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Categorizing Race in the Bookstore

Jill

Jeff has an interesting post up about how bookstores tend to place any book written by an African-American author in the “African-American interest” section, even if the book has nothing to do with race or identity at all.

And remarkably, I actually agree with him on at least one point:

books written by blacks that are not “about” blackness or African-American studies belong with books written by non blacks about the same subjects. Similarly, books on African-American studies written by whites belong in the African-American studies section, if we insist on maintaining such a thing.

That seems fairly obvious. If a black author writes a science fiction novel, it should be in the science fiction section (although, in my opinion, no one should be writing science fiction novels… but that’s a different story).

Now, I’m one of those bookstore users who likes the fact that sections are divided into “Women’s Studies” “GLBT” and “African-American interest.” But when I go to the Women’s Studies section, I expect to find books about feminism and gender issues, not every book ever written by a female. Ditto for the other categories. Jeff uses the example of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a book that I happen to quite like. Beloved, to me, is first and foremost a piece of fiction, and should be shelved with all the other fiction books — and if there’s an American Classics section, it should be shelved there, too. But, considering that it largely about blackness, I can see why some would think it should be in the African-American Interest section. But these sections, to me, imply sociological and non-fiction texts, not novels. Putting Toni Morrison there seems about as logical as putting “2,000 Leagues Under the Sea” in the Travel section.

Check out his post. Thoughts?

32 thoughts on Categorizing Race in the Bookstore

  1. (although, in my opinion, no one should be writing science fiction novels… but that’s a different story).

    Bite your tongue! 😉

    If it makes folks feel better, as I recall, Borders puts Octavia Butler in Sci fi where she belongs. I think they have a African American History (or Studies) section and a separate section for African American novelists in fiction.

    Don’t know if that is standard in all stores though.

  2. There’s a reason George Eliot adopted a male name. I think there’s a tension between the business of selling books and the classification of those books. I don’t imagine it’s really gotten better in the past few hundred years or so, what with Dickens selling by the word.

  3. in my opinion, no one should be writing science fiction novels

    Genreist!

    Without scifi, there is no Heinlein. Without Heinlein, a generation grows up not knowing how to repel an invasion of Martians, communists, or Martian communists.

    I don’t want to live in that world, man!

  4. 2nd Robert (*shudder*…can’t believe I just said that). Without SciFi, there’s no Battlestar: Gallactica.

    And without SciFi/Fantasy (yes, technically they’re two different genres…I don’t care), there would be no Dungeons & Dragons, and I would have no way to vent my frustrations. Seriously, laugh it up if you want, but D&D is an excellent escape without which I just might have gone insane.

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  6. I’m of two minds about this. In principle, yea, they should all be dispersed around the bookstore, but in practice, sometimes I want to read something by a black person, and don’t want to go and look through the entire fiction section. They could put like one copy in one place and another copy in another place, I guess, but that’d be complicated. I have to admit that with Octavia Butler, my first association is ‘sci fi’, not black, but it’s the oppisite with Pearl Cleage- I think ‘black’ immediately. Uh..my brain has been eaten by gay history, that’s why I am wasting your comments space, sorry.

  7. I don’t think bookstores are motivated by racism in this case. Books on the Holocaust are usually in the “Judaism” section, while they probably belong in “History” or “World War II”. But book categories aren’t intended as ideological statements. They’re meant to make it easy to find things. When I browse in a bookstore I want the book I’m looking for to be in the category that first pops into my head. Whether the book is actually about whatever pops into my head is irrelavent.

  8. I think Shannon has put her finger on why this is such a common practice. There are plenty of people who want to read the writing of a black person, to either support their work or to appreciate their voice or perspective. Finding these authors is a much easier task if they’re grouped together by the bookstores.

    However, as you’ve pointed out, the problem is that these authors are marginalized in a fashion and for people who never frequent the ethnic sections of the bookstores, some remarkable talent will be overlooked.

    On balance, which strategy has the widest reach or is most fair? I have no idea.

  9. That is true. I do want white people to experience the voices of people of color, and I myself have been tripped up by looking for a book in the wrong section. However, I’m not sure if the sort of person who would pass an AA lit section by would actually read a book with a black person on the cover or with black experences inside, either.

  11. Shannon, technology is probably going to make this a moot point. It’s pretty rare for me to go to a bookstore and actually browse – although of course I am not the universe, I did use to love to browse bookstores. I just don’t have the time anymore, now that computers make it possible to do the browsing 20x more efficiently via Amazon or what have you.

    That browsing method means that it’s easy to find “books by black people”, “books about black people”, “books with black people as characters”, “books on black history”, “books by black historians”, or whatever, and so forth, AND for there still to be a “strong” black lit genre. (And substitute any other specific group or entity for “black”, there, too.)

  13. It seems to me that a bookstore should have enough copies of Beloved to have it in A-A Studies, Fiction, and perhaps even in the Nobel Prize winners section as well as the ubiquitious Oprah section.

  14. I’m reminded of the episode of WKRP in Cincinnati where an African American job applicant is warned that “This isn’t a black radio station.” “That’s okay, I’m not a black programming director.”

    What comes to my mind are the novels of F.M. Busby and Terry Bisson. Anyone who is interested in exploration of African American culture and issues of special interest to African Americans is missing a bet if they pass up those two white guys.

  15. hmm, i wouldn’t necessarily say that beloved is a fiction book and i don’t see why it shouldn’t be in the “black section.” even if it is, other people can go into that section and get it.

    and i wouldn’t go so far as to say it is jim crow publishing…

  16. But these sections, to me, imply sociological and non-fiction texts, not novels.

    I’m not sure I entirely agree. Fictional texts do perform cultural work, and if, for example, there were a section labeled “American industrialism,” I think Upton Sinclair’s Jungle might belong there as well as in the “literature” section. The best example might be some of Joseph Conrad’s writing dealing with identity politics. Or to deal with your example of Morrison’s novel (disclaimer: I haven’t read it), because it is thematically about the issue of blackness, I would include it in African-American Interest section in addition to the Lit section or American Classics section. Like Amanda notes, I don’t see why you can’t shelve a book in multiple sections if it belongs in multiple sections.

    Of course I come from a perspective where even “non-fictional” sociological and historical texts should be skeptically regarded as somewhat fictional. So maybe that influences my opinion.

  17. You see, not everyone in the country is able to buy online- some may not have bank accounts or credit cards(this is more likely for black folk), some may only have access at the public library, some may feel uncomfortable with computers. I have access to a computer of my own, but sometimes I’ll buy books physically too. I like to be able to go, physically flip to a random page, and see if the book looks good enough to buy.

    I agree with the multiple sections. The store might even net more sales because it’s easier to browse and find something you want. Although, I’m off the thread a bit, but I suddenly thought of libraries. In Memphis,there’s a African American Popular Library section in the main library. It works very well for the most popular black books which they also have in other sections, and many of the other ones, like Parable of the Talents for example, are dispersed to other sections. However, at Emory, non fiction is shelved by subject, so that white people writing about race is all in the same general area(it’s near the books about white ethnic groups) and black people talking about race is in a different not so far area, but fiction by black people seems to be shelved by author’s last name? Although I’m not sure because I don’t really check out fiction from the school library.

    Basically, there’s many possible approaches to this. I also wonder what our definitions of fiction and non fiction are? I considered Beloved fiction because it’s well, a made up story with unlikely elements, but others may not see it that way.

  18. I used to work in a Borders Bookstore, right out of college, I remember soembody once coming in and asking for a collection of some of Tolstoy’s philosophical writings. He was very annoyed that it was shelved with his fiction. He gave me a little lecture on how corporate america was margianalizing Tolstoy because they were afraid of his ideas. I didn’t quite buy into his theory, but I could understand why he would feel it was a marginalization. But I could also see corporate america thinking “one stop shopping, put all his books in one place and maybe the next time somebody picks up “war and peace” they’ll buy his religious and philosophical writings as well”.

    I also remember looking for a copy of Brendan Behan’s “Borstal Boy” in another store a few years later, and being a bit horrified when they told me it was in the British history section. I bit my tongue though and refrained from telling the clerk that the Republic of Ireland was now in fact its own country. And also because except for a few brief flashbacks, the book does take place in England.

  19. Um, perhaps this is too obvious even to mention, but part of this discussion seems to be about respect–that is, not marginalizing black authors. (If we respect an author, we don’t consign her to the wrong bookshelf ‘cuz we can’t be bothered to figure out where her book *ought* to go.)

    Well, then, I would second Knifeghost’s suggestion that you read some sf before dissing it, though I would recommend you start with Octavia Butler, rather than the Heinlein, even though SiaSL is a classic. Butler’s work deals with race, gender and sexual politics in ways that would appeal, or at least interest, a feminist.

    Stranger, on the other hand, does (sigh) have a bunch of nubile sweet things (playing secretaries, no less—grr!) panting not only over Valentine Smith, but also the old goat character orchestrating their political schemes, and though old goats are somewhat more likely to fall into the appealing category now that I’m middle-aged, the ick from my teenaged encounters with the book remains.

    So: it’s 20,000 Leagues, cuz, see, the title refers to how many leagues Nemo &c traveled underwater, not how deep they went. Silly error, really, and yes, petty of me to point it out, but it kinda torpedos, or at least dings, your assertions about sf/f, to screw up the title of such a classic.

    Now the, give the Languagelaw corollary about corrections, how many similar errors are in this post…;)

  20. I think that part of the problem with some bookstores is that they lump many black authors together without any regard for some common theme besides race. There was a large display at a bookstore I went to not too long ago titled “African-American Interest” it consisted of Terry McMillan type books and some that looked as if someone had put them together in some sort of DIY bookmaking class. There were also some classics and some non-fiction. But to me, the whole set up seemed as ridiculous as putting Danielle Steele next to Edith Wharton and calling it “European American Interest”. Just because the authors happen to share some broad racial background, doesn’t mean the books belong together. I think this type of classification assumes something about black readers as well, but I don’t know. I left feeling slightly annoyed about the whole thing though.
    Maybe it’s the assumption that black readers will only want to read books by black authors regardless of their merit or content. And, by shelving all these books together, there is no acknowledgement that The Fire Next Time and How Stella Got Her Groove Back represent totally different experiences, someone who didn’t know anything about these authors might assume that there is some common “black viewpoint” in both. I guess multiple copies shelved in different sections is the best idea though.

  21. Actually, we *are* hungry for representation of ourselves by and for ourselves.. Basically, this issue has been debated for hundreds of years by our greatest minds, and can’t be solved by flipping a few words around. Not to mention, the idea of ‘merit’ is problematic. Octavia Butler and Star Trek books are all shelved in the same place too. Not to mention the fact that Toni Morrison and the most banal chick lit would still be in fiction together. But suddenly, if Brooks and Zane are together it’s a problem…? Hmm.. Basically, what they have in common is that they know something about blackness- yea, there’s diverse viewpoints and different art forms within that, but we’ve built something here together, that is different and special, I think, and maybe outsiders can’t understand it.

  22. In addition to Stranger, I’d suggest “Starship Troopers” by Heinlein (the book, not the movie – they’re radically different), Songbird by Orson Scott Card, and Bicentennial Man, Nightfall (a short story), and The Gods Themselves by Asimov, who was a feminist “before it was popular”.

    All of it is high quality scifi; and all of it makes a political point (I could argue that all decent SF/F is political, but I won’t go there now). Starship Troopers warns of the dangers of fascism; Songbird is about autonomy and control; Bicentennial Man and Nightfall are about racism and fear of the unknown; and The Gods Themselves is, among other things, a commentary on the ridiculousness of established gender roles.

  23. I’m not an “outsider” (by which I assume you mean “not black”) and I still find the whole thing kind of odd. I think that the idea of a common black viewpoint is what gets me. I grew up in a place where my family was only one of five black families in town, and learned early on that people without any knowledge of black culture see all black people as similar and having the same experiences. There is something that is different and special, I agree, and I do seek out black authors and love seeing myself represented in the media, but what I don’t like is the assumption that everything written by a black author is worthy of being representative of the black experience. I think my issue is more of quality than anything else. I don’t know why someone would “Celebrate Black History!” by reading Confessions of a Video Vixen.

    But, I agree that merit is problematic because it’s so subjective, but the display I saw definitely seemed to rely heavily on books that wouldn’t exactly shed any new light on the black experience. If I write a bad book about how I live in the big city and can’t get a man and like to go shopping, it’s still a bad “chick lit” book like a million others and just because it was written by a black woman doesn’t give it any more literary or cultural weight.

  24. Jill, I just have to ask: what is your beef with Science Fiction? Sure, there’s a lot of crap out there under that heading. But then again, there’s just a lot of crappy writing out there getting published!

    Seriously, what do you have against the genre as a whole? I ask that out of respect instead of just hurling author names at you (although I am a big fan of Mr. Heinlein myself), knowing how little time you probably have for extracurricular reading just now. And I’m curious — people have different reasons for not liking specific genres of novels. I’d like to hear yours.

  25. I have a suggestion. If you want to read something written by a black person, ask for recommendations, from friends or the bookstore clerk or even online acquaintances. It’s a much better technique than just walking over to a “Written By Someone Who Is Not White” section and pulling a book randomly from the shelf.

    Bookstores should arrange books by content, not author. There’s a lot of room for interpretation within the text itself without making the author’s identity an issue.

  26. If the fiction works were classified as black studies, is it because *they were on reading lists for black studies classes*? Because that would make sense. If a work of fiction is good enough to help put points and perspectives to the reader that might be lost in a dry text, they could very well be required or recommended reading for a local class, and be located to help students find it.

    And randomliberal… roll for inititative! I have boots of speed on,t hough, so I’ve got an advantage. 😉

  28. All I know is that there’s something wrong when I can go into Borders and, within 5 minutes of generalized browsing, immediately divide the fiction section into the “literature” section–Great Books Written By White People, in other words–and the “African-American Interest” section.

    If I go into a section, and it’s labelled “literature,” I by god expect to see The Invisible Man shelved in there under ‘E.’

  29. The “not-White” section seems to kick in when there’s something resembling a critical mass. There are fledgling Latino/a sections, but African American sections are pretty much venerable at this point.

    I see the point of clumping in small public libraries like the one down the street from my house. People are generally browsing, not sure of what they want, but happy to have had some of the winnowing done for them. I suppose the principle is the same in the chain bookstores. They’re serving a readership that comes from all over the map wrt to interest, understanding, desire, you name it. I don’t like it and Black History Month just aggravates the situaation, but I see a need, I guess.

    If you’re going to read one Heinlein, skip Starship Troopers and read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Skip Farnham’s Freehold at all costs.

  31. But, I agree that merit is problematic because it’s so subjective, but the display I saw definitely seemed to rely heavily on books that wouldn’t exactly shed any new light on the black experience. If I write a bad book about how I live in the big city and can’t get a man and like to go shopping, it’s still a bad “chick lit” book like a million others and just because it was written by a black woman doesn’t give it any more literary or cultural weight.

    Ah, I see you now. You think maybe it’d be better to have a black lit section(i.e. only books with actual redeeming value) But on the other hand, simply because something is not a very good or interesting version of the black experience doesn’t mean that bookstores can’t make cash hand over fist selling it(ok, it’s also a representation, and one consumed by many even if it’s not especially good), and the people who buy Zane all go to the AA interest section, not fiction or..well..I’m not sure if many bookstores have a ‘porn’ section…

  32. in my opinion, no one should be writing science fiction novels… but that’s a different story).

    Hey! I resemble that remark!

    I second Lauren’s request. As someone working on an SF novel, and an avid reader of both SF and fantasy, I’d like to know what it is about the genre you don’t like. Among other things, which SF books might appeal to you would depend heavily on what your objections actually are. There are some wonderful SF books that just aren’t for some readers. There are also some truly horrific ones out there, but that’s true of any genre.

    I personally loathe romance novels with a deep and abiding hatred, so I can understand the repulsion for a genre. It doesn’t mean there aren’t one or two that I haven’t liked (very rare), mostly just that romance is the last place I look when I’m after a good read.

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