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February 26, 2007
Fiction by Color
A little story on the news caught my attention the other night. It turns out that it's not a new issue, either. Some of the large bookstore chains, like Borders, maintain a separate section for fiction written by African American authors. That's right, they're separating their fiction by skin color. My initial, gut reaction was that it was a racist practice. But, I have to say that the news report that I saw, raised compelling arguments on both sides of the issue.
One African American woman (bookstore owner) explained that as a culture unto itself, it deserved it's own section. "Terry McMillan, best-selling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back: "I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, you don't have Jewish American sections or Irish American sections. So it's insulting and flattering at the same time that we get our own special section. On the other hand, since we are trying hard to eliminate color lines, we should all just be included in [general] literature."
Spokespeople from Borders explained that it makes it easier for people who enjoy this particular "genre" to find new African American authors. While that may be true, it also prevents customers of all colors, who aren't specifically looking for literature by African American authors from finding them by browsing.
It's so easy now to find books by genre, using our Electronic Resources. There are two that are particularly good -- Books in Print and Novelist. You can't search by the color of the author, but you can use either of these databases to generate a list of books written about African American life and culture. Although interesting points were raised on the other side, I still don't think it's necessary to separate general fiction like that. In a library, fiction is organized alphabetically by the last name of the author -- regardless of gender, race or subject --we plan to keep it that way.
Posted by Michele at February 26, 2007 11:32 AM
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