How would anyone who wasn’t aware of either of those personal facts about the author find his book? And why wasn’t it placed where browsers in search of good fiction—fiction which speaks to universal themes—could run across it? Most of us don’t take the time to search every section of a bookstore. We look for subject areas that interest us. I bypass the automotive section, sports, computer programming and yes, gay and lesbian, without turning my head as I make a beeline for the fiction shelves.

After arguing with the first store, I returned weeks later to find that a new copy of Let the Dead Bury Their Dead had come in—and it was shelved in general fiction. But the incident continued to trouble me, and I wondered: Is shelving and promoting books based on the identity of the authors harmless niche marketing or an insidious form of marginalization?

Niche marketing is easy to understand. It makes perfect sense to reach out to dog-loving readers if you’ve written a novel in which the action takes place on the dog show circuit. That dog show novel, however, isn’t likely to turn up in the pets section of the bookstore. It’ll appear in fiction where it belongs. Marketing efforts draw the dog show people to the book, and its presence in the fiction section allows other readers to find it, too.

Marginalization is something different, more complex and troubling. In the literary world, it includes playing to stereotypes and creating narrow expectations for writers.

What’s happening with black fiction these days is a perfect example. It’s hot, there’s a flurry of activity and money and, in the manner it’s being sold, a whiff of “separate but equal.” Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

Mainstream bookstores suddenly have sizable black fiction sections, black-owned bookstores are staying alive and publishers are launching new imprints. New readers are buying books like crazy, authors are being paid and publishers are thrilled with the profits. Given that black writers have fought long and hard for recognition, how can this be bad?

The problem is that only one genre is getting all the attention and shelf space. Whether you want to call it urban fiction, hip-hop fiction or ghetto lit, these brand new books are presenting some very tired stereotypes of black people: thugs, rappers, women with six kids by six different disappearing daddies, divas with three-inch fingernails falling in love. (Read “It’s Urban, It’s Real, But Is this Literature?” by Malcolm Venable, with additional reporting by Tayannah McQuillar & Yvette Mingo, in Black Issues Book Review, September-October 2004, for details about how this trend arose.) It’s easy to see why mainstream publishers latched onto these books. They sell—and they present the same old pathological images of black people with which white people are comfortable.

It can be argued that ghetto lit is similar to chick lit, and that there’s a legitimate place for it in the market. Something for everyone, right?

Wrong. The two genres function quite differently. Ghetto lit carries with it tremendous baggage which chick lit does not: the limited expectations which are forced upon black authors, and the resistance of white readers to embrace the work of writers outside their cultural comfort zone.

I considered one facet of the issue, the effect of marginalization on writers, in a guest blog on MJ Rose’s wonderful blog about publishing, Buzz, Balls & Hype ( http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/ ). Look in the archives for the February 23, 2006 entry, “A Response to Marginalizing.” Now I’d like to look at readers.

It’s easy to marginalize a group of writers when most of the reading population habitually ignores that group’s books. Very few black authors are read by a significant portion of mainstream readers, i.e., white readers. Why the lack of interest? Blaming it on ghetto lit is too easy: the disinterest predates the dominance of that genre.

Besides, ghetto lit isn’t all there is. Black folks are not a monoculture. While there’s considerable pressure (from both outside the community and within it) to write about a limited array of subjects—race, urban problems, slavery and its legacy—the fact is that we’re interested in all sorts of things just as any other human beings are, and we have an infinite variety of stories to tell. Many writers who happen to be black want simply to be considered writers without the qualifying term “black.”

If you’re a devoted reader, it’s likely that you can easily come up with a long list of white authors with whom you’re familiar. So what about black authors? How far beyond Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, Maya Angelou and Terry McMillan does your list go? Have you heard of—and read—Octavia Butler, Ntozake Shange, Percival Everett, Gayl Jones, Colson Whitehead or Barbara Neely? Not one of them writes hip hop novels, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

The obvious place to lay blame is on publishers. They’ve got the power to decide who’s published and who’s promoted, and rather than pushing the limits, they often make easy, obvious choices where writers of color are concerned. They’re partly responsible as are bookstores and the media. But readers are culpable, too, both in the choices they make for themselves and in what they recommend to others.

School reading assignments are an example of how one group of readers has the power to influence another. I can’t speak about the extent to which contemporary school curriculum does or does not embrace authors of color, since I have no recent experience with the school system. But I can remember only one reading assignment from my own high school days which was devoted to work by a black author: Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun. I don’t remember reading anything by Hispanic, Asian or Native American writers. For those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, that limited curriculum created the impression, however subconscious, that important writing was done by white people-that maybe nobody else was writing at all.

It’s easy and natural for people to read what’s in their comfort zone: books by others who are just like them. Harder to notice work by people who are different, and to become interested enough to give it a try. Most work by black authors receives limited marketing, very little of it directed at white audiences. This creates the mistaken impression in white readers that, “It’s not for me.” Since this marketplace condition seems unlikely to change anytime soon, thoughtful readers might wish to reconsider their own selection methods. Why not turn the tables and seek out works by authors of color, rather than wait for the books to come to you? A small amount of research will yield a large number of gems.

Some people say that they pay no attention to race when choosing books. I say that perhaps you should. “I don’t pay attention to the race of authors” is very similar to the common statement, “I don’t see color.” Its accuracy is questionable, and it serves as a way to shut down uncomfortable conversations about racial politics before they start. The fact is, we all do see color. And chances are that if you truly are unaware of an author’s race when you pick up a book, you unconsciously assume that writer is white—by default. (This is true for characters in books, too. White authors rarely specify ethnicity unless a character is something other than white. Readers automatically pick up on that and assume that, by default, any character is white unless otherwise stated.) Paying attention to race, and to our assumptions about it is the first step in embracing a wider, richer range of reading matter.

The coming together of races and cultures is what shaped and built our nation, and racial politics is a part of that. If you read books for any purpose deeper than simple entertainment, can you truly consider yourself well read if you don’t pursue even a few examples of work by authors from the other cultures with whom you share this country? Hispanic, Native American and Asian authors are part of that mix, too, and deserve attention. My life would be so much poorer without Sandra Cisneros, Thomas King, Thrity Umrigar and many others.

As readers, we can’t directly fix the publishing industry, the media or the stores. But we can let them know what we like by voting with our book-buying dollars, and we can take responsibility for changing things from the bottom up, by expanding and enriching our reading.

Each of us has limits, often unconscious ones, which could use some stretching. White readers should put a little effort into locating and reading good black authors. (No need to wait for Black History Month to roll around again; now’s a perfectly good time.) Black readers who’ve stuck only to the usual suspects should look beyond that well-worn list. All of us could take a few minutes to poke around in an unfamiliar section of the bookstore, the ones we always walk past. Who knows what life-changing delights we’ll find?

 

T. Myers has never been able to get enough books. Not content to simply collect and read them, she’s now trying to add weight to her overburdened shelves by writing novels of her own. She’s also a visual artist, and was once an award-winning filmmaker. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it