Separate and Still Not Equal

“I am an invisible man.
No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe;
nor am I one of your Hollwood-movie ectoplasms.
I am a man of substance, flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind.
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

And that, in a nutshell, is why books that have minorities as their main protagonists are relegated to that lonely shelf in the back of the bookstore dedicated to African-American interest.

Is it silly to assume that African-Americans want to read books about African-Americans? No. But is it silly to then assume that a non-African-American would? Apparently.

Of course, we all want to see a reflection of ourselves in the society we live in. The issue lies in the fact that apparently that reflection is too risky to market to the general public.

When walking into your general bookstore, you’ll find what bookstore owners, distributors, publishers, editors, marketers and just about anyone involved in the production of reading material deems marketable. Apparently vampires are quite marketable. Girls with dragon tattooes are marketable. And, geez, vampires are really marketable. But take a look at all those marketable books and then think about what you don’t see.

At some point, someone decided that multicultural literature is not marketable. No matter how well-written, how beautifully constructed, once the main character goes from Charles to Kwami or Suzie to Aminata, stocks begin to plummet. And why? Do minorities not read? Are minority characters not sympathetic heroes and heroines? Someone sure seems to think so. In almost all aspects of media, positive representations of minorities (who, despite being “in the minority”, actually do exist) are few and far between. And because many of the more powerful authorities in the business decide not to take the risk to present images that differ from what appears to be acceptable and, more importantly, marketable, that lonely shelf in the bookstore becomes the only place where minorities can find any attestation to their beauty, intelligence or even to the simple fact that they exist and merit being marketed to in the first place.

So, where is the problem? Aren’t the needs for minority representation being addressed then? Why should anyone then complain about not being able to adequately participate in society?

Well, just like in the days of segregation’s end, when Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decided that the races could not logically be separate and equal, that tattered, unwanted, leftover books for black schools, inferior accomodations, services and treatment for black Americans were not to be tolerated, why should representation of anyone a few shades darker than pale be banished from general interest media, slapped with a “Black interest” sticker and relegated to the back of the bookstore? Are our interests really that different that they have to be divided along the lines of color?

Now, I won’t lie. When I was a kid I would have given anything to pick up a book with a character that looked, dressed and talked like me. I was an avid reader of the Baby-Sitter’s Club series, but I have to admit, I read and re-read Jessi’s books with particular fervor.

But where did that enthusiasm come from? Certainly not from wanting to distinguish myself from the crowd, but from wanting to feel a part of it.

Just file books by authors’ last name, fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, period! By giving minorities a separate shelf, we are only closing the door to the possibility of ending society’s emotional segregation.