The Romance Writers of America and its 2019 RITA awards - Wish I could say, "I'm surprised" but I can't

The RITA Awards. The RITA Awsrds.

What are they? Who exactly is in charge of this operation?
The Romance Writers of America (RWA), the trade association for romance fiction authors runs this show. The body gifts 2 types of awards, one being something called, THE RITA AWARD to writers in the many and varied categories of romance fiction. The other being the Golden Heart.  From its website it reads that a RITA is "he highest award of distinction in romance fiction — recognizes excellence in published romance novels and novellas. The GOLDEN HEART recognizes excellence in unpublished romance manuscripts."



Well.

What can I say about them. A lot and not much at the same time. But I do have some tea. And as lovelyti of YouTube fame says, "And it's piping hot!"

Look. Awards are wonderful little things to receive. People like giving them. People like getting them. But when the deck is stacked.. . . Let's just say that the "award" for "excellence" is looking a tad tarnished.

This current round of RITAs is suffering some second-degree, if not third-degree burns, from some scalding brew. Little old Miss Romancelandia is braving another round of messiness in its ranks. As I reported the RITA Awards/Golden Hearts  just announced their lists of finalists for the 2019 competition. Per usual, there are scant AOC (authors of color) in the scads of finalists. Oh, there were a few last year. Or was that the year before? Memory fails me. You'd think because such a phenom occurs with such rarity I'd recall.

Anyhoo, .this year there seems to have been a judging snafu. Oh me, oh my. How could anyone ever think that a popularity contest passing for a well-organized, well-thought out competition, without a smidgen of bias demonstrated by anyone involved, could ever tolerate such a thing? Hoping it's not true BUT

Honeeeeeeey. Seems it did/is.

Word on the romance back streets is that a certain "judge" deducted a point in judging a book because it depicted a BLACK scientist.

Say what?

You heard me.



Now I'm interested as to WHY the "impartial judge" acted in such a manner. Did the "judge" think (1) that a Black scienttist DOESN'T exists?  (2) doesn't think a Black scientist is believable? (3) doesn't think READERS would think a Black scientist is believable?  Or, lastly is a acting as a "place holder" for a narrow-minded reading public whose tastes he/she knows? Cue the "Jeopardy" music. I'll wait.

OK. Time's up. I'd hazard a guess it's the combo platter of all 4. Plus, was the book's author non-White?

If true ( and I don't doubt it for a minute), it's sad. You may ask, "Does it matter?" Yes the hell it does if you are a person entering these compeitions or paying dues to these associations.. I've seen on Twitter that a number of AOC who belong to the RWA are quitting it. Others are staying because.I joined one time years ago. The expensive was too much. Which i see already as a way of "weeding out" what the RWA would see as undesirable.. As a fellow author posted on Facebook, the requirements and gudelines of being in the RWA would defintely leve out a "sistah who can write her butt off but who might live paycheck to paycheck, have children, and pressing responsibilities that would cause her to bypass joining the RWA and hence the RITAs."

Look. Again. A certain sector of the population runs the RWA. its bias against AOC is ironic as a BLACK woman (Vivian Stephens) was a co-founder of the association.

I wonder if she'd written a romance in 2019 with a Black scientist, and would have submitted under another name for consideration, would it get kicked out of the running by that judge?