1434: Black And Boujee

1 Comment

1. 

   EvieE

   05/01/2017 at 3:14 PM

   I wanted to comment on the young lady (I believe her name is Chica) who called in about romance novels and I can definitely feel her pain as a reader and an author. I make my living writing romance books and I focus mainly on women of color in interracial relationships mainly because at the time I started writing professionally, I wanted to read romance books that reflected the relationship I was in. I am a black woman with a white husband.

   Also like Chica, I was tired of writing white authors to ask them if they would write stories featuring a woman of color, who ironically was sometimes featured as sidekicks in their books. Only a few white authors would even attempt to write women of color. That was roughly 13 years ago when people turned their noses up at the interracial subgenre. I was told by other authors, mainly white authors to make my characters all white so my books would sell. I was being told by editors that people are people and these types of books weren’t necessary nor would they sell which doesn’t make sense. If people are people, what does it matter what color I make my characters?

   I won’t even get into editors segregating romance stories based on the color of the author and not what the content of the book was. That’s a whole other issue that deserves it’s own discussion.

   Fast forward to now, the interracial category is not only one of the hottest sub genres in romance thanks mainly to black women, those same white authors who turned their noses up at the genre are suddenly writing women of color. And the really fucked up thing is, editors are rejecting books by the women of color who write them but taking the women of color books written by white authors. And the white authors are being touted as brave. That’s some bullshit. I know an author who was rejected by a publisher for her woman of color story and then contacted by the same publisher to be a sensitivity reader for white authors who write women of color. I can go on and on about the fucked up publishing industry.

   I’m fortunate to be able to make my living doing something I love as I said thanks to the support of mainly black women. And I wanted to thank that young lady for being a supportive reader of romance and to tell her that if she sees something fucked up in the industry like the author who included black slaves in her fantasy book, don’t be afraid to call that shit out. Change doesn’t happen if we remain quiet.

   Sorry for the long rant.

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