[throwawaysea]

I was a fan of Bookshop (because of their mission) until I noticed they aren’t politically neutral. For example they ran a campaign to get their customers to fund sending copies of the 1619 project, a widely debunked book by extremist Nikole Hannah-Jones, to schools across the US. It’s hard for me to trust such a platform will sell books of all political persuasions in the future and I don’t want to lend them more power because of it. Not that Amazon is better - they have also begun practicing book bans and cave to employee activism regularly. I just wish there was someone with a neutral book store.

[sitkack]

Why was it important for you even to comment on that? Do you vet the politics with everyone you do financial business with?

Your comment itself looks like textbook cancel culture. The extremist you reference is an award winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikole_Hannah-Jones

[hdlothia]

There's no such thing as neutrality. Everyone has a window of acceptable behavior and ideas.

[mythrwy]

There are acceptable degrees of neutrality though.

If a bookseller refused to sell 1619 because they deemed it false and harmful I'd consider doing business with the bookseller even though I don't care for the premise of the book. Or if they sent "Protocols of Elders of Zion" free of charge and unsolicited to schools I'd also not want to do business with them.

Booksellers, like the internet, should probably stick to being a dumb pipe within the confines of what is legal.