Are Publishers Racist?
Reflection on Afrian-American literature. For writers and publishers, this is an exciting time to reflect on and celebrate African-American literature. The genre traces its origins to the slave narratives and spreads out through the Harlem Renaissance to such contemporary notable authors as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Walter Mosley. Its early greats were Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley of the late 19th century, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington and Zora Neale Hurston of the early 20th, and later, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple or Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family were all best sellers. The style and impact of such great works is worth pause and reflection.
But we at Sherri Rosen Publicity, NYC, want to pause and reflect on whether or not it is necessary to have the genre “African American Literature.” A lot of these good books would be shelved under Memoir, Creative Non-Fiction, History, Autobiography—were they not written by black people. Historic African American Literature often encompasses issues such as racism, slavery, and equality. Today, however, much of what is called “African American Literature” does not cover such issues. For us this raises the question: Is the only criteria for being shelved under the “African American Literature” banner head being black? If a black person writes a memoir, why not just put their work under “Memoir”?
And this opens up a door to share a sad, if not disturbing, tendency in publishing we have observed. Black authors are not allowed to write white characters, while white authors are allowed to write black characters. We want to ask the simple question: Why? Why do publishers feel that black people cannot write white dialect? Why do black authors have to write about black people and why do they have to be categorized under black headings?
And so today we want to humbly lift up the question we have been asking every time we’re shopping in the bookstore and pass the “African American” section. Is it a valuable and descriptive title of a genre? Or is it an echo of segregation?
Tags: african american, authors, morning coffee, publicist nyc, publicity nyc, racism, Sherri Rosen Publicity, sherri rosen publicity nyc, writers
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Clients, Friends and Colleagues, Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
