Normally, I'm a pretty laid back person but yesterday I got completely PISSED. Talked with an author friend and learned something interesting and HORRIBLE. Did you know that romances written by African American writers about African American couples aren't shelved in most bookstores with the other romances? HUH? In this day and age? Ahhhhh, come ON. Nope. They are shelved with all African American themed stories that are by African American authors. This seriously limits the ability of romance authors to reach their readers and is unfair as hell. Um...where is ACLU on this?First let me say I felt like a dumb ass for not realizing this. Maybe I'm naive and I want to believe publishers and bookstores are beyond this sort of segregation. Apparently not. I also learned some blogging has been going on about why caucasian readers don't or won't read romances featuring black couples. One commenter apparently said she thought African American romances were just a fad that would eventually go away. Really? Books about love? Books about caring? Really? A fad?
These days I buy ebooks because they are cheaper, easier to purchase and well, often better than what I find in bookstores but when I DO go to my local bookstore, I usually rush in and rush out. I'm looking for a particular title in the romance section and one or two others will catch my attention and I'll pick them up too. I've never read a book about an African American couple written by an African American writer but that is gonna change. Right now. If I have to hunt down that designated section (that is different from the other romance writers) so be it. Thing is, I have no doubt that in my rushed buying frenzy, had I seen one of these books, I would have bought. But, hell no, they aren't there in the "romance" section where they belong.
Now I learn that if an African American romance writer wants to write about a caucasian couple, they often take a new pen name so they can be assured of being shelved with other romances. Or they make sure a white model is on the cover. That helps, too.
Isn't this AWFUL????
I've written several stories with mixed race couples. Lots of us do. My first book featured secondary characters, ill-fated lovers who, no doubt, lived in the wrong time. Regency England was not the best of times for a Chinese woman and a proper Englishman to fall in love. Tempting Tess featured a latino man and a white woman. Another story coming down the pike stars a latina woman and a white man (oh, and a Spaniard). I have a friend who has characters who are blue. Should her books be shelved in the "blue people section" or mine in the Chinese/Mexican section? Ah, lets not even GO THERE.
Sooo, guess I'm still waiting for the color-blind world and business people who look at quality rather than ethnicity in their marketing. I continue to be disappointed.
28 comments:
As much as we like to think we are an evolved, caring society who accepts people regardless of their ethnicity and sexual preferences - there are times when I believe we know diddly squat.
Actually I've a lot of African American writers who write about african american couples in the romance section in my local Barnes and Noble store. They are also all over the store too because I've seen a lot of them.
Hi Phoebe! This isn't happening at ALL bookstores. Apparentely, it depends on the store. I don't have a Barnes and Noble in my town although we have two big bookstores. I haven't checked them to see what they do, but I'm going to look and see next time I'm in.
It's ridiculous but there you go. People are weird. We write about vampires, werewolves, demons and aliens and claim it works because the theme of romance is universal. Then we take perfectly ordinary human characters and segregate them out. Oh yeah, that makes LOADS of sense. Good topic, Reg!
It's silly, but it's not just limited to AA romances, either. Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City books are shelved in Gay/Lesbian instead of Fiction - which I found out only after wandering around the Fiction section for about an hour looking for them.
My own books have had interracial couples as well - I can't imagine them being anywhere other than the Romance section. It's a silly system that needs to be re-thought.
Hell yes, they need to be re-thought. We need to be integrated in bookstores as we are in other places. This is ridiculous and prejudicial.
My grandmother used to get the inspirational romances through the mail, and some of the best were African-American authors and their African-American romances! I enjoyed those...
So now I'm wondering...when books 6 and 8 of my series are pubbed, will they be with the rest of the series, or will #6 be in the 'gay and lesbian' section while #8 will be off by itself in the 'Racial Diversity' section?? Appropriately enough, #8 is titled, Love is Color-Blind:)
Crazy when you think about it, isn't it,Molly??? Where do they draw the line?
I confess that I write about blue people...and black people and Asian people and unicorn shifters and angel shifters and gay men... and they're all romances. That's the way they should be shelved--as romances. All romances should be shelved together.
It won't happen until we make a stink about it. That's right. The WHITE writers/readers need to put up a howl too about not being able to find all romances in the romance section.
I agree, Anny. And you're right. What hurts one of us, hurts us all and WHITE, ASIAN, AMERICAN INDIAN et. al writers need to kick up a fuss. We write about LOVE and what is more HATEFUL than this. Publishers and bookstores who participate in this should be given the cold shoulder. Perhaps if we hit them in the pocketbook, they'd listen
Our bookstores (Barnes and Noble and Borders) actually shelve them in both places. The same books will be split between romance and african-american literature. I assume this is so that no matter where someone decides to look for the book, they will find it.
But it makes me wonder, when my books hit the stores will they be in Fiction, Romance, Sci-Fi AND gay/lesbian studies? Cause I have to say I would love to have my books ALL OVER those freakin' stores.
I agree that this is ridiculous. A romance is a romance. It doesn't matter what color the characters are. It shouldn't matter in books and it sure as hell shouldn't matter in real life.
XoXoXo
Dakota
Know what really bugs me? Like everyone, I have favorite writers. We got a brand new Book a Million here and it ticked me off so badly to find Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Karen Robards and other romance writers in general fiction. I mean, I always go to the romance section not general fiction.
Racism, I fear, is a fact of life even amongst Africans and African-Americans. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. To begin with, I've read afew romances written by black authors and I get pretty fed up of having to be reminded how beautiful black is or the positive qualities of a black person which comes over as overly compensating for the fact that perosn is black. Just give me a story. Description should be limited so I can conjure in my mind who this character is. Let me fill in with my imagination, and unfortunately I am disappointed quite often by the overtness of being black in a story. That tends to be the most important facet. Again, just give me the story. Characters should be able to slip into any skin, depending on who is reading the book.
Thanks for an interesting subject matter.
P.S Black is not a language or a culture. I wish to God we would spell 'sister' and not 'sistah.' Perhaps, then we could start changing others' views of us.
ciao.
I think if more people realized this they would be upset. It's called "niche marketing". They explain it that science fiction is in another section so is mystery, but I'm curious when did being African American become a genre within itself?
Romance novels should be with romance novels. Don't make a reader search for a book. Just make the darn thing readily available. I know I hunt down my favorite authors, but that new author who I wanted to try, not so much.
I know about niche marketing and I understand but why don't they realize that romances all belong together. Someone mentioned gay romances too. Yep. They should be there as well. It's all romance.
Yeah, Melissa. Browsers looking in the romance section would BUY these books if they were placed in front of them.
I agree with you, too Michelle. This over-explaining of a character goes on no matter the genre. I blogged over at Three Wicked Writers about ad nauseum descriptions. I try to mention appearance ONCE in a story and then I move on. Yep...reader knows she's blonde and blue eyed..NUFF SAID.
It's very frustrating. A big problem is also its different at different stores which is very confusing for readers. One store may have the AA books in romance, one may have them in the AA section while another (not very often from what I've seen) will have them in both. How do we know where to look? Plus, to me, love is love no matter who is doing the loving :) To put AA romance in any section other than romance tells me that they don't see AA romance as romance or love. I don't get that.
Michelle- I understand where you are coming from in some ways. I write interracial romance but my books are always just about love and not about race. I don't want to stress the issue or shove it down the readers throat. That does make it harder for other ethnicities to related to the book. Plus, not all IR relationships have any issues with race. In my books I never have their conflict about race. Its never we can't be together because I'm black and you're white. I'm in an IR marriage and my hubby and I have never had issues. Some relationships do and some don't. I don't use a lot of terms like "sistah" either. I DON'T have a problem with other writers who do but personally, in my life when I say sister, its sister so I write that way as well.
Regina, thanks for talking about his on your blog!
Thanks for coming by, Kell. As PEOPLE who write about love in it's many forms, be it alien-love, vamp-love, blue love or HUMAN love, we're all in this together I think. What hurts one of us, hurts us all.
I have to admit, I've never noticed this before. I'm sitting here picturing where I find AA romances, and I can see them shelved in the Romance section of my local B&N. I'm pretty sure (although I don't remember noticing because it wasn't what I was looking for) that Kimani is shelved with the other Harlequin series, too.
Kelley - I agree with you about all the "force feeding" when it comes to the characters. When I read - and write - romances, the color of the person doesn't matter unless it is necessary for the story. My first Inspirational featured an IR couple, but only because the story wouldn't have rung true otherwise. And the hero's race was only an issue ONCE. Like you, I'm in an IR marriage and my dh and I have never had any problems.
Hi Denise! It's been awhile since I've been in my local bookstores and I'm going to make a point to see where they stand on this stuff. It'll be interesting but sounds like it really varies from store to store.
There was a big article about this in RWR magazine a month or two ago as well.
Regina, you've really got me curious now. I live in a pretty good sized city, and I'm going to check my local B&N and Borders to see what they do. A friend of mine used to write inspirational thrillers, and I think hers were always shelved in the AA section, too.
Wendi Darlin
I once had to search all over the store to find a gay romance book I wanted. It was clearly a romance, but it was shelved in a corner, on the bottom shelf, with the gay / lesbian studies books--the majority of which were non-fiction. Took me half an hour to find the section, and then I was rewarded with two shelves of nonfiction. Grrrr.
Romance is romance, in my mind. I don't care what race or sexuality the protagonists have. If they want to separate the romances out a bit, fine, but at least put them all in the same overall section and then have subsections!
I haven't been back to that store since.
I'm just as out of the loop as you are because I never realized it either. How upsetting! And wrong! Personally, I don't care what race the characters are as long as the story is good. The only section that should be segragated is the history section and that into a whole slew of designations just so it's easier to find what you're looking for.
Thanks for this post, Regina. Building awareness is the beginning. I hope that even more people become aware, especially as more non-black authors populate books with black characters yet are shelved with regular romance, while those same books written by black authors are segregated.
FWIW, most B&Ns tend to shelve all their romance together--unless the store is located in an area with a larger black population. Most of the other chains, including Target and Wal-Mart, have separated sections though there are exceptions.
There may be cultural differences in some of the stories. I would also argue that "sistah" is as much part of a cultural lexicon as "sugah" is to a Southern dialect or "chere" is to a Cajun one. For the most part however, Black romances tell the same journey as non-black romances do. It hard to find that journey when you're searching through thongs and pimps and the like to find your romance book.
For those in RWA, there will be an AA romance summit during the PAN retreat at National next week. Questions were submitted. It is my most sincere hope that we get answers.
Hi Seressia! I honestly found out by accident when talking with a close friend who is an African American romance writer. The whole thing was just appalling to me. I certainly hope RWA is responsive. More "white" romance writers should know about this so we can help.
Yes, I heard that Wal Mart practices this. Makes me not want to buy books from them.
Seressia,
Great point about the "sistah" and "sugah" or "chere". I never really thought about it that way!! I guess for me its just I end up writing the way I personally talk.
I do this all the time. I'm a Texan and tend to write a lot of southern characters. Lots of darlin's, sugars, etc. It's just regional dialect, really.
I do understand cultural lexicons, but there's a point to be argued about finding a balance in how black people are portrayed under whatever circumstances- no matter background or education to be black we have to be confronted with a certain way of speech or being. That's my disappointment of some AA books. How can we change social perceptions if we continue to purport them?
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