May 9, 2008
How do you keep bears out of the trash?
I need to know. So far, from what I observe, the answer is you don’t.
At around four am this morning the dogs went crazy, barking their heads off. After I woke, I went out with a good amount of trepidation to eye the trash barrel. I’d tied it to one of the posts under the deck on the side of the house. The bear wasn’t able to get the trash can from the post nor get down to the trash. The barrel was askew, but that was it. But the lid was punctured with bear claws and across the yard, but worse, it had taken its ire out on the post, damn near clawing it in half. There’s huge gouges in the wood to repair.
We fill one large trash bag that lines a garbage barrel about once a week. It’s far cheaper for me to take it to the dump than to pay a trash service, ($1.75 for a huge trash bag). I don’t want to keep my trash barrel in the house. It defeats the purpose, you know? The dump is too far away to go more than once a week.
Some of the neighbors have trash service and some don’t. We’re all far apart from each other on a dirt road. Come spring, almost every dawn, this road is strewn with trash at intervals from the bear’s party. This goes on until the damn things go to sleep for the winter. Folks get up, resigned, and pick up their trash. Some have burn barrels and burn the garbage along with paper and flammables. I don’t really want a burn barrel. I had one, but had a bad experience last year with sparks and some nearby brush. I don’t want the next forest fire to be my fault.
Some of the neighbors have put in sturdy fence posts to tie their trash barrels. This only works sometimes and they’re well-clawed by angry bears. I’d rather the bears stay away, but the ones who come, I’d prefer they not be angry.
I tied the barrel to a pine tree down a hill, (try to claw that in half, dratted bear!). They will get the trash out and I’ll be out every dawn along with everybody else collecting my garbage from the road. If somebody could invent a bear-proof trash barrel, they’d make a fortune. We humans should be able to think of a way. Any ideas?
Filed under Blog, Personal Stuff by Monica
I think what you see in books is a reflection of what popular culture is producing. How many sitcoms and dramas that you watch on a regular basis have interracial couples? Heck, how many have AA couples at all (apart from CW’s line up)?
Am I saying that it’s okay? Heck NO! But don’t go thinking that Romancelandia is behind the times or anything.
AGTigress says there is no such thing as race.
The very concept and definition of ‘race’ (as at least a couple of you have already indicated) is so unbelievably sloppy, unscientific and nineteenth-century-class-conscious and imperialistic that it should be laughed out of court.
She’s right, but tell that to some white folks, honey. She also brings up black music. This chick is brilliant. There’s the solution I’ve been harping for years
Reflect that in the 1920s and 1930s, music made by black American musicians went out on records that were sold ONLY in the black ghettos of American cities. They were known, condescendingly, as Race Records.
But over time, white people started to buy some of these records; they would go and seek them out, in the outlets where they were available.
White romance consumers can drive the market. Seek out the books and buy them and they will magically become more available and less segregated, just like black music in the day!
But then actual black folk join the discussion. Here comes Rosyln Holcomb, smart, articulate, and writes real, live IR romances.
Laura Vivanco actually read black romance!
How about Karyn Langhorne’s Unfinished Business, which has political differences being the main source of conflict between the hero and heroine?
You go, gurl!
danae brings up Suzanne Brockmann.
I love Suzanne Brockmann and I kept thinking of her when I read this post because she writes diverse couples:
Sigh.
Roz brings up a point
Also, I doubt there’s a huge fan base of white women wanting to read about AA heroes with white women, but I could be wrong.
I brought up the same point at dearauthor and got reamed by multiple comments that I was so wrong. White wimmin lurve black men they said! I said…cool beans.
You wrote this seriously? I’m going to assume you didn’t mean that to come out the way it did. Anyway, I am an AA author – Dee Carney
Roz ain’t having it this early in the game, and not from a sister!..
most romance authors are white. If they wanted to write books with black heroes, I would have to assume that they would. And as white women seem to be the bellweather for this industry, presumably they would be published. Given the dearth of them, once can only gather that white women aren’t interested in reading black heroes.
Indeed, when the topic of why white women don’t read black romances comes up, one of the key responses is that they can’t ‘relate’ to black books. What is one supposed to gather from that, other than that white women don’t want black heroes? After all, these same white women have no problems with sheikhs, shifters and any number of other species, but Negro sex? *horrors*
A few comments down Roz links to the Interracial Romancegroup ion MSN. http://groups.msn.com/InterracialMulticulturalRomanceReaders/general.msnw …I completely forgot about this group. I might be a member, not sure. I’m usually overwhelmed with the stuff I gotta do and don’t keep up with loops or boards very well, so generally avoid group membership.
More comments about Brockmann’s Sam and Alyssa ensue.
Seressia speaks up and where to buy these oh so rare IRs.
However, if print books are your cuppa, you’ll have to go to the black section to find most of them. Genesis Press and Parker Publishing are two small print presses who regularly publish bw/wm. As others have said, may epubs do too.
Seressia is always so diplomatic. I admire her.
Trumystique cuts through the BS.
It doesnt matter if the love story deals with love AND race. That little inkling that you might have to deal with confronting race privilege then it becomes unsafe. Read about bloodsucking killer vampires and shifters in paranormals? Sure. Read about serial killers and abusive husbands in romantic suspense? Yup.
Read about interracial romances? Not so much. Before you say what about all those Asians, Latinos, Native Americans. Yes they are in romance. But these are essentialized Others. These are Others that are made safe. Safe as in the noble savage of Cassie Edwards, the powerful martial arts practicing Asian a la Liu or Stuart. So why arent there any essentialized versions of black people in romance? Cause for the most part the archetypes of black folk are negative.
Preach it!
PoisonIvy tells it like the pub industry is
Bottom line: Publishers are in business to make money and if you show them they can make money publishing your kind of book (for instance, by being epublished and being a hit, the current paradigm), they will. Regardless of who or what it is about.
Yep, reader dollars drive marketing. And who spends the most dollars? White romance readers!
Roz gets to the point:
Publishers shelve based on the race of the author, not the characters. White women can write multi-cultural as much as they like with no fear of being placed in the Negro ghetto. It’s most unfortunate.
Angela pipes up
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:
This cuts our hearts.
Serressia always gets down to marketing and where the black books are and how to get them. This woman deserves to be treated like a white gurl, darnit!
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.
Robin brings up Suzanne Brockmann up yet again. uh-oh.
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.– Angela, telling the truth. Now we’re edging into dangerous territory–they can’t take much truth. At least not in large gulps.
Bridget Midway is always politic and a marketing dynamo. I’ve been meaning to get one of her books.
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
Interesting story.
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. — Roz
I tole you they mentioned Brockmann a lot. A black authoress can only take so much.
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? Roz, gettin’ salty. Oh no they can’t take that!
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.– Roz
The manure is nearing the fan.
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.–Growlycub
A direct hit for the shit! Black anger is verboten, you bad, bad black person!
Roz is hot now. Oh how well do I know the feeling…
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.
The R-word rears its head!
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.–Growlycub again.
Let’s call the angry black person racist! Hell, yeah! She’s been talking about race and she’s angry, hence, she’s racist fer sure! Go get the ropes, folks! Where’s them trees?!
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?–Robinjn
The wagons circle. There’s a tree over there! Pull out that rope!
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?-Roz
Touche. Where are the regulars in these race discussions? They are strangely silent and they always got plenty of rope.
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.–Roz
Will reason work this time? Never has before from my end, but the regulars are missing and no names have been called so far. Only a couple are circling with the rope…will, will it be different? Let’s see…
Growlycub, a definite regular type, brings me into it and I ain’t even there this time. Maybe he/she is using a different name?
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.
What you doing then? Aw well, they never consider themselves ranting, just righteously correcting angry black person while hefting the rope.
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.–Rosa, writes a reasonable, modulated calm statement.
Roz doesn’t back 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. — Roz
Now if I said that the rope would be being thrown over the tree branches with tons of sputtering, self-rigteous comments chiding me. But the regulars are quiet and there seems to be some new non-racist blood out there.
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.)–Mac
New blood indeed. But from Robinjn, comes chiding and the bad angry fearson black person shut-up card.
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? … 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!)
… 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.
Patronizing bullshit tends to make even me more angry, but Roz keeps it on point.
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. –Roz
Will they get it? Will they? I read on with bated breath.
This new blood, actually intelligent and basically non-racist person Mac responds again, refusing to bring out more rope.
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.
But Anne Douglas is tired of the black issue
I’m a misplaced Kiwi. I get sick and tired of this same argument, over and over again, just because people tend to forget that there is a big wide world out there outside of the borders of the USA. The world is a huge melting pot of different cultures, not just Americans with black or white skin colours.
And wants Roslyn to shut the hell up and be positive.
Roselyn - How about instead of working into a lather about ‘how you white authors have got it better’ (that is what I garner from a few of your posts—btw, is there some secret form from publishers that asks what your skin colour is?Unless your meeting face to face, how would they know?) how about using this venue to put a positive spin on things. Give name and titles, give recommendations on books, hell, pimp your own. Show your own ‘genre’ to its best, instead of dragging into the quagmire of the great American race divide. Own your work with pride for what you, as an author have achieved, not what you think you haven’t because you have black skin. Instead of readers walking away from this blog with a list of twenty odd books to add to their TBR pile, they are walking away with a sour taste in their mouths and no impetus to go and buy.
Roz asks
I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why my anger is questionable, yet the anger that’s regularly posted on various blogs is not. Why is my anger ‘unproductive,’ yet people getting pissed of at RT is not? Anyone care to address that?
Nope, they won’t care to, you fearsome bad angry black person.
But wait, Robin jn replies
In fact, the whole contributing to ferrets was a way of turning a negative and unproductive rant into something positive and productive.
Angry folk over ferret-gate made everything all good. But everybody understand that angry black folk are just plain scary.
Did someone call Roz an ass? The lynching ropes are up and over the trees now. Let’s hang her high!
Could you explain why my righteous anger is seen as ‘being an ass?’ I haven’t stalked anyone or threatened their children. I’ve merely pointed out that there’s is discrimination going on. A fact that people have been talking about for more than five years now. In what way is that ‘being an ass,’ and somehow justifies someone not buying my book?–Roz
Yep, like me and a whole lot of folks are going to rush out and buy Anne Douglas’s books now. Seressia has had enough and tried to get back to what matters, the selling of the books
“We’ve had these discussions in various incarnations around the blogosphere. Every time a black author gets angry, people respond with sighs, claims of race cards being played, or chastisements that anger isn’t helping. Question: do your responses to the expressed anger help? Please tell me what you are doing to bring the inequality issue to the forefront. Please share your tips for getting booksellers and publishers to change their policies. Let us know how that letter-writing campaign is going. Report back on how that boycott of stores with segregated shelving is progressing. I’d really love to know what everyone else is doing constructively to move the industry forward. Because I gotta tell ya, shaking a finger and going “tsk tsk” to a frustrated author contributes nothing.
Calm Mac contributes two blessed cents.
This is a trend, I’m noticing of late, of non-Americans insisting that blacks in America not having any real problems. I wonder where this comes from. (I suspect it’s because blacks in the U.S. media are rarely portrayed as anything but scary, and based on my travels, this is the only face I see us showing. I’m extremely troubled by it, but that’s a tangent.)
At any rate, Roslyn is talking about the U.S. publishing industry because that is the one she has to deal with. Why on earth is this such a problem? She (we) cannot address the New Zealand or European or East Asian or what have you marketing climate because we have no interaction with it or influence upon it. But how is the fact that these disparate world markets have triumphed over the problems that we face here (or never experienced them, or experienced completely different problems) tsupposed to help Roslyn? I mean, it’s all very encouraging to hear about, but how is “Shut up and suppress your valid feelings” any more productive than “This publishing reality that I have to live with makes me angry”?
Roz tells like it is and isn’t attacked wholesale. New blood indeed.
I’m castigated for being hostile, yet I don’t see anyone else being challenged on their absolute lack of interest. Injustice is going on, dozens of authors are being disenfranchised, yet the only person being called racist in this thread is me. Isn’t that funny?–Roz
I wonder if they will ever get it?
Race discrimination cuts both ways. In one breath you said AA authors are discriminated against and segregated in USA book stores - an issue I can heartily get behind supporting as wrong. But then in the next you rail against other authors because they are white—sorry, but slap me in the face with a wet fish, then still expect me to support your cause? It ain’t going to happen, no matter what the cause/race/creed or colour.–Anne Douglas
Lawd forbid we mention white folk’s unearned privilege (affirmative action bennies for being white). We slapping them in the faces with wet fishes!
Another person defends Roz!
Wait wait wait. Why is Roslyn getting the third degree? She came here to discuss a topic and brought up really pertinent issues; and did it well, with logic, and directness. Rather than berating her for her feelings, we should be using that as a springboard for further discussion. Because she’s right about the color of the author issue. We shouldn’t be mad at her for noticing that. We should be discussing how to change that. For everyone here that jumped all over here for being mad and disappointed and tired; that’s pretty patronizing. Hell, I’m white and I feel patronized. If this were a discussion of feminism, and some guy came over here and patted our heads and said that our perceived inequality was all in our heads and was a social construct that was outdated and it didn’t really exist…would you accept that?! Um..no. We’d be all over his ass and for good reason.
The ropes fray a bit.
Mac brings up more logic. The ropes start to droop from the trees.
She’s not railing against the authors. She’s expressing resentment of unfair privilege and annoyance with those who enjoy the privilege but won’t admit it (both parts of that last bit are necessary to the equation—“have the desired thing” and “won’t admit to it.")
She is not categorically accusing every single white author who ever wrote an IR of being a terrible person—she is expressing her desire to enjoy the same levels of success for doing the same thing, her anger at the system that doesn’t allow this, and her frustration with those who don’t admit the system exists.
Those who don’t find themselves in any of the above categories don’t need to feel “attacked” by anything she says.
And yet another defender!
Guys,
Rosyln has a valid point. *sighs* Negating what she’s saying by using the hostility gets you nothing, doesn’t work. And it shouldn’t.
She has an issue to be angry about, and she’s angry. It’s really sad she can’t bring up the issue without others adding oh, but… as a way to prove it not so.–Shayne
Robinjn takes a last stand.
To me, that’s a pretty blanket accusation against all white writers, period. That’s sure the way I took it and it’s why, I think, she’s gotten some backlash. If she had expressed herself more fully in that post I think a lot fewer people (including me) would have said anything.
But the defenders have made an impact. The rope to hang Roz have slipped from the trees.
the authors are trying to explain how they’ve been marginalized and how other readers have made it clear that they DON’T want to read their books, and white readers and authors just don’t understand.’ So you end up with the talking past thing, where the AA author(s) who speak out feel attacked and the readers feel attacked, even though, in the main, they really all agreed on one really salient point: that good Romance is good Romance and readers want as much variety as possible. If we could focus on that, and on how we have some common ground there, I think we could make some serious progress as a community united in the love of Romance. But I honestly don’t know what it’s going to take to get there, how long it’s going to take to get past the MUTUAL feeling of disrespect.–Robin, a dear author reviewer, I do believe.
But who has the power, the few AA authors who dare to speak out or the mass of white romance readers/authors who try so hard to shut us up because of their fear of black anger? Better, who has the justified anger? Not the white folks sitting firmly on top and pretty.
How did you translate my feeling hostile towards white authors to I hate white authors because they’re white? I never said or even implied such a thing. Indeed, I made it clear that I feel hostile towards them because they receive privilege and fail to acknowledge it. Further, their success is used to bludgeon black authors because then readers can claim that they have no problem with IRs because Brockmann was so successful. Totally ignoring the fact that Brockmann, by dint of being white is not ghettoized.
Actually, Sara, I haven’t yelled at anyone. I’ve been online for 10 years, and it’s my understanding that yelling is signified by allcaps. I haven’t allcapped anyone. Indeed, I didn’t ask about activism until people started telling me how pointless and useless my anger is. I think it’s reasonable to ask people if they think my response is useless, what then is their response to the injustice?
I can only tell you what white readers have said. Over the five years we’ve had this discussion we’ve been told by white readers that they feel they ‘can’t relate’ to ‘those books.’ Now, call me crazy, but given that Brockmann’s book was a bestseller I can only surmise that IRs become ‘those books’ only when the author is black.
Clearly given the premise of this post, a sizable percentage of the romance reading audience was unaware that there’s a plethora of IR romances written by black women. So yes, the notion of the ‘forbidden other’ reigns supreme. IRs written by a white woman=safe. IRs written by a black woman=those books.–Roz
OMG, a comment below where somebody gets it totally!
on the “where does your anger and hostility get you?” counterpoint - unfortunately, it seems a reference to the unapologetic mexican glosario is in order here. here’s a description of that tactic:
yeah… to anyone who gets the urge to use this type of “argument” to prove you’re really not being racist and the person you’re addressing is overreacting? don’t. you’re proving the opposite.
How many times have people written this shit to me:
• “We’d admit about your point if you presented it nicer.”
• “I have this work I was going to throw your way, is there a problem?”
• “People would listen to your complaint if you weren’t so loud.”
• “If you want people to care about this, you should learn to be smoother.”
about some reasonable but race-related point I made? And in prior discussions the new blood of non-racist reasoned folk was absent. Then they wonder why I think the romance community is racist on the whole…
From Mac
I’m no industry expert, so I’d love to know—why would an author prefer such a thing? If blacks are only 11 percent of the U.S. population, it seems to me that restricting a book to a dusty back-wall section of the store, based on race, is shooting oneself unnecessarily in the foot (in a way that restricting a book based on genre simply is not, because non-majority people read books aimed at the majority, or aimed at other people’s minorities). I’ve never seen another race cordoned off like this in bookstores. Language groups, mainly, but that makes sense. Not only is it “excluding the majority/whites”—it’s excluding everyone who is not part of that 11 percent. (And it can be a hostile environment. I’ve never seen dirty/distrustful/even puzzled looks being exchanged like this in the SF, or Humor, or History section. Not even in the freaking manga section.)
So what is it that I don’t know that the authors who prefer the AA section of the store have grasped that I’m missing?
Nope. They just see the accessible niche, less competition and the ready publishing op.
Sarah, I know you were speaking with your “reader hat” on, but (and I don’t want to make this sound like I’m picking on you, because in fact I’m trying to suggest that you’re more influential and have more power than you seem to think you do) I think you’re in a unique position as someone who has such a popular romance blog and a book deal to write about the genre. You’re writing The Book (which one hopes will sell well and reach a wide audience) and I suspect that how/what your write about AA romances, inter-racial romances, and race and culture in the romance genre might also help to “effect a change.”
In addition, you have a “reviewer hat.” Robin wrote that “I believe that reviewing AA/IR books on the blogs can make a difference, too.” I agree with Robin on this.
It seems to me that one big problem that exists is that at the moment it’s hard to find reviews of many of these books outside sites/groups specifically dedicated to reviewing/discussing them. (I forgot who wrote this, but kudos to them!)
My solution!
Those people with power in Romanceland–Smart Bitches, Dear Author, AAR, and others should pick several prolific, readable Token Negro Romance Queens and review ALL their books from here on out. It’s a given that the TNRQs should be good/decent authors and address a variety of reader preferences and the reviews balanced (no unrealistic all good reviews and no all bad ones either). Once majority romance readers accept the TNRQs and treat them as NOT DIFFERENT from the rest, we’re home free. Can it happen? Can romance venues treat a select few black authors the same as they treat nonblack ones? It’s a real question, for sure. I’m not sure if they can.
Then Robinjn says folks are calling her a racist, the horror!
Sigh. This stops dialogue completely with a certain segment. And if you reply …if the shoe fits, all hell breaks loose. We are all racists to one degree or the other. I don’t get why so many can’t get that.
Robinjn is kindly corrected (buttered up) by Mac and aplogizes.
A comment on the discussion overall:
I have to say, I am so totally impressed with this discussion too.
And I really want to commend Roslyn. I agree with every word you wrote and I am blown away by your honesty and your courage to keep– saying– it. I got it. I totally got it.
It’s good that I bow out of these discussion because it’s been ten years of crap and I’m so extremely tired of the same ol’ sheisty and the ropes being brought out over and over. I tend to be short and dismissive of folk I perceive as racist, while folks such as Mac and others can butter them up as they require and bring them over to another point of view far more effectively.
Well done, all!
The latest Race discussion over at Smart Bitches