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Are "Black Covers" Segregated In Bookstores?
Charitable (Book)Ends
New York, 9:30 AM
Wed Nov 11
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/23/09
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07/23/09
How many gay books would you read if the cover was two guys in a clinch? There's one specifically gay, contemporary book in my library, with a story ala Solja Sista, not Giovanni's Room. That's the second largest library in the 30-library system. No one takes it out. There's no gay section, either, so don't talk to me about marginalized literature when I can't even be out at work.
We're talking about marketing, not "the full range of human emotions." By its nature, a book cover conveys a quick idea meant to resonate with the viewer. That's what my post was about.
07/23/09
I do think book marketing makes a lot of missteps, and that af-am authors are particularly susceptible to this-- because people often think in sterotypes when depicting black characters, and because there's a misguided push to everything involving black characters looks as much like "urban fiction" as possible. But, as an author, educator, and person who cares about literature, I think it's pretty important to intervene where we can, and not be content to let marketing define what gets read and what doesn't, and it's kind of sad and lazy to conclude that any book with a sloppy or unappealing cover is inherently bad-- and really problematic when all of those covers just happen to involve a marginalized ethnic group.
If there is only one "gay" book with a cheesy cover in your library system, either your library system is appallingly homopobic (which it must be anyway, if you can't be out at work,) or books by and about gay people more often get, for whatever reason, smarter and more subtle covers than books about african-americans-- which doesn't inherently mean that the content of the books is better and smarter and more subtle, just that people who work in art design in New York can perhaps imagine more possibilities for and take more liberties with "gay" books than with black books.
07/23/09
I do recommend the pop lit African American books when I can, but they really don't go out very much so I don't remember the titles and authors. I suppose I could work harder to make a list, but it never occured to me because I don't do that for any other genre.
There's the confounding problem that I know the *good* black lit - but my patrons don't read good books. Even Oprah's Book Club books are considered too "hard" for them. They want quick, easy, mostly dialogue, and exactly like they've already read. They're also largely ancient and white. I dislike their reading habits as much as you hate that they don't read more diversely. If someone is looking for another author like Soulja Sista I point those books out as well as I can remember them.
either your library system is appallingly homopobic (which it must be anyway, if you can't be out at work,) or books by and about gay people more often get, for whatever reason, smarter and more subtle covers than books about african-americans-
Little of each. but I'm saying, they don't have much gay or black pop lit, they have literary stuff that's respectable. And 400 straight white romance novels.
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07/23/09
Interestingly, I think the cover model they chose resembles Rashida Jones. That was my first thought, I don't know if anyone else sees it.
07/24/09
Why is that an "Interestingly"?
07/23/09
As to cultural clichés, and how people are represented visually, that's a whole separate issue. Personally, we'd like to see less stereotypical depicitions, like the Kente cloth background, the bling, the "juicy booty" woman, etc, and have them replaced with something more realisitc and representative of actual people. It's the same with any culture: Asian novelists and/or subject matters have covers rife with cliches: the submissive woman with the back turned, the "Asian"-esque font, the rice paper background...
Marketing people are highly derivative and take lots of convincing. Salespeople are naturally adverse to risk-taking. These are concepts that make businesspeople nervous—they see the world in terms of numbers. You have to pitch to them on a way they understand, but still pus the envelope.
Covers are a hell of a lot more than just art. That's the easy part . It's so much more than I could possibly explain.
But don't you fret, Jezzies, we're here, right in the heart of these businesses, fighting the good fight everyday.
07/23/09
I have mixed feelings about the black section in general. I want to out and out condemn it sometimes, but when I was a teenager, it was the first place I looked in the bookstore. I had never read books about people like me. I didn’t even there was such a thing as black literary fiction until I was in college. I was an avid reader, but every book I’d been assigned was about white people, or it was about black people who were slaves or lived during Jim Crow. It was good that I got even that, but I thought you were only allowed to write about black people if they were tragic and historic, and I’d never seen a novel that dealt with contemporary race relations until I shopped in the black section. It made me feel less isolated. I understand why booksellers that when they want to take away the af-am fiction section, black customers are the first to complain. But, I think the ultimate idea is to get it so that more people are exposed to more black authors, and there are black authors on syllabi and so on and so forth, and if we keep treating novels by or about black people as if they’re some separate entity that has nothing to do with the human condition in general that will never change. Of course, sticking blonde girls on the cover of black books so they can get in the regular literature section isn’t the way to go about that—if you didn’t make it seems like black books and black people were shameful, maybe you wouldn’t have to trick people into reading them.
07/23/09
My co-worker said it best: "oh no ma'am, we don't segregate here!"
07/23/09
For a moment let's assume that I may not buy a book, without any recommendation, if it is clearly about an African American girl and I'm a Caucasian girl. This means that the publishers and the bookstore owners believe that young African American women don't buy books- that they are a not a part of the book reading demographic.
Hasn't this already been proven to be false?
07/24/09
See: the make-up counter.
07/23/09
I *don't* agree that advertising and PR should be strictly responsive businesses, and I do think they have a role in shaping how people are perceived. But I also don't work in those industries and don't face losing a paycheck for differing from industry norms, even if they are wrong or racist. It's still very irritating to hear such things stated so baldly, even if true. It's why I don't do it.
07/23/09
I mean ask yourself (White people), "When was the last time I bought a book with a Black person on the cover?" They are in fact responding to what the consumer wants (or doesn't).
Didn't we have this same conversation about the sales of magazines with Michelle Obama on the cover? Face it, when it comes to pretty much anything to do with Black people that can't be appropriated and re-packaged as White most White people don't care. Although that, by itself, is not necessarily racist. Just culturally narrow-minded (which I'll admit is a slippery slope to racism).
07/23/09
07/23/09
And I am imagining a new job.
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I went to ask one of the clerks where the book was and he (a White guy) said, "Fiction". I was like, "There's no African-American fiction section?" and he just looked at me vaguely bemused and said, "No...there's just...fiction."
Ahhhhh...Brooklyn (don't fuck it up hispters!!)
07/23/09
However, we DO still have a separate Gay/Lesbian Fiction section, which bothers me the same way AA Fiction used to. :\
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hm good point.. I am thinking of mostly of a bunch of Marian Keyes books i read recently, and others in what I guess is considered the "chick lit" category. So probably is what you described above.
07/23/09
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