Oh my! "Colored'' folk have arrived in romance novels! In interracial love matches! Someone alert the media! Oh my bad. Someone did. And the medium of choice was TIME magazine. So, I guess it's official. And it must be true. But you are about 20 years late and a dollar short, TIME. As usual the message was relayed to the masses by a rep of the default persuasion by using the graphic of her novel. Translation: An article heralding the inclusion of interracial love in romance books employed a book by a WHITE author to represent the genre. As usual the default messenger was used to relay a message revolving around a topic speaking about OTHER ethnicities! No, I am NOT saying this writer, or any other non-POC writer, should not write multicultural angles into their work. They should write what they want. I'm just saying that when authors who look like her do include these angles, do not trumpet the inclusion as "groundbreaking" and a "first." It's not groundbreaking. It's been around a long while. So when this "trend" catches the eye of major media, it telegraphs to me that this "new trend" in romance books is only sanctioned, legit and accepted when an example of it is written by the default author. Yeah, I said it. It's friggin' amazing. This "new trend" has been around since the NINETIES and was inaugurated by BLACK female writers because there were NO depictions of people of color as major characters in romance books. Be they in same race, or interracial, relationships. NONE. NADA. ZILCH. Publishers believed that love came in only one color and readers only wanted to read about that one color falling in love. Those BLACK women created the niche. Carved it out on their own. Fought tooth and nail to bring it to light. Yes, the article did mention the Black female biggies in the genre, even SPOKE with a few of the women for the article. But, alas, TIME Magazine did not find it germane to the article to post the COVERS to THEIR books. Major fail!
http://time.com/43710/interracial-romance-novels/
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