Bluntly, the National Book Award has become a D.E.I. checklist: Only authors with preferred identities, preferred topics and preferred politics stand any realistic chance of winning.
Much the same goes for the Pulitzer Prizes. Of the past 10 years’ worth of winners for music and drama, nearly all have been minorities. Whether or not the winners are themselves minorities, they almost invariably win for work about minorities. For the prize in history, Kathleen DuVal won in 2025 for her history of Native American nations; Jacqueline Jones in 2024 for her account of Black workers in Boston during the Civil War; Jefferson Cowie in 2023 for his examination of white supremacy in an Alabama county in the 19th and 20th centuries; W. Caleb McDaniel in 2020 for his story of a former slave’s fight for justice in post-Civil War America; David Blight in 2019 for his biography of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
An article worth your time. Another reason white males can't get hired.
