Since the first published texts there have been calls to disown different printed work, and at Powell’s we have a long history of experiencing these calls, and the threats they bring with them, firsthand. If we need to remain closed, we will not hesitate to do so.Īs many of you may be following these events, I want to offer additional context about our decision to allow this book to remain online. Demonstrations outside our Burnside store have forced us to close to ensure the safety of employees, protestors, and neighbors. Since Sunday, Powell’s has received hundreds of emails, calls, and social media comments calling for us to remove Unmasked from. We have a similar arrangement with other publishers. We list the majority of their catalogue on automatically, as do many other independent and larger retailers. Unmasked by Andy Ngo came to us via one of our long-term and respected publishers, Hachette Book Group.
But we have always sold books that many of us would reject." The letter went out to the store's mailing list on Wednesday.Īt Powell’s, a lot of our inventory is hand-selected, and hand-promoted. It feels ugly and sickening to give any air to writing that could cause such deep pain to members of our community. Meanwhile, Emily Powell released a letter responding to the "hundreds of emails, calls, and social media comments" and explaining her decision to keep the book available online: "Our current fight does not feel virtuous. There's no reason to think that his book wouldn't be more of the same.” “I presume that the reason folks are asking Powell’s not to carry Andy's book is not (just) because they don't like him as a person,” they write, “it's because he has built a following by repurposing other journalists' content to create fake news narratives, and uses that following to direct harassment towards individual Portlanders. But Woodstock says the issue is bigger than that. Powell's announced Monday the book would be available online but not in stores, citing its longstanding policy of selling objectionable books. Now, in the wake of the assault on the US Capitol and the subsequent banishment of President Trump and many far-right radicals from social media, protesters in Portland demanded that Powell's remove Ngo's book from its inventory, many assembling outside the downtown store, leading management to close it early twice this week. Multiple protest attendees have experienced so much harassment after being targeted by Andy that they changed their addresses.” “This has happened to such an extent that protest attendees started making, ‘I got doxed by Andy Ngo and all I got was this t-shirt’-style merch. “Over the last several months, Andy has used his massive social media platform to target dozens of journalists and protesters, sharing their identifying information with his 762K twitter followers alongside inflammatory and often false captions,” they write. In an email to Portland Monthly, journalist Tuck Woodstock called out what they see as a clear pattern of harassment and online abuse by Ngo.
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