Romantic Times Introduces Best African American Romance Category… WTF?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009Posted in: Racism in romance
Apparently Romantic Times has created an award category for ‘Best African American romance’. Yep, it was a big WTF? for me too.
So basically, regardless of whether one’s book is a contemporary, a paranormal, or a regency, if said book has black characters in them, then it automatically goes into the black pot? Hmmm…
I get what RT are trying to do, but for me, this just otherfies AA romance even more.
Mrs Giggles was also bemused by the development, and had this to say:
I find the very existence of this category odd. For one, the other categories are pretty specific – Best Contemporary Romance, Best JR Ward Book That Features White Guys Pretending To Be Gangsta, Best Historical Romance – while “Best African American Romance” is so general that it is hard to even imagine what this category about other than it features African Americans.
And even then, it begets the question: who are the African-Americans we are talking about here, the authors or the characters? Looking at the winner list, it looks like the winners in that category are contemporary romances, so why is stopping those books from being nominated in the Best Contemporary Romance category?
And worse, it makes me wonder: does this mean that there is some different quality in which a Best Contemporary Romance is judged as opposed to how a Best African American Romance is judged?
Yeah, what she said.
For the full post, pop over to Mrs G’s blog.
katiebabs
December 30
11:27 pm
I’m offended they also don’t review or have a category for GLBT books.
Does that mean an AA book has to have a plot with AA characters? I am confused.
Raine
December 31
12:38 am
Ok, I’ll see your “wtf”, & raise you one “is this, like, for real?”
In a way, I see an effort being made here, since it might be the only way books with AA characters might qualify for ANYTHING. But doesn’t it also encourage the segregation of said books?
And (unless I’m misunderstanding) if it’s based on the work having AA characters, isn’t it just as likely that a non-AA author could qualify? And if it’s based on the author being AA and not necessarily the characters, why wouldn’t they qualify for the other categories, and so the point would be…?
I was just imagining watching the Academy Awards, & what would happen if they presented one for any film starring a black/latino/asian/native american person.
Really?
Amarinda Jones
December 31
1:17 am
Political correctness gone mad once more
Cindy
December 31
1:27 am
Not that I’m with RT or anything, I do have to pipe up that this might be an American AA mindset. I work at a UBS and we have the AA and IR romances and novels shelved with the regular romance and novels. So nope, we’re not segregating, all are treated equal. But the AA customers who come in (again, not all, but a good number) want to know where the AA section is and won’t browse through the regular romance and novel sections. Or rather, they ask for the urban fiction section which completely confuses everyone but me because they send them to paranormal for urban fantasy.
So, my thinking is that RT has had complaints from readers and maybe authors that they don’t have their own award. I could be completely off base, but that’s what I’m thinking.
katieM
December 31
2:37 am
I think you’re way off base there. The argument for years has been that AA don’t want to be separated and thus relegated to second or third or fourth best. The operative term in AA is not the African but the American. Romance is romance; it’s not Black love versus White love, or Asian Love versus Latin love. Maybe if the term African American went away and we were all just American over here in the US, then the separation would begin fading away too.
Toni
December 31
3:11 am
This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve had this discussion on the Romantic Times board before to no avail.
And don’t even get me started on the whacked out political correctness of the term African-American. Last week I saw a passenger on the Detroit flight describe the terrorist as “African-American” when she meant to say he was black. The man was Nigerian, not an American at all. Technically, an African-American could be white.
What are they going to do if a romance writer writes a book where the main characters are black and Canadian?
Cindy
December 31
4:06 am
@KatieM
I completely agree with you. And all of these sub-titles of African-American, Chinese-American etc. should all be melted into American. Like I said, we keep them all with whatever genre they’re in…romance, novel, thriller, whatever. And as I said, I’m not connected with RT. Just my observation by how some of our customers ask for them and the fact that some get upset because they are not in their own section. I personally see no reason for them to be separate.
jane
December 31
11:25 am
I don’t think so. There appear to be two types of authors. Those that wanted to be segregated and those that do not. By and large those that want to be are more vocal about it.
I’ve noticed Americans using the term AA to describe non American blacks. I find that really offensive and ignorant.
ME2
December 31
2:59 pm
I’ve noticed Americans using the term AA to describe non American blacks. I find that really offensive and ignorant.
In all seriousness, please enlighten us, what term should we be using? Do we simply assume that all *persons of color* are African? How would I know where they were from just by looking at them? What if they are not from Africa? Isn’t that JUST as insulting??
Jill Sorenson
December 31
3:28 pm
Looks like RT has always had an award for best AA romance. This is not new.
Although I support the attempt to acknowledge a largely ignored subgenre, I agree that there are too many award categories. 15 or more subcategories for historical? What’s a KISS hero? Do we really need to separate best paranormal, best shapeshifter, and best vampire romance?
Bonnie L.
December 31
5:18 pm
ME2-
I think the point there is that Americans are so afraid of stepping on toes that they call everyone AA, when the term black is perfectly acceptable.
ardeatine
December 31
7:28 pm
Why are AA so special/different that they get their own category?
katieM
December 31
8:23 pm
That’s the problem. We are the same, but we are not treated the same. We are seen as other or different. Black romances are skipped or ignored and rarely if ever nominated for mainstream awards. After all, if no one reads your book how will anyone know how good it is? So it seems as if a special, but misguided and weak, effort is made to read a few Black romances and then pick the best. They are never compared to romances written by White authors. The implication, then, is that they are not good enough to be compared to books by White authors, so they need their own special category. How insulting is that? Why not have a specific category called best White American romance?
jane
December 31
9:07 pm
What’s wrong with Black? You Americans seem to be deathly afraid of the word, so much so that you offend people who are not American by calling them AA. It should be obvious that you don’t call someone without not American, AA. If you have to be so PC about then I suppose you could use Person of Colour but I really think that is taking that too far.
ardeatine
January 1
1:21 am
Katie M. I totally agree with you. As a category, AA is redundant unless African Americans conduct their romances in radically different ways from everyone else. Which they don’t.
Angela
January 1
2:13 am
@Cindy
It’s a catch-22 situation. Monica and others have spoken about the black fiction niche: there is a faction of black readers who want the separation because it is a source of pride for them–they want something of their “own” rather than being thrown in with everyone else and ignored–as has been the general experience of black Americans. On the other hand, readers like myself, who make a beeline for genre sections, are likely to overlook AA romance b/c it’s not in the romance section. But mostly, I think black readers are so used to being treated as the “Other,” they assume every store has AA fiction shelved in its own section.
As for this:
That would be true if not the for the fact that the phrase “American” means “white.” If the default for American society and culture was not “white” (big, relatable example? Assuming characters in a book are white unless the author says from page one that their skin is dark, or they have an “ethnic” name, or (#authorfail) they speak in dialect) I would agree with this sentiment.
katieM
January 1
2:33 am
Since when? Maybe that’s an assumption by White people, but I assure you I call myself American, not AA. No one in my family has come from Africa for over 200 years. Family records show we were brought here from Great Britain. Why would I identify with a place I’ve never been?
Cindy
January 1
3:00 am
I’ve never thought American equaled white. I was raised that if you were born in America, you were American. Simple as that. I never thought in the terms of AA, Chinese-American, etc. until its been shoved down my throat that its PC. I think its more PC to just think of everyone as people. And again, if you were born in America, you’re American. In my mind, anyway.
Toni
January 1
3:05 am
My problem with the term African-American is that people use it to denote race when it really denotes continent of origin.
KatieM, many people identify with the country of their ancestors whether or not they’ve ever been there. There are proud Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans who’ve never seen Ireland or Italy. There’s nothing wrong with the term African-American per se, but there is something wrong with the way it is used in America. I hate when people use that term when they really mean “black.”
They are really two different things. It’s a matter of specificity. Being African-American is not something you can tell about a person just by looking at them.
Anon76
January 1
6:10 pm
I just label myself as Mutt American. Whatever was in my pot melted long ago.
FD
January 1
10:09 pm
Anon76, you just made me choke on my coffee. I will have to cadge that phrase.
The AA phrase makes me eyeroll tbh, maybe it’s a cultural thing. From my possibly faulty perspective, it seems like a step backwards, like a resurgence of separatism.
I say that maybe it’s my perspective at fault, because y’know, I have colleagues who speak longingly of communities they’ve heard of in America that are apparently overwhelmingly majority black, where they would have a black doctor, a black dentist, black teachers, police. Not have to ‘deal with’ white people.
It’s always seemed to me to a) a bit like the ‘streets paved with gold’ myth, and b) not necessarily something to be wished for, but as I have said, my perspective may be faulty.
Also, Irish American, and Scots American and the rest yada yada yada, make this Brit snort with laughter – pretty much anyone and every one from the UK, or with UK heritage is actually a mutt, unless they immigrated only recently, and most of us will admit that quite cheerfully. (Are almost ridiculously proud of it in many cases, it’s a stereotype. Unless they’re BNP, but they’re just thick. And uneducated.) One of the things about coming from a small sea-faring island nation.
It’s kinda arguable that there’s no such thing as English / Irish / Scottish / Welsh other than geography. Language, culture and history are acquired constructs and the blood thing is as I have said, basically rubbish.
As to RT, they just keep on, keeping on with shooting themselves in the foot don’t they?
Ebony
January 2
12:24 am
I’ve never set foot on African soil; I’m an American, but yet I’m classified as African-American. What’s a Black woman who was born and raised in America to do? Check the best box that describes her on an application I guess 🙂
The only two boxes I should have to check is female and American.
Angela
January 2
8:04 am
I challenge you to open a book and think about what your perception of the characters’ ethnicity is if the author does not describe their physical appearance.
However, I think everyone is mixing up nationality with race with ethnicity. My nationality is American. My race is black. My ethnicity is African-American. It is no more PC to call me African-American than it is to call a friend of mine from Boston, Irish/Portuguese-American. I see it as a basic acknowledgment of America’s melting pot. Now, it does annoy me when the word “African-American” is used for anyone who is black (I had to roll my eyes when I overheard a debate between friends of a variety of colors, wonder what to call a black person from Canada), but overall, I have defined who I am. If someone doesn’t like the term black or African-American, etc I respect that. We in America have gone from Negro and Colored to African-American and Black–on our own terms. To be told the phrase is PC is insulting.
Monica Jackson
January 3
6:20 pm
I like to refer to old-fashioned values concerning race with the term Negro. I use white and black to denote the popular conceptions of race. Sometimes I use African-American if it sounds right in context. However, I don’t use yellow or red, I use Asian or native American. Don’t quite know why, but referring to yellows or reds doesn’t look or sound right. Neither does using the word browns when referring to Hispanic or Latinos.
Why do the terms whites and blacks correct and yellows, reds, and browns somehow aren’t?
PCness gives me a headache.