Romance Writers of America implodes over handling of criticism of racism

[meeera]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Would anyone even have heard of the stupid publisher without this row? I mean today there is Harlequin/Mills&Boon (who probably rarely take new writers, as is the case with big 5 and other popular genres) and then Self Publishing.

Harlequin/Mira/Carina/Harlequin Teen/Love Inspired and the other Harlequin imprints publish debut authors all the time, and they're a division of HarperCollins, so they _are_ big 5. Locally, Australian rural romance is extremely popular, and published by big 5 (Mira and the Escape imprint of HC, and Allen & Unwin, for example).

Four of the absolute biggest romance hits of the past 18 months have been debuts (The Kiss Quotient (Berkley), Well Met (Berkley), The Friend Zone (Forever) and Red White and Royal Blue (St Martin's Griffin) - and I'm sure many others, I just only read romance sometimes, category romance (which Harlequin specialises in) rarely, and don't hold a lot of the details in my head of what is and isn't a debut.

Random House has romance imprints, Random Penguin does too, Hachette publishes Nora Roberts and Fiona Palmer and Christina Lauren among many others; Macmillan has Danielle Steel and others; then there's Entangled, Avon (did HC gobble that up too?), Kensington, Dorchester, Berkley and a gazillion other medium and small publishers. And this is basically off the top of my head, with quick google doublechecks.

The big 5 would have been absolutely bonkers to bow out of the romance publishing industry. It's the biggest book genre by a mile, not a little obscure corner of the industry.

[binaryhermit]

Don't non-big5-published books have a bigger market share in romance than other genres though?
(But you're right, completely abandoning it would be a stupid move)

EDIT: Quick theory: It seems pretty well established that romance is the genre that has the biggest market share for romance, and there's less of a barrier to entry for non-big5-published books in the digital market?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by meeera

The big 5 would have been absolutely bonkers to bow out of the romance publishing industry. It's the biggest book genre by a mile, not a little obscure corner of the industry.

I said Romance was biggest.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I don't believe I said that. I did say it was equivalent in many ways to the Salem Witch Trials, in the sense of the utter lack of evidence, no indication as to the realiability of the complainants, and most importantly, the mob mentality of it. The "pile on." Honestly, it's like watching chickens in the hen house decide to peck another to death and it's not pretty--in Chickens or people.

Say what you will, the Twitterverse is the modern-day equivalent of the Witch Trials. It's part of Cancel Culture, in which people lose jobs, their livelihoods, possibly their families and so on.

<Edit.>


Hitch

As someone who uses Twitter, I agree with you and have thought the same for years. I avoid the drama for the most part and mainly try to stay out of it.

[hildea]

A thread in the "Politics and Religion" subforum took a turn into this topic. I'll answer a couple of questions from that thread here. I'm paraphrasing the other poster instead of quoting them, to be sure I don't accidentally cross the limits of what can be posted where.

Paraphrased: I haven't seen any evidence that Davis' book was racist.

Milan has explained her view at length in her response to Davis' complaint, starting at the bottom of page 2.

Paraphrased: I don't believe RWA didn't give awards to black authors. If it had happened, it would have been reported in the press.

April (?) 2018: Statement from RWA: Board Commitment to RITAs and Inclusivity

We’ve only recently started collecting demographic information on our members, and that is on a voluntary basis. But from what we could determine, the statistics for black author RITA finalists from 2000 to 2017 are:

• The number of finalist books by black authors is less than half of 1% of the total number of finalist books
• No black romance author has ever won a RITA

See also comments to this statement on Smart Bitches Trashy Books: RWA Board Addresses Inclusivity in RITA Awards and Finalists

April 2019: The Guardian: Fifty shades of white: the long fight against racism in romance novels

In response to the outcry over the Ritas, the RWA went back over the past 18 years of Rita award finalists and winners. During that time, the RWA acknowledged in a statement posted on its website, books by black authors had accounted for less than 0.5% of the total number of Rita finalists. “It is impossible to deny that this is a serious issue and that it needs to be addressed,” the statement from the RWA board noted. According to the current president of the Romance Writers of America, a black woman has never actually won a Rita.

[leebase]

If they weren’t collecting demographic info...then how would they know what the races of the authors were? Collecting demographic info would only ENABLE preferential OR discriminatory behavior.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by leebase

If they weren’t collecting demographic info...then how would they know what the races of the authors were? Collecting demographic info would only ENABLE preferential OR discriminatory behavior.

In theory that is correct. In practice, it appears, that the only way to do it "correctly" is by proving that nobody's feelings got hurt. What would be an acceptable split, though?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by hildea

Milan has explained her view at length in her response to Davis' complaint, starting at the bottom of page 2.

But isn't exoticizing lovers a lot of what the genre is about?

Real-life dukes and duchesses might have a lot more reason to dislike the genre than do the Chinese. But I very much doubt the vast number of titles, where earls are an object of fascination, whips up a generalized hatred against the nobility, much less anti-British animus.

In the spirit of Milan's admission that she reached her conclusion after only reading a part of a sample, I should myself admit to not being a reader of novels unambiguously fitting into the romance genre ouvre. This post has a family resemblance to ideas in this book, which I did completely read:

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

[hildea]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

But isn't exoticizing lovers a lot of what the genre is about?

No, it's not.
Perhaps you are confusing the romance genre with National Geographic? Both tend to have pretty, colorful covers, and have a problematic past they are trying to improve from, so it might be an easy mistake to make.

If you seriously want to know what the romance genre is about, you can read Do Not Mess with the Happy Ever After: defining the romance novel by KJ Charles. (Spoiler: It's a four letter word. No, not that one. No, not that one either. )

Real-life dukes and duchesses might have a lot more reason to dislike the genre than do the Chinese.

I applaud you for standing up for vulnerable minorities who are victims of predudice. I'll even help you out: There are several groups who are hurt as much as or worse than Chinese people by bigoted books in the romance genre (and, I suspect, in other genres): Black people, disabled people, and queer people spring to mind. But just because some other groups have it worse doesn't mean that everybody else should refrain from talking about things that harm them. Most people can have more than one thought in their head at the same time, and care about more than one social issue at a time.

But I very much doubt the vast number of titles, where earls are an object of fascination, whips up a generalized hatred against the nobility, much less anti-British animus.

Um, you... you have no idea how racism works? None at all?
If this is indeed a good faith argument, and not just an attempt at being cute, I can try to dig up some articles for you. Hey, I just googled "racism 101", and this one looks like a good starting point.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by hildea

Um, you... you have no idea how racism works? None at all?

There is a lot of real oppression. I think we agree on that.

And there is a lot of legitimate disagreement concerning how oppression works. We may disagree on that sentence.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by hildea

A thread in the "Politics and Religion" subforum took a turn into this topic. I'll answer a couple of questions from that thread here. I'm paraphrasing the other poster instead of quoting them, to be sure I don't accidentally cross the limits of what can be posted where.


Milan has explained her view at length in her response to Davis' complaint, starting at the bottom of page 2.

Thanks for the shared link.

Just read it, and what I took from it was that she is arguing that, since is a writer, she should be able to go to Davis personally and tell her she's in the wrong and that her book is showing racism because of stereotyping without it being considered an attack or being confronted by the RWA about it.

In the second part she is showing how she disagreed with Davis and showed how other authors write scenes she approves of by showing the links of the right way to do it.

I get where she's coming from that there tends to be annoying stereotypes in a lot of books - and movies! - about different races, but as Davis responded to her initially she hadn't intended to be insulting when she did write it.

To then take that to Twitter and get people boycotting the author, including issues with her publishing business and past writing career, is some of the Twitter drama I was speaking of.

After this she issues a complaint against Milan for public attack, which gets her more boycotted and RWA under fire even further.

It's a never-ending cycle.

Again, it doesn't help that RWA has had legit issues with racism in the past.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by leebase

If they weren’t collecting demographic info...then how would they know what the races of the authors were? Collecting demographic info would only ENABLE preferential OR discriminatory behavior.

I've had the same argument as a reader, I believe it was on Book riot. I read a little over 300 books a year, and when I saw the yearly challenge was mainly based on reading with other races and genders, I brought up that - as a coincidence - almost all my authors were female so there was no reason to read more female writers. It depends on the genre you read - I read a lot of Urban Fantasy (mainly female writers), romance (mainly female writers), cozy mysteries (mainly female writers)...you get the picture.

Someone brought up the race of the author and I had to look into it. I responded I honestly had no idea because I never look at pictures of authors, and mainly never read up on authors that I read. I just go by the plot synopsis and sometimes the cover. I don't know what race the author is when I'm reading the book., which people then said was unintentional systematic bias within the system from the publishing company, etc. I didn't join the challenge after that, it was too intensive for the year with how I usually read, which is more mood-reading.

Edited to add:

I want to be clear no members were accusing me of unintentional racism. The point that I've heard made is that through promotion, social network websites, and publishers, that the books that were landing in the hands of readers were mainly from white authors. They were not stating that readers were selecting books based on author race, but that most of the books being pushed toward us and actually published happened to be based on race from the publisher end of things, based on the marketing companies, etc. As to the truth and stats of that, I have no idea.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

I want to be clear no members were accusing me of unintentional racism. The point that I've heard made is that through promotion, social network websites, and publishers, that the books that were landing in the hands of readers were mainly from white authors. They were not stating that readers were selecting books based on author race, but that most of the books being pushed toward us and actually published happened to be based on race from the publisher end of things, based on the marketing companies, etc. As to the truth and stats of that, I have no idea.

That was also the case being made against Grimshaw for shelving romances by black authors in the African American Interest section of Borders rather than in the general Romance section.

I can see cases for both sides and won't pretend to have enough understanding to say who is right there. But it is interesting to think about.

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

From what I've read, she put African-American Romance books in the African-American section of Borders,

OK, I'll bite. I've remained out of this thread so far, but...

I have a hard time figuring out what the "African-American section" of a bookstore is even supposed to be.

Is it for books for African-Americans? by African-Americans? about African-Americans? and, to be honest - how can this even remotely be a reasonable way to organize a bookstore by?

I mean, bookstores I go to are usually organized by genre, with some sections sorted by their intended public when it is specific enough (kids' books, typically), and general litterature organized by original language or country of origin. This I can understand, because language and country are also often indicative of some elements of style, or theme, or mood, and some readers may not want to read translated books, or may want to avoid it for some languages that they can read without translation.

Is there also a section for books by, or for, or about women?

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

OK, I'll bite. I've remained out of this thread so far, but...

I have a hard time figuring out what the "African-American section" of a bookstore is even supposed to be.

Is it for books for African-Americans? by African-Americans? about African-Americans? and, to be honest - how can this even remotely be a reasonable way to organize a bookstore by?

Yes. All of the above. Why not? And an LGBTQZLMNTOP section as well.

I'd hope they'd have put the books in both sections. An POC authored romance book should be in the Romance section, and in the special POC section.

Anything to cater to the customers. I could see having a "Women Authors" section in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy aisle. Why not highlight a few such books.

There is "Self Help" and then there is "explicitly Christian self help"....usually the Christian books are put together.

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

Is there also a section for books by, or for, or about women?

I think it would make sense to highlight a few such books in any of several general sections. I don't care if the author of my sci-fi book is a dude or not....but if I were a girl...perhaps I'd like to read a book written by a girl that was also Sci-fi.

But this debate isn't new. Are we honoring Black History Month....or are we limiting black history to just that month and not including blacks as appropriate in all history?

And can we sing Christmas carols in July?