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It seems pretty clear that one person's “marginalization” is another person's “market segmentation”. Someone wanting to promote content by an author's race, ethnicity, sexual orientation....has the same discovery problem that all books have.
If you write a book as a Christian promoting a Christian experience...do you want it out into the “Christian books” section where a market looking for that type of material would likely be looking? Or do you put it in the general fiction section hoping that people who don’t share the Christian perspective might come across it and become more open/aware/sensitive to the Christian experience?
Is a romance book “African American” because the author is black....or if the material covered has characters and themes regarding people of color? If you are gay, are you likely to want your romance book with romance between gay characters? I’d think so. Do you want to have to sift through all the romance books looking for gay romance or would it be nice to have a section just for your interests?
Multiply this by every religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation - and don’t forget the great divide between Science Fiction and Fantasy which should NOT be lumped together!!!
I don’t think there is a right answer and that people equally committed to promoting tolerance might choose a different way of marketing books
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