over on another philly board i found this discussion, which is taking place in mixed company, about the marketing of black-authored books:

http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/general-discussion/44328-books-divided-culture.html

interesting topic.

Off the top of my head, could think about this a little more but here's my response:

I was offended by the part where they say the trashy black books were placed in the front of the stores at Borders because they were often stolen, but then i read on...

i think there is a difference between Things Fall Apart and True to the Game, My Baby Daddy and the others...

I think there is a feeling that the hood novels, street novels are not taken as seriously as being literature, writers, intellectual work...and its like a bad rep, none of the authors want their books near them...patrons don't even want to be mistaken for being seen in that section...so they want them separate.

Can't front. there is a difference.
i'm not that comfortable with outsiders talking about it though, lol

seemed to me like the first girl was all about trying to find out if there was some white conspiracy.

i actually am not mad at people for trying to keep the books that are stolen most often where they can be seen. i just wish we were stealing more chinua achebe than zane.

i agree with shelving black LITERATURE in two places - i remember wishing they'd just have a "black section" for books so that i could find paule marshall and toni morrison easier... but at the same time, i don't want toni morrison, who should be among the general fiction as well as in any african american literature section, next to teri woods. it's NOT the same. i hate those damn "urban lit" books that are more like urbane trash. but someone made a point i hadn't thought of before - what about harlequin novels?

i don't read harlequin, but it's just like white versions of black sex/money/drugs books - fluffy with no literary appeal. sometimes people just want to read what entertains them, and sometimes the entertaining thing is the simple stuff.

i think my problem is that i want black people to crave the best and reach for the best and buy the best. so while whitefolks reading harlequin romance novels doesn't bother me, some 14 or 41 year old reading teri woods does. it's their world, they can reach for better or not and this country will still bend to them even if their most ambitious read to date is some trashy romance novel. but we're born behind the curve, and reading teri woods will not help us catch up. and all i see on the bus is urbane trash. it doesn't seem that teri woods is the occasional candy bar in an otherwise healthy diet of good lit like james baldwin and gloria naylor. i think what bothers me is WHY our appetite for books is what it is.

everytime i walk in that borders express in the gallery, there go the trashy black books right up front, and a big crowd of sisters picking through them, while alice walker's books sit lonely and unloved. it pisses me off.

i want to read all of this and comment but my dag on library time is up! another time