The inherent problem with not knowing or caring, is allowing racism (as well as sexism) to thrive in the literary world. On the one hand, it sounds great that readers aren't worried about looking up the authors race or gender or nationality, on the other hand, it's ignoring a very serious problem.
The most published and reviewed and advertised authors, are white and male. That's just a fact. Are they better writers? No cause last time I checked social gender rules dictate women as the naturally literary minds while men are mathematical.
Right now, saying you don't care about who the author is, that's like ignoring a leaky pipe in your basement. You hardly ever, ever go into your basement, occasionally you here the dripping but you continue to pretend it's not happening. It's only going to get worse, break, and flood the basement unless you do something about it now. Actually, right now that basement is pretty flooded and probably has a body dumped there by a serial killer, and the house owner is continuing to ignore the problem.
The problem won't go away unless you do something about it.
The publishers and critics still view white, male authors as the better sellers and what people want to read. They are viewed the more valued and intelligent works. It's very much like the gaming industry, the perception that all gamers want male, strait, white protagonists and white males are perceived to dominate the developing games part because they are naturally more talented and mathematical for gaming.
However, that perception with gaming is changing thanks to people making noise.
Publishers won't change their habits until the audience makes an overwhelming change of purchasing habits and demand more variety and start being more aware of who the people are as authors. Which I would think would be a good virtue in itself to just generally know who the authors are.
I've noticed some people mention that most works by black authors are related to racism and slavery. As a white woman that likes to read and write, I have to strongly disagree, but at the same time I wonder if the majority of the books promoted and reviewed that are by black authors are in fact exactly that.
I can't help but notice that the majority of the black authors named in this thread, have very white sounding names and/or possibly are perceived white because they come from a European country(Alexandre Dumas). There is a similar phenomenon going on there to women having to use masculine pen names to get published, only in the case of race, it may be more like the issue of people applying for jobs. Ultimately, the publishers passes over anything that doesn't sound like a white name or a male name, with the ill conceived perception no one will buy it. J.K Rowling was encouraged to hide her feminine sounding name because the publisher thought little boys would not read the Harry Potter books if they see a woman's name.
It also all matters because many readers are surprised and shocked to hear authors are either not white or really a woman. Meaning they did have a mental depiction in their head of what the author looked like, and they unconsciously went to imagining a white male.
The most published and reviewed and advertised authors, are white and male. That's just a fact. Are they better writers? No cause last time I checked social gender rules dictate women as the naturally literary minds while men are mathematical.
Right now, saying you don't care about who the author is, that's like ignoring a leaky pipe in your basement. You hardly ever, ever go into your basement, occasionally you here the dripping but you continue to pretend it's not happening. It's only going to get worse, break, and flood the basement unless you do something about it now. Actually, right now that basement is pretty flooded and probably has a body dumped there by a serial killer, and the house owner is continuing to ignore the problem.
The problem won't go away unless you do something about it.
The publishers and critics still view white, male authors as the better sellers and what people want to read. They are viewed the more valued and intelligent works. It's very much like the gaming industry, the perception that all gamers want male, strait, white protagonists and white males are perceived to dominate the developing games part because they are naturally more talented and mathematical for gaming.
However, that perception with gaming is changing thanks to people making noise.
Publishers won't change their habits until the audience makes an overwhelming change of purchasing habits and demand more variety and start being more aware of who the people are as authors. Which I would think would be a good virtue in itself to just generally know who the authors are.
I've noticed some people mention that most works by black authors are related to racism and slavery. As a white woman that likes to read and write, I have to strongly disagree, but at the same time I wonder if the majority of the books promoted and reviewed that are by black authors are in fact exactly that.
I can't help but notice that the majority of the black authors named in this thread, have very white sounding names and/or possibly are perceived white because they come from a European country(Alexandre Dumas). There is a similar phenomenon going on there to women having to use masculine pen names to get published, only in the case of race, it may be more like the issue of people applying for jobs. Ultimately, the publishers passes over anything that doesn't sound like a white name or a male name, with the ill conceived perception no one will buy it. J.K Rowling was encouraged to hide her feminine sounding name because the publisher thought little boys would not read the Harry Potter books if they see a woman's name.
It also all matters because many readers are surprised and shocked to hear authors are either not white or really a woman. Meaning they did have a mental depiction in their head of what the author looked like, and they unconsciously went to imagining a white male.
