"African-American Interest"

Great Debates
1

You’ve seen it in all the bookstores. The “African-American Interest” section. We sure had one when I was the assistant manager at Waldenbooks for a while.

I never thought much about it until a few weeks ago when reading an opinion piece by a black author who felt relegating him to the “black section” minimized what he had to say.

His contention was, “Hey, I’ve written a book that has sociological insight and comment on society as a whole. By putting my book in the black section, you are assuming that only blacks would be interested, or that my research is somehow more directed to blacks than general society. Further, you remove me from a wider audience thus causing me to lose sales.” (paraphrased)

I see his point. On one hand, every bookstore is divided into sections. Sports, romance, Sci-Fi, what have you. However, these are connected by subject matter. The African-American section has no unifying theme other than a picture of the author or subject matter showing a black face.

At our store, it didn’t matter what the subject was. The black section contained sports biographies, black romances, Terry McMillan, Maya Angelou, Oprah’s fitness book, Nappy Hair, political books, black erotica, and so on. Any black involvement, and it got relegated to a special section. And this was corporate policy! The only books we were able to cross-shelve were bestsellers, and then only during the initial hype. After that, well, too bad. From observation, this policy seems to be ubiquitous, at least in bookstores.

I guess this is profitable, or else the publishers would not allow it to happen. But there must be more than a few black authors who get upset when they check out a local bookstore and see that their book on how to run a business is not included among the other business books, but rather is sitting between The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Ebony Lust.

What say you?

2

I have the same problem, sort of—some bookstores put my books in “general biography,” some in “theater” or “film.” I still can’t decide which option gains or loses me more readers.

Of course, my current publisher gets around this problem by just not distributing my book to ANY bookstores. What a brilliant solution!

3

Eve, what are some of the books you’ve written? There’s a specialist film and theatre bookshop where I live. I thought I might take a look.

4

Oh, God, matt, everyone here will run me off the Board on a rail, tarred and feathered, if I plug my books again. I think they are getting heartily sick of it.

But do a name-search under “Eve Golden” on amazon.com and you’ll find my three books. Thanks, and I do hope your store carries 'em!

5

Thanks Eve. Sorry for the hijack, divemaster.

6

Personally, I would be willing to bet that these sections are there as a means to attract more black customers rather than any real consideration of the books’ content. I feel that the author has a point, but the economics of the situation are likely to continue to be the deciding factor.

7

Those sections could also be there because of pressure from blacks demanding that they have some representation.

I see a glorious day in America when books are not categorized by teh merit of their content, but by the ethnicity of the author.

Hindu section, hispanic section, asian section, 25% black-75% white section, german section, incan section, Senaca section…

After all, no one can have insights out of their own ethnocentric construct.

8

Except for whites, of course. Because as everyone knows, white people have no race. Just like men have no gender and straights have no sexual orientation. Which is why straight white men can be perfectly impartial about every racial, sexual, and gender issue. Which is why, of course, there are so many in positions of power and nobody ever questions their impartiality. (…sigh…)

9

Um, matt, in case you haven’t noticed, straights and whites are the majority. I think that might account in some small way for the fact that there are more white and straight authors.

Are you saying that a black author’s works should be segregated and labeled to point out the fact that he is black?

Are you saying that his blackness is more improtant than his work?

By the way, in all black countries where there is no racism, are there stores filled with black authors?

10

I worked for Barnes & Noble as a supervisor for a while, and we had African American customers come in and who were angry that we did not have a separate African American fiction section. The African American interest section had only books on very narrow topics: nappy hair, books on African American culture, and so on.
A note: I have African friends and I roomed with a friend from Ethiopia, and to a person, they all dismissed any kinship with African americans. They saw them as spoiled crybabies who had never known real problems. My roommate, Michael, lost his family, with the exception of an aunt and a couple of cousins, to the Mengistu regime. He could get scathing on the subject.

11

I’m not sure what you mean, Matt. You’re obviously being sarcastic, but it’s a little bit convoluted. Perhaps you can give it to us straight so we can sort it out.

12

You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t and this is just the old game of “gotcha!” .

These people want contradictory things and in this universe they can’t get it. It would seem to me that the blame would lie with whoever made the universe the way it is but no, they blame the white man (even if the owner of the business is black).

It is always amusing when minorities claim discrimination for anything and everything. Things that happen to everybody (like dealing with a dumb clerk at the bank)and most people just understand, many minorities are so sensitized they see discrimination everywhere.

What’s ironic is this: In places like Washington DC and neighboring Prince georges county, blacks are a majority of the population, police, administration etc.

Now, when blacks get treatment they do not like (from a black person) they still claim discrimination and racism. I find this amusing. If you are a minority and the world is not exactly the way you want it, then it must be racism or sexism or something.

When whites encounter black people who are obnoxious to them just because they are white (which is fairly often in DC)do you think they can shout “racism!” and sue?

But most of the time people behave like jerks or idiots because that’s what they are and normal people recognize that. But if the offended party is a minority then it is automatically labeled “racism”

13

No, Sailor, but SOME white people (not all!) might encounter one stupid or violent black person and judge all black people by that experience. One loud Hispanic on the subway? “Damn Hispanics, why do they have to be so obnoxious?!”

So it really works both ways.

14

The OP reminded me of my retail days, when I worked in a drug store with a largely black clientele. Most stores merchandise their black hair care products together in one section. We had the occasional complaint from customers that their products should be “integrated” into the rest of the hair care section. My reply was that a separate section is what the manufacturers and distributors wanted, which was true. I did agree with the ones who complained that the category is called “ethnic hair care.”

15

The point is that whiteness, straightness, and maleness are “unmarked”; we notice much more if a given person does not possess these attributes than if they do. I’m agreeing with divemaster here: there’s an African-American section but no white section because African-Americans are marked for race but white people are not. Just like there’s a women’s section but no men’s section - men aren’t considered a group, just like whites aren’t considered to have racial issues, nor straights to have sexual orientation issues. That’s what I meant, and it supports the OP.

16

Zam: The word you’re looking for is sarcasm.

17

I got the fact that it was sarcasm, matt. I understood your point about whites, straights, and males. But I thought you were headed down a different path. Appologies.

I am just trying to get the balance back in place after we actually agreed on something :smiley:

18

:smiley: LOL! :smiley:

That’s so typical of what happens when the ethnofugalists put their goofy ideas into practice!

19

I DON’T find this amusing.

I agree with matt mcl’s point.
The reason that this happens is because we are in a racist society. All of our thoughts have been influenced by this tripe. We should not laugh. We should see this and do our best to ensure that our actions are not contributing to the survival of these wrong-headed myths.

20

Society itself is racist, not individuals?