Where were You?
When I see an elderly white person pushing a shopping cart, our eyes meet, and I can’t help but wonder “where were you during the Civil Rights movement?”
I wonder this same thing when racism and segregation in the romance industry is brought up again, and again and again with nary the same outrage or interest shown when the topics of defending the romance genre, erotic romance, gay romance; the war between reviewers vs authors; or gossiping about authors or publishing houses and whatnot. Dialogue has been consistently opened over the past year, and we have not overcome, and in fact, we tend to digress because the majority of people within the industry simply don’t care. It doesn’t affect them personally, so why bother even thinking about it, much less entering a discussion with the hope of making a difference or at least opening your mind to something you’ve never really thought about.
What I think is the most shameful about this subject is that the “PTB” (authors and the RWA and sometimes readers) will work themselves into a lather over idiotic stuff like defining romance, or griping and gossiping about how the RWA and its inner entities no longer work for you, or debating the usefulness of the HEA (while simultaneously never bringing up the fact that a lot of authors new and veteran are writing on auto-pilot), anonymous commenters, et al, but the second the treatment of the genre’s black authors are exposed, lips(or fingers, for that matter) zip quicker than George Michael’s pants.
Fifty, forty years later we live with the results of the Civil Rights Movement–both white and black Americans–yet it appears that within the publishing industry we’ve ended up in the same boat: a small percentage of the majority acknowledging that how their black counterparts are treated is wrong and would like to use their majority position to fight the injustice, while a larger percentage are content to muddle along and reap the benefits of that minority percentage’s bravery and courage (if and when AA-authored genre fiction ever found mainstream acceptance).
And so I ask: where were You?
12 comments July 1, 2007
