (“You’re Racist” Board Game)
• [31:31] Why Scrutiny Only Flows in One Direction
• [38:36] The Question of Harm: Audience Agency and Concept Creep
• [41:36] Why Industry Panic Over “Dangerous” Books is Irrational
• [45:22] Elitism and Who Drives Outrage
• [48:10] Publishing’s Approach to Writing Bigoted Characters
• [51:17] Sanitization of Literature and “Privilege Checking”
• [56:03] Soft Censorship vs. Hard Censorship
• [59:41] Where Are the Conservative Novelists?
• [62:47] Progressive Bias and Market Incentives

Conclusion

Coleman Hughes and Adam Szetela deliver a forthright, often sharply funny, critique of the publishing world’s handling of identity, authenticity, and creative risk. The conversation powerfully argues that the rise of sensitivity readers—initially intended to foster a more diverse and respectful publishing landscape—has, paradoxically, deepened racial essentialism and suppressed creative freedom, all while serving the interests of a small, hyper-engaged cultural elite. Szetela’s fieldwork and analysis paint a picture of an industry in thrall to performative activism, where the pursuit of safety and “authenticity” has led to a loss of trust in both writers and readers, and a stultification of literary art.

This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in the intersection of art, identity politics, and freedom of expression.