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Originally Posted by DNSB
I find it a massive step from shelving to suggesting that this is why few "persons of color" have won a RITA since as far as I recall, the author has to enter the book(s) and pay for the privilege of doing so and the judges are selected by the RWA for both the preliminary and final rounds. No public input requested or needed.
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I don't think anyone has suggested that the segregated shelving is the reason why so few authors of color have won the RITA. Rather, both these have the same root cause, ie. racism.
Note, I'm not suggesting that the people in charge of placing books in bookstores have consciously thought: "I don't like black people, so I'll put books by black authors in a separate shelf to make their books harder to find so they will sell less."
Rather, they have been thinking that these books aren't so interesting or relatable for most readers (read "white readers"), and that only people who are especially interested will want to read them. This will, of course, turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here's another thread about racism in publishing, from a few years ago:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/9...?refreshed=yes :
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Harlequin tends to celebrate its RITA-finaling authors—they’re very proud of the fact that their series authors write wonderful books that capture hearts, and they *should* be. Those authors are often given pride of place at their publisher signings.
Phyllis Bourne, who was attending RWA, was not invited to sign her RITA finalist book at their signing. She wasn’t invited to sign at all. She reminded them she had a RITA finalist (was, IIRC, the only black Harlequin finalist?), and they just snubbed her.
If you’re not familiar with Harlequin lines, Kimani was the “African American” line, which basically meant the authors (not the characters, the characters didn’t have to be African American!) were black.
The other lines are defined by things like common plot elements. They are also predominantly—and I mean in a *big* way—written by white women. (There are exceptions. We are just talking predominance right now).
(If you look at the Ripped Bodice, 4.8% of Harlequin series authors are POC. That dismal number *includes* all the Kimani authors. So that tells you how bad their percentages are in non-Kimani lines.)
Things got worse with Harlequin as conference approached. Harlequin had a conference call with authors from multiple lines—not including authors from Kimani. Harlequin told these (almost entirely white) authors that they needed to start writing diversely.
Of note is that Harlequin didn’t contact Kimani authors asking them to write for other lines—something that many of them had repeatedly asked to do for years. They just asked their white authors to write diversely.
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It got worse at conference. An editor who worked for Harlequin approached an award winning black author and told her, to her face, that she didn’t want her books, but she wanted her to help her develop a guide for white authors writing diversely.
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