People probably shouldn’t be so quick to judge, but when browsing through a bookstore people are already making many snap judgments without much basis simply because they can’t read a thousand book backs in one sitting.

And yet, some readers—and Liar’s editor—are defending the cover, noting that Micah, the unreliable narrator, could have fibbed about her own appearance. “The entire premise of this book is about a compulsive liar,” said Melanie Cecka, publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA and Walker Books for Young Readers, who worked on Liar. “Of all the things you’re going to choose to believe of her, you’re going to choose to believe she was telling the truth about race?”

Whereas it seems clear that the narrator is black in the author’s mind. An odd moment, that, misusing the tools and language of literary criticism to defend an indefensible, race-based marketing decision.

“Urban fiction” ghettos in bookstores also have the function of allowing readers of African-American fiction to find new authors, to shop by brand, etc.: the practice can be inclusive as well as exclusive. From my experience working in a Borders years ago, many customers don’t notice the ironies, they just want to find a good book.

Regardless, this comments thread is proof that the worst people on earth with which to have a discussion on race are often privileged white liberals, usually males. So many of them don’t have a fleeting concept of what racism actually looks like even though it surrounds them, and they stand so steadfast in their wrong-headed ideas. It’s impressive, and sadly predictable. ZUZU’s comments could be a case-study in this vein.

::emphasis added::

Because the solution to stereotyping is more stereotyping??? That’s completely illogical.

Racism depends on belief in “race” (i.e. racial identity, race consciousness, etc.). The entire concept of “race” is bogus. Without the concept of “race” there can be no race-based discrimination (i.e. racism).

Why can’t we all be “generic”, regardless of skin color, or height, or weight, or hair color, or sexual organs?

(More accurately, we’re all individuals! Stop trying to “identify” with anything except your name.)

Variation within populations is real, but “race” is as arbitrary a distinction as grouping people by height.

Arbitrary and artificial distinctions are not intrinsically bad or meaningless. Your very examples prove the opposite point. Why did you say “African and Middle Eastern? Middle Eastern and Caucasian? Asian and Pacific Islander?” rather than “African and Pacific Islander? Middle Eastern and Asian? Caucasian and Pacific Islander?”

Furthermore, beyond does race exist, let’s talk about whether it “should” exist. I have a serious problem with people saying race shouldn’t exist. I assume it’s not just black churches and historically black colleges you’d like to see disappear but St Patrick’s Day, Irish pubs, Asian-American studies programs, Chinatown, and Japantown?

Race is not intrinsically a harmful concept. The fact that I choose to identify with my family does not isolate me from my common humanity with non family members. That a person chooses to travel to Ireland because their grandparents emigrated from there does not mean they are closing their mind or their heart to other nations, people, or stories.

So you’ve seen some bad cover copy, or some copy for which you were not the primary audience. There’s a limit to how much you can infer from it.

Back when I did freelance proofreading for Avon, I saw a few distinctly mediocre translations. Should I have arrived at conclusions beyond the ones that seemed evident to me, which was that those specific translators had done a lackluster job on those specific books? ”

Seriously, was that meant as an insult, Theresa? Was that really necessary?
I was writing about my experience and yes, I know writing good copy is quite difficult – that’s why you hardly ever see it, at least in Germany. Maybe I should have specified I’m talking about the german market, but everything being global nowadays, especially Random House, I thought it would be the same everywhere, more or less.

I was ironic about copywriters not being allowed to read the book, of course I hope they read the book – but I also read the backcovers of “my” books and they more often than not go for something sensationalist which simply is not in the book – as a reader, I would be annoyed to find out the book was nothing like the backcover promised.

Also, I believe that the vast majority of discrimination in the USA today is of the subconscious kind. That is, people don’t generally seek to purposefully exclude, suspect or otherwise NOT give black people the benefit of the doubt, but they do nonetheless.

There are, of course, those for whom it is very conscious and purposeful, but I don’t think the publishing industry or the bookstore owners are examples of this. They are just people whose world is overwhelmingly premised on the dominance of white middle class/upper class culture, and it’s safest and easiest for them if it stays that way.

So, when I wrote what you quoted back to me, Zuzu, I had in mind the simple idea that black youth are scary for most white people because white people generally assume blacks are ‘ghetto.’ I assume we can agree that the police aren’t the only ones who engage in racial profiling.

Regardless of who these young black people are or may be, irrespective of what they’re doing or looking for in a store, they are (too) often considered potentially criminal. And while I don’t have any statistics to throw at you, I would venture to guess that they’re very likely to be followed by security, in any store.

So, my thinking was this: the typical bookstore owner wants to be sure that his/her typical customer (ummm, a middle aged, middle class white person?) is _comfortable_ while shopping. That way they can browse and take their time looking for things to buy. Simply put, the very presence of black youth disturbs that white peace.

Again, this is discrimination of the kind that will take radical changes to perception to eliminate. When black people are not assumed to be ‘ghetto’ (read ‘dangerous criminal’) until proven otherwise, maybe there will be black faces on book covers. (It would probably help too if more black youth were buying books!)

Why else would the correlation between a black face on the cover and specific content be automatic? It’s a kind of profiling.

I find it hilarious that someone wrote “can’t we all just be a generic person?” Or whatever that comment was. Of course! The generic IS white! Or rather, I should say, white culture has constructed generic to be equivalent to white.

The impulse in this country has always been towards assimilation –to ANGLO whiteness. Only when we are truly a “minority majority” country will that have any real chance of changing.

Lisa P.

I’m not saying race is an intrinsically harmful concept. I was just agreeing with the notion that at the end of the day, it’s still an artificial one. When people lose sight of that fact it can become harmful.

Add me to the group that would be reluctant to buy a book featuring a black face on the cover because I would expect it to be focused on racial issues. Unfortunately, this is a catch-22 that probably will persist so long as race remains an issue.

Regardless, this comments thread is proof that the worst people on earth with which to have a discussion on race are often privileged white liberals, usually males. So many of them don’t have a fleeting concept of what racism actually looks like even though it surrounds them, and they stand so steadfast in their wrong-headed ideas. It’s impressive, and sadly predictable. ZUZU’s comments could be a case-study in this vein.

The point, which you are either unwilling or incapable of comprehending, is that you can only continue to live in your fantasy world because you are privileged to do so. If you were getting regularly smacked down due to your race, your reality orientation would promptly spike.

I’m talking of course about the fantastic british sitcom Black Books (Piratebay link)

I mean, are publishers not able to sell books because black kids don’t read, or do black kids not read because publishers don’t sell black books?

And what was the racial makeup of people who saw Akeelah And The Bee in the theater?

Some years back I berated the staff of a trendy London bookshop for the shelf marked [i]Books by Women of Colour[/i] on the basis that such segregation of books was both racist and sexist. They just looked at me as if I was mad.

Well, I guess I was right in one way and very wrong in another; I guess that the race and gender background of the authors of most of those books mattered.

Even more years ago, I listened to a couple of black schoolgirls sitting near me on a London bus, discussing race and colour. One of them was adamant that it didn’t matter a toss, and that, in the end, intermarriage would turn the whole world pale brown.

Of course issues with race are a part of life, but as a preteen and young adult it’s difficult to see few positive representations of people like you. A book cover seems so simple to some, but for adolescents it is a big deal.

As a “preteen” / “young adult”, my biggest gripe was how patronizingly dumbed down the “young adult” genre is.

Give me Dune, or Heinlein novels, anything with plot and intriguing concepts, instead of boring drama between characters who I couldn’t care less about. Even Catcher in the Rye and 1984 portray compelling and thought-provoking existentialism, so “plot” is not synonymous with “sci-fi”.

The cover of a book wasn’t even a consideration, let alone a “big deal”. So I doubt that’s a universal claim.

(I want to say that the cliche of “don’t judge a book by its cover” was imparted to me by Levar Burton on Reading Rainbow, along with being skeptical of arguments from authority, particularly on matters of personal taste: “you don’t have to take my word for it”. But I may have already heard and recognized that cliche as such elsewhere or before Reading Rainbow could.)

Book covers, music album covers… rarely on occasion one is done so well that I’ll pause and admire it, but it never has anything to do with the content it’s attached to, and really it’s the content (text, music) that’s of interest. In other words, cover art seems to amount to an advertisement (like a party flyer).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0688104800

Seems to have done all right, despite the cover.

But I must say I loathe backcover texts equally. Backcover texts are written by some marketing geniuses who are not allowed to read the book, because it is not marketable to talk about what is actually in the book. I’ve done some translations and I was quite surprised to find out in the backcover what the book was all about – I’m sure the author would be surprised, too.
Writing (and translating) books is a wonderful thing to do, selling them apparently takes a lot of trickery.
Using a white girl on a book about a black girl is just the cherry on a very ugly icecream.

The point, which you are either unwilling or incapable of comprehending, is that you can only continue to live in your fantasy world because you are privileged to do so. If you were getting regularly smacked down due to your race, your reality orientation would promptly spike.

Still doesn’t prove that race exists (or that you should identify with a “race”), just that some people are assholes.

Ugh. This is the worst, and longest, pseudo-conversation about race I’ve seen.

I take it you’re not on Live Journal.

Re: this entire mess, I’m not entirely surprised, although it’s amusing that the publisher erred so blatantly. If any of you have ever looked over a rack of women’s magazines, you’ll be struck not only by the idiotic headlines, but the fact that 99% of the women featured on the covers are white.

The only black women are featured on magazines marketed exclusively towards a black audience (and those aren’t sold at most regular grocery store check-out lines). The sole exception is Oprah.

On the subject of YA covers, however, is anyone else sick of the bland, often blown-out, generic stock photography publishers slap onto YA covers, especially for books about New York prep schools and vampires? Or the crap line art that goes onto covers for chick lit?

Where have the talented illustrators gone? Is it just because I was a huge fantasy reader as a teen that I got the benefit of interesting, *original* covers?

The physical characteritics that used to constitute “race” (and now can no longer do so) continue to be used to mark “other” from the dominant culture, which has always associated itself with both superiority and physical whiteness.

That is precisely why a middle class black man (like Mr. Tyson) can be treated like just one more ghetto criminal, should circumstances arise that invite that. To answer your question, no. Today in the Unites States, Mr. Tyson, for all his accomplishments, degrees, etc. is not “generic.” And I would venture to guess that the average bookstore owner does not take him (or those like him) into consideration at all. It simply “does not compute.” I don’t know that they would necessarily attempt to make him feel uncomfortable, or unwelcome, he just doesn’t factor into their thinking. He is invisible.

There are countless cases of middle and upper class black men in suits and ties that get treated the same way, as if they were not accomplished businessmen, lawyers, etc. Why? because our white culture (created, reproduced and distributed by people with white skin) resists accepting and acknowledging that not all black people are the same.

BTW, I realized that was your post after I posted mine… and I have to argue against the utility of generic. Let us all be human first and foremost, but each of us purely individual and unique after that. Group identification beyond human is perhaps the true underlying problem.