I’d been thinking about interracial romance over the weekend, while I was trying to draft a section for The Book (OMG The Whole Genre?!) {that’s a working title, obviously} that examined minorities in RomanceLandia. What a verdant, green – or white, perhaps – pasture of peaceful writing that was. Not a landmine in sight for my clodding feet to trip on. No, no. *head desk* So when a friend of mine forwarded me a news article that Mildred Loving, the Black woman whose marriage to a white man overturned laws against interracial marriage died today at the age of 68, I had to think how different the world is in 2008 vs. 1958. Before I move on – our condolences to her family. I always thought it was unspeakably awesome that the name of the court case that declared laws restricting marriage on basis of race unconstitutional was called “Loving v. Virginia.”
Since I count among my neighbors several interracial couples and families, I have been spoiled with an experience that indicates interracial marriage as something that’s somewhat common. As the friend who forwarded me the article said to me over email, I’m nuts if I think that’s the rule across the US. It’s certainly not the case in romance – interracial couples in romance novels are still somewhat rare, though there are more of them of late. One writer of bestselling awesomeness told me recently that many romance writers, including herself, would love to write a romance that crosses racial lines – but those books are difficult to get into publication from established print romance publishers. In the e-format, there’s a more vigorous supply, but then, the “e” in romance is the one area that does tend to push the boundaries of the genre a little bit harder, giving the “nudge nudge” a more diverse meaning. Samhain has an entire section of interracial titles, featuring white heroes and Black heroines, and vice versa—and hero/hero, as well, so clearly someone or many someones are shopping for interracial romance specifically.
On one hand, it’s difficult to ask the right question. Would the presence of an interracial couple stop someone from buying a romance? (Would it stop me? Nope.) Is interracial romance solely the domain – and by domain I mean “located in the bookshop section” – of Black romance, because the minute one half of a protagonist pair is Black, the book moves toward Black Romance as a subgenre marker? Speaking solely for myself, I’m curious why interracial romance appears to be mostly found in epubs, small presses, erotica, or within Black romance publishing lines. Brenda Jackson has written several for Silhouette Desire, but those seem to be an exception among the backlist of series romance – and yet another reason how the dismissed-as-staid category romances can sometimes not just push but shred the envelope of boundaries every now and again like nothing else.
I’m also curious whether it’s a target people shop for, a type of storyline that some really enjoy the same way I am a total and complete sucker for a certain plotlines, including one that is too embarrassing to mention. If people shop deliberately for interracial romances, then why aren’t there more of them in mainstream romance (unless they’re there and my Google-fu has failed me)? Is there a difficult barrier towards publication of a romance that takes place across cultural and racial lines? And what counts as interracial, anyway? Does a Black woman and a Middle Eastern man count as interracial? (This reader thinks so.) Or is “interracial” code for solely white/black combinations? Hell, depending on what anti-Semite you ask, my marriage would be interracial.
Mostly I’m wondering simply why there aren’t more interracial couples in romance. There’s more than a few powerhouse examples in mainstream romance across several genres, so I am curious why there’s not more of it. For example, Ward’s Brotherhood plays with race, and the question’s been asked of her point blank whether the Brothers are Black (her answer was that they are not an identifiable human race so it’s impossible to say). Kleypas’ Mine Till Midnight also crossed a racial line in the historical sense, in that her hero was Rom and the heroine was white – a combination that caused me to question the endurance of their happy ending, given the social prejudice working against them. And someone will hunt me down and kick me in the knees if I don’t mention the multi-book subplot of Brockmann’s Sam & Alyssa. All three examples were holy crapping damn successful. Perhaps the problem is that what I perceive of as “few” needs to be adjusted. Someone else might think that’s plenty.
I’m not so much asking for a list of interracial romances, though feel free to suggest some that you’ve enjoyed, but more of a “Interracial romance: what’s up with that? How come there’s not more of it?” type of random musing. So? Your thought? Ha. I crack me up. I know you have more than one.
Sara,
I disagree that it’s a disservice to not include racial conflict. Disservice to whom? Yourself if you have never experienced it or to your friend’s mother because she couldn’t pass for white. I think we stretch the reasons too far. I find it a disservice to the romance and to the storyline, if it’s included just because the writer feels it has to be present simply because the relationship is an IR, as opposed to the story calling for it. Your story sounds very interesting and like it had more than enough going on. I’m on my way to Amazon to check it out.
We are all products of our experiences I find it a disservice to portray all IR relationships as being rife with conflict. Mine has never been and mine is not alone.
Isis
I have notice a lot of main stream author rear away from interracial romance/erotica books. Most authors who I email state, they are afraid to write IR or no one wants to buy them. My reply to them they are souly mistake because there are many readers who are willing and able to purchase these books. What I understand it is the publish company who has basely denial authors. Because publish company believe there is no market for interracial romance book. I applaud ebook company for taking stand for this type of genre.
I personalty love to read interracial romance/erotica books, especially between black woman/ another ethnicity male. OHMYGAWD that is so hot. I want to read how they overcame adversity, fell in love, and having great sex. I just can’t believe how single mind publish industry in this day and time. Don’t they understand how broad mind readers has become they want more than WW/WM, WW/Indian Man, Or WW/AM. The common theme white woman. Please! I and the readers want more diversity. White woman isn’t only person on this planet who falls in love. Broaden your horizon you be surpise what you will learn. I support IR. I for one love them.
I had a teacher in college who argued that there is no such thing as race. There are only different cultures, different skin colors. No biological differences, as the term suggests.
I’m white, my husband is not, and this has never been an issue in our relationship. My romances tend to have characters from different backgrounds and cultures, but I never see this as a conflict or a problem the couple has to overcome. Perhaps because of my personal experience, my upbringing, and where I live (San Diego is very diverse).
My agent once referred to one of my books as a “multicultural romance” when she was pitching it. I remember finding this odd. To me, it was just a romance.
Sara, I read your book and while it’s been more than a minute since I read it (shortly after it came out) I don’t feel that race played much of a part in it at all. Fact is, his so called disability was more of a plot point than anything else. Race was way, way down on the list…and Isis, get that book ASAP, you’re going to enjoy reading it.
The “why” question I think is a pretty basic one in all the genres – why is our fiction so damn segregated and how come so many kinds of people get used as safe others (all those historicals full of brutal, barbaric, uncivilized, very different…scottish people) while the question of race can’t be touched directly at all?
I had to stop reading historicals with American settings completely because they were either about Native men who it turned out had gone to Harvard/were actually half white (always their fathers because that’s the IMPORTANT half)/were actually orphaned settler boys). Or they took place in places where slavery definitely existed and yet…slavery did not touch the book at all.
I was SO EXCITED when I saw Roberta Gregory’s A Respectable Trade on the rack at our grocery store, and then by the next week it had completely disappeared. I am sure someone complained. And it wasn’t even really a romance novel, I don’t think – once I finally tracked down a copy I looked at her other stuff and it seems to not be marketed as genre.
Anyway, I think I might try a string of Black-marketed romances. It fits in my “only cheerful books” vow for this year, and they should be pretty easy to come by (though from what is on the shelf, I think our library only stocks Christian romances with Black heroines.) Thanks for the post, and the links & titles in everyone’s comments.
Harlequin Superromance is publishing an interracial romance in a few months—it was originally an Everlasting Love but was moved to Superromance after the line closed. I don’t remember the name, but it’s by Geri Krotow.
My first Harlequin Spice Brief, No Apologies, was about an interracial couple, as well, but it didn’t dwell on the fact that they were different races. It was simply a romance with two people of different colors—he was black, she was white.
The world is made up of many different kind of couples—I don’t understand why romance shouldn’t be as well.
The IR aspect must also be looked at from the author angle. Like Roz said, and as Monica has been saying for a while, the color of the characters don’t matter, the color of the author does. Even though the world is multicultural, this society is still stratified by “race” (and on that note, religion: don’t see very many devout Muslims or Buddhists or Jewish or even a practicer of a non-World religion as a protagonist), which enables the majority to dictate what is an acceptable fantasy.
The way I see it, non-black authors writing non-white characters is a good thing, but their ability to experience success in ways a black author (or another minority author: I don’t see Jade Lee’s awesome historicals getting as much buzz as some of the all-white historicals that have been released recently) is unable gets my goat. Sort of reminds me of the casting for movies like Pinky, the 1959 version of The Imitation of Life, and various cases of “yellowface” and “redface” in Hollywood: the majority likes dramatizing people of color, but only if they’re assured that behind the “color” is a white person.
For all the declarations that “race” doesn’t matter, I feel this statement is used to keep the romance genre “safe” from anything truly uncomfortable. Which in turn makes me feel that who I am, and what my experiences are as a black woman in America, are unwelcome because it is “uncomfortable.” That I must shield a portion of what has formed my personality in order to maintain the status quo—something I find completely unfair and wrong.
I know there isn’t enough IR, multicultural, etc. romance on the shelves. And you ought to be in Canada to see how much worse it is here. But I do think things have improved a lot in the last few years, and that trend is going to continue.
I’m with Kensington and I honestly haven’t got any sense that they give a damn about the race/culture of the hero and heroine. They’re looking for a good story.
They did say, for my first book (white female, black male) that they had a heck of a time finding a stock photo for the cover. But they ended up with a gorgeous one. It’s romantic and gentle and I love the sense of connection between the man and woman. The back cover blurb doesn’t say a word about the IR aspect, but the cover photo pretty much gets that point across.
When RT BookReviews reviewed hte book, they didn’t label it as IR or include that fact in the review. Nor did they with Hot in Here (which has a racially neutral cover, and again no mention in the blurb). I’ve never had a fan comment negatively on either book (i.e., no-one has said there’s too much or too little of a race issue). I have had women in IR relationships comment that, from their perspective, I got it right. That’s very gratifying for an author. Of course there’s no such thing as a “typical” IR relationship, but it’s wonderful when characters ring true with readers.
Susan http://www.susanlyons.ca
Trumystique: love what you said.
Yes, race is a social construct, but the context it’s been created and maintained in doesn’t just go away. Race relations don’t just magically get better because we want to hold hands and sing for peace.
I don’t mean to sound completely flippant. (I’m very tired right now). But I grew up in LA and race played a huge part of my childhood. Being white in a white neighborhood had different connotations than when I was white in other neighborhoods. My friends of color all have stories to share, and while most are different some of them have very similiar underlining threads. While each person has a unique set of experiences and personality and history and whatever, race does play a part. (Being white means I get a lot more priviledges than some of my friends). Considering most relations get started on the first impression, the looks (and therefore skin color, while maybe not race- I’ve had friends who look white and friends who are considered something else because they look like another “group”) of a person do add to the overall impression. Just because someone wants to ignore race doesn’t mean they really can.
To get back more on multiracial romances rather than just race, I don’t need or even necessarily want a romance to only talk about racial issues. (Though again, if a book’s well written, gimme gimme). OTOH, I personally (this is all my oh so humble opinion) find it weird when race is brushed over. Not so much in paranormal, but in contemporary or historicals or… And OTOH again, I don’t want to be bashed on the head with it. To use an example from just Suz Brockmann since someone mentioned her above: Alyssa and Sam’s story line had a huge racial component- Sam’s background, Alyssa’s perception of him as a “texas boy” (and therefore racist and homophobic), etc etc. For Into the Storm, I felt Lindsey’s race was more forced into the plot rather than flowing, like “hey, don’t forget she’s Japanese folks”. (Still love her story though. But Suz just rocks).
And thanks for the link to Interracial/Multicultural Romance Readers. Looking forward to some suggestions. And all the titles throughout the comments. And my TBR pile gets bigger…
Also, Naughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman is a really interesting YA novel with a black heroine and a white hero; the difference though is in her world, what it means to be black or white has been reversed. I think it’s the first book in a trilogy, but I’ve only read this one so don’t know how the rest go. (Uh, warning and slightly spoilerish- while it is a romance, it doesn’t have an HEA).
Black and BW/other male romances are just like white romances in some respects: there are good writers and bad writers; there are stories where class/race is an issue, and some that aren’t (how many boy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks stories are out there that keep driving the point home over and over?)
I just got back from the Romance Slam Jam, a convention that celebrates black romance. Black romance authors and bookclubs get together every year (think of it as Celebrate Romance for black folks) to enjoy the world of black romance. This includes interracial, paranormal, inspirational, and chick lit. (Please don’t ask why this conference exists, because if you don’t realize the answer….)
This year was the 13th year. THIRTEEN, people. A conference where my worth as a writer is easily and obviously noted and appreciated. This conference eases the sting of being shelved differently, marketed differently, given smaller print runs and generally ignored by the larger romance reading community.
That conference is such a high that I don’t even mind the comments here saying how there’s a dearth of multicultural romances, when I know Arabesque and Genesis romances have been around for far longer than erotic romances (as a named genre.) When Parker is celebrating its third year in print. When ebooks by and about multicultural people are being constantly released (ask Bridget Midway and Shiree McCarver). When Sandra Kitt’s Color of Love is 13 years old. When ENTWINED DESTINIES by Rosalind Welles, arguably the first black romance, turns 28 this year.
Kimani romance releases four titles a month. That doesn’t include Tru, Arabesque, or New Spirit. No idea how many Sepia or Strebor or Dafina or other lines release. If you can’t find MC (read: black) romances, it’s because you don’t notice them. They just aren’t on your radar.
How many of you who “care about the romance, not the race” actually go into the black fiction section and look for romances?
Damn, now I’ve done steamed myself up. It’s obviously time to go to bed.
Paid61—yeah, wish I got paid what a low level white author gets paid, but I’m not bitter.
This is such a great post. But I’ll have to come back to it. A friend mentioned Loving died today – but we covered that this semester, and today was my con law final and it could have gone better. So.
Crazy how some “old school” things didn’t happen all that long ago.
In general, I don’t care about race/culture differences between the h/h as long as it isn’t the overriding theme of the story. I’m married to a man of a different culture and we’ve had to deal with that. I know my situation wasn’t always a more normal one, like literally being the only non-white person in a town with a pop. of 69, it’s not something I like to rehash for recreational purposes. I also like to be able to relate to the characters. I like learning about different cultures and seeing situations from different viewpoints, but if I don’t understand the characters, then I’m just wasting my time. Some authors are good at getting there no matter the characters cultural differences to the reader, while some fall well short of the mark.
But see right here you are saying that MC = black and that’s just it. There are other cultures out there. When some people talk about the dearth, they may be referring to the variety of cultures as well as the general availability of interracial romance.
I’ve read a few black romances, my favorite to date is Last Bride Standing by Patricia Anne Phillips which I found at the library in the library completely unsegregated from the rest of the romance books, and like you said, there are good authors and bad authors like anywhere else. I think what keeps most people giving them a try is the belief that they won’t be able to relate to the characters due to cultural differences.
For those who don’t think that the majority of Romance readers want to read interracial or non-white Romance, how would you explain the success of, say, Suzanne Brockmann? IIRC, Sam and Alyssa’s book was—up to that point—the most highly anticipated of the series, and it marked the transition of the series to hardcover, as well.
Robin, as many others have said, the “race” of the author is more important than the “race” of the characters. You can’t tell me that Brockmann got where she did without the benefits of white privilege in this society. While I can’t say she wouldn’t be successful if she was nonwhite and writing what she does, but she’d have a helluva lot more mountains to climb and hoops to jump through to attain the success she has if she were nonwhite.
You can look at the bookshelves and see the presence of many black authors writing historicals, contemporaries, paranormals, womens fiction—anything comparable to nonblack writers. But do they get the breaks their nonblack peers get? I don’t see readers gushing over Brenda Jackson’s Damaris family, when many nonblack romance writer who have created an extensive family series tend to shoot to fame. If paranormal and erotic romance is so popular, why didn’t the “Creepin” anthology get any love from the readers who gobble up anything paranormal and/or erotic?
If there is no problem, why did H/S’s experiment to place their black authors (from their acquisition of the Arabesque line) in their existing lines garner horribly low sales, AND why did Brenda Jackson become first black author to write for a major H/S line in 2002? If “race” doesn’t matter, where are the Billionaire Jamaicans or Chinese tycoons?
Jilll Sorensen said:
Exactly right. This is what I was trying to say umpteen posts ago. It is, as Orangehands said, a social construct, more in some societies than others, and one that has its roots in societies whose status hierarchies were organised very differently from our own. It is an outmoded concept.
I find it profoundly depressing that it is still even possible to have such an earnest discussion on the subject in 2008.
As an anthropology major, of course I know that “race” is a social construct. But the only people who have the ability to ignore (and benefit from) this stratification are the ones for whom it was created. I wouldn’t go as far to say that it is “outmoded”—outmoded for whom? Race was constructed for some purpose and its purpose is oh so apparent when I do something as simple as say, read a book.
As an author of interracial romance in the big, wide, wonderful world of epublishing, I can tell you that the vast majority of my fiction has interracial relationships, however, I do not make race the issue. Considering the previously mentioned court case (Loving vs. Virginia), in Virginia where I live, interracial relationships are so commonplace now. We’re a large Navy town with lots of races and nationalities here all of the time. So I write what I experience. What I’ve experienced is a melting pot of people who love each other regardless of color.
Now, as far as the big pubs being scared to publish I/R, to a certain extent, you’re right. I remember distinctly pitching one of my I/Rs to a publisher last year. At the time I was on the cover of Romantic Times BOOK Reviews Magazine where I lamented the fact that publishers and agents seemed scared to push an I/R work. After I pitched my story, the publisher got this strange look on her face and asked me if my story was I/R. I told her yes, because I hadn’t made it obvious in my pitch. Honestly, I didn’t think I needed to since race wasn’t the conflict. I just referred to my characters by their jobs. Then she told me that she would have a hard time selling my book. I told her not to worry. That I know how to sell I/R because it’s all I write and I have a pretty good fan-base. Then she said she didn’t know where to shelve my book. I guess the romance shelf was all full. Then she asked me to do something that I’ve never been asked to do in a pitch session before. She asked me to do research on the I/R genre and come back to her with sales numbers BEFORE I send her my story. After she sees the numbers, she’ll let me know if I can submit. Needless to say, I didn’t do any research, nor am I submitting to her publisher.
I’m not sure why publishers are so afraid to publish I/R. Romance is romance is romance. Period.
BridgeT
http://www.BridgetMidway.com
Robin, where was Suzanne Brockmann’s book shelved? Was she placed in the Negro ghetto with all those dozens of black authors who’ve been writing IR romance for more than a decade? Or was she placed in ROMANCE, with the others of the same genre.
Of course her book sold better than those of black authors who’ve done the same. I think it goes without saying that if readers have to seek out books in some segregated ‘African-American’ section of the book store it’s so not going to happen.
Brockmann, Reinke and any other white woman who chooses to write an IR romance will have a leg-up on any black woman doing the same because their books will be mainstreamed while ours are still segregated. And then people wonder why black authors are hostile when a white woman decides to write an IR book.
As someone still hacking away at ye olde Great American Novel, it’s interesting to come into a discussion and see readers and writers discussing the various issues of interracial/multicultural romance. It didn’t even occur to me, really, that I was writing anything interracial until I stopped and thought about it. My main character’s Indian heritage is very, very prevalent in her life, and shapes who she is, but it’s not an issue between her and her potential love interests (one is white, the other is Korean). The secondary characters are all interracially involved as well! And it’s mostly just a reflection of my own group of friends here in New York.
So, I’m just trying to get the darn thing finished, but then, given all the discussion here, it hearkens back to my deep fear of “Okay, it’s done, but who would publish it and who would read it?” (Aside from the five friends I’d send it to with pathetic pleas.) Where do you shelve a Chicklit or romance that not only doesn’t have primary characters who are white, but also doesn’t have primary characters who are black? Who’s going to take that on and market it? I know Poonam Sharma went through Red Dress Ink, but I can guarantee that my slightly less ambitious Indian heroine bears no resemblance to her more high-powered ones… and therein lies another problem. Does anyone want to read interracial Chicklit about relatively normal, every day people who don’t drink Cosmos and can’t even spell Manolo?
Ugh. It’s scary out there in the publishing world!
Oh, and I must point out that Big Spankable Asses, which you snark so deliciously below, all three stories are interracial. So really, we must ask, are you looking for interracial stories? Or, are you looking for interracial stories written by white women?
I think I’m going to have to state at the beginning of this, that I am not American, and I come from Australia. I don’t feel like I can take part in the conversation because the Romance market is just so different here.
We don’t have “Black” romance here. Therefore, we don’t have any sort of “interracial” section of romance. Books are all lobbed under the one Romance category. Sure, there’s sections in a romance bookstore, but it’s “Historical” and “Paranormal” and “Contemporary”. Race just doesn’t come into it.
Interracial does not mean black/white to me. Not at all, and to me, discussion interracial romance as simply black & white is just that – there’s no middle ground. It should be any two different races. A friend of mine is in an interracial marriage. Her parents are Japanese and moved here in the 1970’s. She’s married a caucasian Australian bloke. Asian/Caucasian, African/Asian, African American/Caucasian, Eurasian/Caucasian, Polynesian/Asian – there’s so many different combinations that it shouldn’t be a racial issue. But there obviously is in Romance publishing, and because there isn’t a demand for it, per say, it’s been sidelined, and only specific interracial matches make it to publishing.
What would you call a romance where the woman in the story is from an interracial couple – her Dad is Japanese & her Mum is Caucasian – and she’s dating a caucasian man. Would that be classed under interracial?? I don’t think it should, but that’s because I view things differently. I think that’s because I’ve grown up in a country which has become significantly interracial itself, and there are so many Australians that are bits & pieces of many different races.
I’d love to see more interracial romance, but they should just be in the section that they belong – contemporary, historical (like Mine Till Midnight), paranormal etc. And it’s shouldn’t be actually be viewed as specifically interracial, but it will be, and it will for a while yet to come.
To the best of my ability to discern, as far as NY is concerned a book is only classified as interracial and segregated into the African American section if one of the characters is black and, the author is black as well. I don’t think Reinke or Brockmann’s books are called interracial, and I know both are readily available in the romance section of any bookstore. However, had they been black, their book would’ve been placed in the African-American section, and doubtlessly no one here would’ve heard of them, either.
Everything else, especially those with a white heroine and a white author are simply called romances and placed in their appropriate category.
Maybe I’m dense, but I fail to see, how being hostile to your potential audience is going to help your cause of getting more multicultural romances written by black women read by non-black women.
It sounds just this side of self-defeatist and self-disenfranchising to me.
I’m not hostile towards white readers, I’m hostile towards white writers, who, because they’re white won’t be segregated as my books are. Thus, they’ll sell more books and have more opportunities than I do. Then people will use them as an example (much as they have in this thread) as to how readers have no problem reading IR books. After all they’ve read books by white authors. Never mind that white authors are not segregated and have greater access to readers.
I live in a very diverse area, I have a multi-culti family (I am black with a white husband, I have a Japanese sister in law, my white sister in law adopted a Chinese baby, my one brother-in-law is Italian with a capital Tony Soprano). When I read books or watch movies or tv, I want to see what I live, namely a lot of different types of people who live, work and love together. So I am hungry for this to be reflected in my favored genre.
Because of the way the romance industry works, if it takes a Suzanne Brockmann—an established white author—to show that an IR couple’s book can be successful, even clamored for, among all readers (because really this is what the pubs are looking for, crossover appeal) then I’m all for it.
I actually think the way she did it was very smart. She made them a secondary couple in her SEAL 16 series, let their story play out in an arc over several books, she built up the anticipation for Sam and Alyssa very slowly and made them a seriously hot couple. And good for her, she followed the same model for her gay couple, Jules and Robin. How many gay romances are written by mainstream romance authors and shelved in mainstream romance sections? I have to give her props for doing what no other romance author seems to want to do or rather might be too afraid to do. She is using her clout and her name recognition to write romances that show true diversity.
Unless there is some massively successful tv show or movie that features an IR couple prominently then you can believe that the romance industry will continue to wring their hands and clutch their pearls over publishing/marketing them. They need something to make them understand that these books are marketable. Until then, maybe if established authors like Brockmann continue to write diversity into their books and show that they can sell, it might crack a ceiling and allow stuff to some pouring in. Look at how the Vampire thing took off.
I must also give Nora Roberts props in her JD Robb In Death series. One thing that frustrates the crap out of me especially with writers who set their stories in large, urban cities, is that lack of diversity even among their supporting characters. Nora Roberts seems very cognizant of the fact that in the future many people in her NYC will be mixed race. She has mutli-racial people, IR couples, black people all peppering her stories. It is a small thing, but as a detail it is HUGE.
And while I am giving props, I have to say that if you are looking for an AWESOME romance worth FIVE STARS, give Seressia Glass’ No Commitment Required a look. An the cherry on top, it is an IR romance.
But those white authors are also white readers. Wouldn’t it be more effective to abandon hostility since negative emotions and attitudes will never get you the desired results? I cannot believe that any editor (the majority of whom are white in the U.S. as far as I know) who reads this will feel like reading a submission by an author who is ‘hostile’ to them because of their skin color. And why should they?
Quite honestly, I consider it racist to assume that you know how that particular person will feel just because of how you perceive other white people have treated other non-white people.
That’s why I called this attitude self-defeatist.
Btw, I’m European, product of a mixed cultural marriage and grew up in a country were black/white relationships do not come fraught with the issues they have in the U.S.
So, in other words, it’s a white author’s fault they’re white? And they’re to be blamed for a black author’s lack of sales, purely because they’re white?
I find that every bit as offensive as black authors being segregated into a separate section because they’re black. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Seems to me that anybody being hostile toward anyone else because of skin color, no matter what that color is, fosters misunderstandings and bitterness.
Instead of being angry at white authors because they’re white, maybe the approach to take is to work WITH white authors to help convince publishers and bookstore owners to quit shoving all black-centric books into a segregated section in the bookstore. After all, if it’s not in an AA section, how the heck am I going to know it’s a black author? How do I know now? I don’t.
And I realize I’m saying this as a white woman (who is not an author) and I fully realize that discrimination does absolutely still exist in this country.
Maybe I’m being a total idiot but I think everyone, on all sides, needs to quit stereotyping people by race or ethnicity. No matter what that race is. And being mad at a certain section of authors because they happened to be born with pale skin? Wow. Just, wow.
submit word: directly51. As in, I’ll probably be broiled in oil 51 different ways for being this direct.
GrowlyCub, I defy you to find ANYONE who wouldn’t feel hostile about being discriminated against. I further, find it insulting that you would take it upon yourself to tell me how I should feel when you yourself has never experienced the same. It’s both condescending and presumptuous.
I’m working in an industry that practices 1950s style segregation and you turn around and call me racist?!? Of course, that’s how these conversations always go. Rather than call the industry out on their perfidy, it’s much easier to say that the writers have some type of problem.
Interesting that, no one does the same when writers of slash or erotica complain about discrimination. Bloggers circled the wagons and were vehement in their support. But, if I say that people are clearly more comfortable reading IRs by a white writer somehow I’m racist? This is not the first time we’ve had this conversation. Over and over again readers have said they feel uncomfortable reading about black characters. That they can’t ‘relate’ or whathaveyou, yet, if I simply repeat what the readers themselves have said (some in this thread), then I’m racist?
I’m not angry at white authors because they’re white. I’m angry with white authors because they have greater access than I do, yet they refuse to acknowledge it. Let me say it again, they have greater access than I do, and they refuse to acknowledge it. I couldn’t give two good goddamns about their race, but when their race gives them privilege that they refuse to acknowledge goddamn right I’m hostile and rightfully so.
And Robinjn, any number of authors have tried to ‘work with’ white authors on this issue. I have yet to see any take a stand with publishers. Monica Jackson has been talking about this issue for more than five years. Instead of people acknowledging that it’s wrong and trying to do something about, she received exactly the same response that I’m getting. It’s all my fault.
How many white authors have you heard about confronting publishers about this issue? None. Apparently, Smart Bitches is unaware that there are dozens of interracial books being published each year, even when they snark one themselves. Why is there this lack of knowledge? Because the books are segregated. Yet when we point this out, we get browbeat with how racist we are, even when we’re simply repeating what readers have said, some in this very thread.
And how do you know I haven’t, Roslyn? Actually, how do you know I’m not black or brown or yellow or red or any other of these cutsy labels? Being non-white isn’t the only reason on this planet why one might be discriminated against.
Matter of fact, I’m part of the same minority as you are, I’m a woman.
But I’m not writing for a game of oneupwomanship on who has it rougher, because after all we are (mostly) women here and we are all in the *same* fricking boat. We are *all* in the minority even though there are more of us on this planet.
I bet you there’s not ONE woman here who couldn’t share a story about being paid less than her male coworkers, about not being promoted due to a male, of being patted on the head and told the mechanic’s daughter doesn’t know how how to drive either, of being cheated in a business deal, of being belittled for her opinion because she’s a woman and can’t possibly know what she’s talking about in and by a group of male professionals in her field.
The point I’m trying to make and to which you have already closed your mind is that being ‘hostile’ about an issue NEVER leads to a solution. Being negative is automatically going to defeat your purpose.
I went and read some of Monica’s posts. I hope she feels better after she posts them. I can guarantee one thing though, they do nothing to address the inequalities she perceives. If anything they will confirm the negative stereotypes people have about her. Ranting never changes anything.
I wish you success in your career. I hope one day you will understand that we weren’t on opposite sides on this issue. I have read several multicultural books by black authors. Some I didn’t relate to at all, some I did relate to so well I wanted to be the black heroine (Lena Andrews writes great stuff). It’s not the skin color of the author who decided that. It was the author’s writing skills and the fact that their stories interested me.
make that ‘Lena Matthews and Liz Andrews’
Robinjn, not because they happen to have pale skin…because they’ve been rewarded for having that pale skin AND not stood up for the Black authors who are having to jump through extra hoops.
You can’t help it if you got ahead because the publishers and agents were disqualifying a whole bunch of your competitors before they left the starting gate, but you can use whatever influence you have – as a reader, as a writer, as a buyer, as a librarian or library user – to get it changed. Or at the very least not minimize people’s concerns when they bring it up.
I’ll tell you right now I go to a library where the vast majority of patrons are African immigrant or African American, and there are usually about 1/2 a shelf of AA-marketed romances on the shelf (under 4-5 shelves of romances with white H/H) and 90% of them appear to be inspirationals. My project for today is to check out the catalog and see if that’s because that’s all there are, or because all the other ones are always checked out, and request a bunch of books to check out or ask that they be ordered (thank you to everyone who name dropped authors and publishers, btw.)
*Sigh* 19 hours of an open flowing dialogue before things got heated and uncomfortable.
I’m not saying that anyone’s anger isn’t 100% valid. I’m just sad that the conversation has taken the turn that it has now and that some of that open dialogue will now be silenced.
GrowlyCub, when they start placing books in bookstores based on the gender of the author as opposed to the author, your analogy may well be apt, until then, it’s simply not applicable.
If books by white women, regardless of genre, were placed in a segregated ‘White Women’s’ area, which most readers don’t even know about, people would be burning the damned stores down. Hostility? Please. Why is it that anger and hostility is perfectly acceptable when white women are expressing, yet somehow it becomes ‘unacceptable and non-productive’ when it comes from a black woman? I’ve seen anger and hostility on these blogs directed at everything from plagiarism to Amazon.com, and that’s perfectly okay. But when black women are angry because we’re being discriminated against suddenly it’s ‘non-productive.’
Could it be that it makes you uncomfortable because you yourself are a beneficiary of that white privilege? Ferret-gate, Savage-gate, Reba-gate, et al are causes you can circle the wagons around because you don’t benefit from them. But the issue of race discrimination makes you uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that many readers don’t want to read the books because *horrors* there might actually be talk about race in them. I might have to think about my own privilege. Never mind that few if any have any ‘racial issues,’ but readers don’t dare risk it. Incest, child abuse, spousal abuse, sex with shifters even when they’re still wolves, hell, even sex with trees, bring it on. Race? OHMIGOD the humanity.
Yet, when we dare mention this fact, we’re called on OUR racism? OHMIGOD the irony.
“I had a teacher in college who argued that there is no such thing as race. There are only different cultures, different skin colors. No biological differences, as the term suggests.”
This is true.
“It is an outmoded concept.”
This is not. It is an expression of the privilege of “colorblindness,” the operative word here being “privilege.” Would that it were outmoded, but sadly, some of us still have to live with it constantly. (And this would refer to any dichotomy where one group vastly outnumbers another so as to claim the title “mainstream”—not just the “white, black (oh, yeah, and some other people, subcategories? What subcategories?” dynamic of the United States.)
I’ve been a copyeditor for a while (don’t go by my posts; the Internet is a break that keeps me from going psycho) and for some time I thought maybe “black” romances (particularly of the “Urban Lit” variety) sold poorly because they were BAD. Mary Sue heroines whose clothing did nothing but “display their curves to perfection,” bad grasp of sentence structure, telling instead of showing—and an undercurrent of misogyny and just plain meanness—all women who are not the heroine are slutty manchasers in too-skimpy clothing, bad weaves and too much jewelry, but when the heroine dons a low-plunging micromini it “hugs” her damn “curves, displaying them to perfection”—and of course all her hair is her own, and flows down her back in soft curls at all times. The hero goes to the beach in a THONG and then considers the women who approach him there sluts for wearing a two-piece. Men who are not the hero are sexually dysfunctional “deviants” who are “on the down low” or incapable of functioning without stilettos on, or some nonsense. (These are examples that stand out in my mind, but they are far from rare.) In one of the worst, I was meant to sympathize with a hero who committed massive tax fraud and had a horribly ostentatious (swimming pool in bedroom, five gold showerheads) mansion outside of the US—I was supposed to feel him because he tipped a worker twenty bucks, and because he was “emasculated by white society.” Eh!?
I had to take a hiatus from proofing these because they actively made me angry, as well as embarrassed.
But then I recently picked up a Danielle Steele, and she was doing the same crap—Mary Sues of perfection so much more pure and awesome than the nasty nasties around them, telling instead of showing—it actually made me feel a lot BETTER…before I started to feel terrible all over again.
Okay, that became ranty. I don’t know what my point is here, except that I’d like to see more quality all around.
(Heh. “shown94” seems almost on-topic!)
::dusts off the Race Wank Bingo card and places a marker on the spot that says ‘white privilege’::
sigh.
I think the question I want to ask you Roslyn is, where does your anger and hostility get you? What rewards do you reap from it beyond a perfectly justifiable sense of knowing you’re right? And it’s an honest question. There’s absolutely no doubt that I cannot relate to how you have to deal with life as a black woman. I’m not black. I can talk about discrimination against women, but not black women.
But all that aside, the honest question is, does getting hostile and berating people for not understanding you get you what you want? Do you feel it will help your cause? Or does it have a danger of further marginalizing you? (OMG, she’s a militant, we don’t want to have to deal with her!)
There are a lot of things I get truly angry about (as a dog person, the huge number of crappy breeders out there are at the top of my list). But I’ve learned through the years that getting angry can be productive in the short term, it can give me a big adrenaline boost and make me feel better. But in the long term, it’s destructive, not only to me personally but to the cause I happen to be angry about. Screaming at people about how wrong they are just isn’t nearly as effective in the long run as trying to befriend them and find a few things you agree on, then swaying them to your pov through empathy and understanding.
And honestly, I do think there’s a place where books by women are segregated. It’s called the romance section.
“But those white authors are also white readers. Wouldn’t it be more effective to abandon hostility since negative emotions and attitudes will never get you the desired results? I cannot believe that any editor (the majority of whom are white in the U.S. as far as I know) who reads this will feel like reading a submission by an author who is ‘hostile’ to them because of their skin color. And why should they? “
LOL —oh hon, you don’t TELL people you’re hostile. You admit it semi-anonymously in an Internet rant. In real life you internalize and smile while your stomach ulcers fester. C’est la vie. 😉
That’s not a genre, it’s a gender. Again, not applicable.
And again, I ask the question, why isn’t this question asked in regard to the numerous issues that come up in Romancelandia every week? No one asked if anger and hostility benefitted those angered over Ferret-gate. No one is asking now if anger is benefitting those upset at RT. Yet, somehow, I the person being discriminated against am queried as to the validity and benefit of my anger. Have you stopped to ask yourself why you would ask me such a question?
The fact of the matter is, I don’t discuss this issue all that much except with other black authors, because I’ve learned over the years that the result will always be the same. Someone actually did a flow chart of the typical reaction when racism and discrimination is mentioned. First you have denial. “Oh no, that can’t be true. I bought books by Brockmann.” Never mind that Brockmann isn’t segregated and she introduced those characters with the same care one might give to a truck filled fertilizer and gasoline.
Then there’s, “Well, if they weren’t so hostile, I might care about their cause.” Never mind that plenty of folks far more gentle than myself have made the same complaints with similar results. I don’t care how delicately you introduce the topic of privilege many whites will respond with hostility. Yet, somehow they’re hostility is okay, and mine is ‘unproductive.’
You speak of my anger and hostility as if it’s something I purchased at Bloomies last week. I would much rather not feel them because frankly, it doesn’t feel good. But I defy you to find anyone who wouldn’t be angry and hostile that another group receives privileges and benefits that they don’t, and when they complain about it they’re told their complaints are ‘unproductive.’
This whole conversation got sidetracked because someone dare questioned my right to feel hostile towards white writers whose books are mainstreamed while mine are ghettoized. Apparently, I’m supposed to just ignore the blatant hypocrisy of people claiming that they have no problem reading an IR because after all, they ‘loved’ Sam and Alyssa. Yet, somehow they failed to notice that black authors have been writing IR stories for more than a decade with nothing more than crickets as a response.
I think my last post might have been unclear in its attempt at humor. What I’m getting at is, you can’t tell people how to feel. Roslyn points out a situation in the publishing world that makes her feel bad. She didn’t say she was out throwing rotten eggs at people. Again, you can admonish people on their actions, but you cannot tell people what uncontrollable feelings are okay or not okay with you. (At least, not in such a way that it matters, or has any effect, unless your end-goal is to actually exacerbate those feelings.) ESPECIALLY when we are all acknowledging that the angrymaking situation is real, does in fact exist, and is in fact a problem.
(“similar35”! Yes! We are all similar! Can’t we all just get along…. *laments*)