by Ciar Cullen
Race. A four-letter word in romance publishing. Okay, it’s a four-letter word. It’s a loaded one, and I’ve struggled with whether or not we can discuss it without causing a commotion. Can we?
I’ve seen discussions about the African-American romance sections of bookstores. I don’t much like these sections. I think they do more harm than good. Of course, there are whole lines of books devoted to different ethnicities. Why isn’t this true of any other genre (that I know of)? There’s no African-American fantasy section.
What I haven’t seen are open discussions about whether it’s acceptable for someone of one race to craft characters of another. “Sure it is,” you say. “I have an interracial couple in my book.” “I have Black secondary characters in mine.” I’ve written Black secondary characters into my books, too–my fantasies, in which I’ve created luxurious worlds in which race isn’t an issue. It feels like a cop-out.
People are people, you might respond. That would mean that straight people couldn’t write convincingly about gays, or manlove. Perhaps you’ll bring up vampires and were-creatures. But you needn’t worry about a vampire reading your book and telling you that you got it all wrong. If we’re all the same, how can you get it wrong?
I’ve reviewed African-American romances and there can be a subtle (and often not-so-subtle) cultural difference in the writing. African-American writers (Asian writers, Latino writers) draw on their own experiences and rich heritages. This background necessarily infuses the story and the characters with qualities I can’t hope to copy.
Where does this leave us? I don’t want to suggest that we water down our cultural diversity so that we can bridge the romance publishing racial divide, if there is one. I’d just like for the books in Borders written by African-American writers to be next to mine. I want to try these writers. I want their readers to try my books.
I believe most Caucasian writers are afraid to “take the plunge,” in fear of getting it wrong, falling into a stereotype, offending someone. I’d love to hear about books that cross this divide.
One footnote: one of the most memorable books of science fiction I ever read was by Isaac Asimov. I don’t remember the title. Why was it memorable? Because the clever Dr. Asimov wasn’t much into description. But he cleverly, near the very end of the book, made it clear that the heroine was Black. He did it intentionally, and people noticed their own reactions to it. Have we come much further than those golden days of SciFi?
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“I have no problem with white authors writing black characters, as long as their books are placed in the ghetto along with mine. ”
Interestingly enough, in the course of a similar discussion — in another venue, iirc — I said something to the effect that if I wrote a romance that centered on AA characters I’d submit it to one of the houses that publishes AA romances. The responses from black readers and writers fell into two categories:
1-If you’ve already got the inside track on making more money and selling more books, you’re a complete idiot for throwing that away no matter what your book is about.
and
2- Stay out of our space.
The white readers mostly said” “Ooo, good idea.”
(BTW: My wife, keeper of the family budget, strongly identifies with answer #1.)
Gentle edification is useful only if this is the first time someone has heard something.
I spent decades in education, on average a learner needs to have information presented seven times before she retains it. If you’re trying get someone to realize they’re blind, Ithink the number is more like seven hundred.
Gentle is too easily ignored.
In your face and the message is lost in reaction to the method.
Civil, assertive, and untiring is the approach I learned from my wife. She desegragated a South Carolina high school, the only one of four students who lasted the year.
This isn’t the place for her story, but her counsel has always been to do everything you can and then just stand.
White American writers attempt far greater leaps of cultural mimicry every time they write an English character or a French character than they do when they write American characters from minority ethnic groups. But if I had a dollar for every French or English character in the romance aisles, I could build myself a time machine and travel to the future where, one would hope, writers don’t make lame excuses about their narrow character focus.
It’s called research. If author so-and-so can take yards of notes to make sure her character, Laird Angstus MacBroody, wears the right clothes, eats the right food and uses the right words for his era, why can’t she also turn on the TV, pick up a book or just go outside and see how her fellow Americans live?
One last note: there’s a whole range of cultural identification and experience among American racial minorities. We don’t all dress, talk or act the same. We all don’t even eat the same food. If a white writer writes a black character, s/he may be told the character “isn’t black enough.” But black folks tell each other that all the time. Why go easy on anyone else?
I said gentle as in trying to be non-confrontational. That’s usually my style, and why I wrote an essay for Atlanta’s first MLK, Jr. holiday that got me a face-to-face with Coretta Scott King. I’ll always try the power of persuasive words first.
If people don’t understand, then give them understanding. If they continue in ignorance, perhaps then they deserve the clue by four. Some people do. I think we’re definitely at the point where “gentle” doesn’t seem to be cutting it–quite like the ladies in my hometown newspaper yesterday who confused romance novels with porn.
“This background necessarily infuses the story and the characters with qualities I can’t hope to copy.”
I was speaking for myself Bettie, which is why I used the first person. I don’t write French or historical characters partly because I’m too lazy. But I don’t have to leave my house to see how my “fellow Americans” who are black live.
I think I have the answer to my initial question.
Oh, hell, lest my previous comment be misinterpreted, I meant that I have an interracial family.
“Oh, hell, lest my previous comment be misinterpreted, I meant that I have an interracial family. ”
Oh, I picked up on that. Can’t think why…
That was my first thought when I read your earlier response, too. But then, my family is multiracial, so my first assumption is always that everyone else’s is, too.
Whereas I was speaking about the Romance genre in general. Sorry. Didn’t mean to point my soap box in your direction. The post skirted one of my frustrations as a reader. I don’t think my life is all that different from the lives of other middle class, city-dwelling Americans, yet I rarely see it reflected in print because so many mainstream authors are afraid to even try.
I’d love to hear about books that cross this divide. Sad thing is, I can’t think of any that aren’t sci-fi. Example: In Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi Snow Crash the protagonist, Hiro Protagonist, is African-American/Korean biracial and his culture is 100% computer geek.
[...] There have been many discussions on the racial segregation of romance, which has been painted by the rose-colored brush of desensitization to be renamed “niche marketing.” Many people are fatigued by the discussion, or deaf, dumb, and blind to the discussion. But there are some who’ve asked, “Okay what do we do?” [...]
You all are writers and I’m not, but I do read. I don’t go to bookstores much anymore because the wheelchair is not convenient for that, but also because it is very hard to find specific titles and I wind up ordering them from the woman at the information booth anyway, so why wouldn’t I just stay home and order the books from my own computer.
From that respect, as far as I know, there is no Amazon ghetto. Trouble is, if you are looking for AA books, what do you put in as a key word? Surely, in this day and age, there wouldn’t be races as key words?
Roslyn–
I don’t care what anybody says as long as it is what they really think and feel. It strikes me as wrong to shush people for having unpopular thoughts. I want to hear all authentic responses.
Okay, I checked. African American in the keyword slot brings up several books, but only one romance. Turns out it is about something that sounds really interesting: the underground railroad. It’s a paperback, and $19.95! That’s quite a bit of money for one paperback book.
If anyone cares, it’s this:
Indigo: A romantic, historical novel about the struggle of African-Americans and the Underground Railroad by Beverly E. Jenkins
Louisa, I think if you want to find AA romances on Amazon you should search the imprints, like Kimani and Arabesque. Just a suggestion – I haven’t tried it.
This has been an interesting discussion. I am by no means an expert here – my views are based on my limited experience. I write multicultural romances and I’ve just had an offer from a NY publisher for my first book. I suspect that it will find itself in the AA section with all the other romances by people of color who write about people of color. I’m not even American; Afro-Caribbean is the best tag I can muster, and my characters reflect the Caribbean diversity. This preamble is just to clarify the perspective from which I’m coming.
Someone said early in this thread that AA romance is halfway through an evolutionary process, and I also believe that. The so-called niche marketing might have been necessary to forge a place in the marketplace and build a readership. I think the publishers were testing the waters, so to speak. The method has served its purpose, however, and I would hope that there will be a gradual assimilation into the general market as more lines encompass books with non-white main characters into the mainstream rather than shunting them into ‘niche’ status. I remember reading some years ago in Black Lies, White Lies by Tony Brown that everything that starts off as a ’subculture’ eventually gets assimilated into the mass, and I think that AA romance, which to me has been assigned ’subculture’ status by the publishers, will do the same. The assimilation is to me inevitable, and discussions like these must help the process, IMHO.
Also, readers generally buy books because they want a good story. I don’t believe they will buy books to prove a point – at least not many of them. But maybe the few who might could be the catalyst for real change.
The comment about Octavia Butler’s books caused me some concern, though. Shunting them into the AA corner of the store seems like a highly retrograde step to me. She writes science fiction, and she belongs in SF where she’s always been, or in literary/classics.
Maybe when I’m further along in the publishing process and am personally affected by the placement of my books, I’ll be better able to share the strong feelings expressed here. At the moment I’m optimistic that the evolution will continue, and bookstores will no longer be color-coded. And Monica, that might very well be in our lifetime.
As for BSA Pontif’s “As it is, most black authors seem hell-bent on focusing on their blackness rather than their authorness. Just sayin’.”: I don’t think that black authors particularly want to focus on their blackness; they are not given a choice. They are not the ones responsible for having their books shunted into the ‘colored’ section of the bus – oops, store. I think black authors would love to focus on their ‘authorness’ and not always have to deal with their ’special’ status in a culture where the default setting for race is white, where you’re a woman or a black woman, a man or a black man, and are treated accordingly.
Beautifully expressed, Liane. I’ll be on the lookout for your book(s).
Thank you, Barbara.