(Bold mine)
Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
I'd like to repeat something that may have gotten lost in the discussion:
The reason that Grimshaw and Davis were scrutinised is that they both work as aquiring editors at Tisdale's publishing company. In other words, they will decide if the book you send them is worth publishing there or not. This is an industry [..] where books by authors of color, and books with protagonists of color, are more difficult to get published than books where author and protagonists are white. It's changing, but very slowly. So when people are concerned about how racist views these specific people have, it's not just a "racist people exist" but "if these people have racist views, they can harm the careers of a lot of authors of color".
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Gatekeeping is a publisher's job, not a RWA problem. The RWA has very little financial risks involved, while a publisher has to carefully consider the books to be published. So from that standpoint, in a white dominant market, I would imagine, that the financial risk is lower for a white book than a different book.
Now the big question is how to give a publisher more incentive to be more diverse, if they don't want to embrace it on their own. The RWA could force the issue by no longer considering any books by too narrow minded publishers for the RITA. Sounds a little too heavy handed, though. Now that they postponed 2019 until they can award 2019 and 2020 together, they will have the perfect chance to establish a new image of the RWA. It kind of worked with the Nobel when they had their own issues.