I had no idea he was black, and I love his stuff.Bocaj2000 said:1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. He's a black anarchist.
The author has always been an abstract with just as little clarity as any character that is known by name only. I just find it interesting about how few people know or care about the ethnicity of the author.Eamar said:I had no idea he was black, and I love his stuff.Bocaj2000 said:1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. He's a black anarchist.
Seriously though, this just proves that a lot of the time people genuinely don't know this stuff. I think the people saying we're being "disingenuous" or "defensive" in this thread are being unfair.
Oh sure, I agree with you. I'm just saying the question is flawed on account of the fact that a lot of people genuinely do not know when they last read something by a black author. I agree there's probably some defensiveness at work here, but I also think that a lot of people are giving an honest response, not a disingenuous or defensive one.Bocaj2000 said:The author has always been an abstract with just as little clarity as any character that is known by name only. I just find it interesting about how few people know or care about the ethnicity of the author.Eamar said:I had no idea he was black, and I love his stuff.Bocaj2000 said:1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. He's a black anarchist.
Seriously though, this just proves that a lot of the time people genuinely don't know this stuff. I think the people saying we're being "disingenuous" or "defensive" in this thread are being unfair.
There's a huge misconception that the OP is about you seeking out black authors. It's not. It's just a statement about how rare they are. Saying, "I don't care about race," misses the point entirely.
I agree, and actually reading a book because a black person wrote it is racist. When it comes to non english/norwegian books i tend to read french, russian, german or japanese. I don't read nearly as much as I want to though.Jacco said:I dont see why reading a black writer makes you racist or not. If I like a book, the race of the author isn't exactly my first question.
Of course. I agree with you completely. It's flawed, but at the same time the lack of knowledge about this topic is kind of the point. Few people know anything about authors, let alone what they look like. Hell, it took me a few years to find out that the author of "The Outsiders" is a woman. If we don't even know what they look like, then the knowledge of more important personal details is less likely which means that we have a narrow context of the work that we have come to love. I've had this exact conversation with my professor when he handed me Empire Star. It's something interesting to think about.Eamar said:Oh sure, I agree with you. I'm just saying the question is flawed on account of the fact that a lot of people genuinely do not know when they last read something by a black author. I agree there's probably some defensiveness at work here, but I also think that a lot of people are giving an honest response, not a disingenuous or defensive one.Bocaj2000 said:The author has always been an abstract with just as little clarity as any character that is known by name only. I just find it interesting about how few people know or care about the ethnicity of the author.Eamar said:I had no idea he was black, and I love his stuff.Bocaj2000 said:1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. He's a black anarchist.
Seriously though, this just proves that a lot of the time people genuinely don't know this stuff. I think the people saying we're being "disingenuous" or "defensive" in this thread are being unfair.
There's a huge misconception that the OP is about you seeking out black authors. It's not. It's just a statement about how rare they are. Saying, "I don't care about race," misses the point entirely.