David Anthony Durham on being a "color blind" reader

[Padraig]

Its been a very interesting discussion. I find myself agreeing with a wide variety of comments but I suppose I am a little puzzled by the idea that before one reads a book, people should find out what the author is trying to tell the reader. This would define the reading framework from the start and the reader is almost forced into analysing the book under that framework.

At the same time, I do agree that if one ignores the other interpretations one can make when reading a book then one is closing ones mind from getting a fuller appreciation of a work.

But I don't think either scenario is significantly better than the other. Perhaps you could argue that the latter allows one to open ones mind more. But reading is also a very personal experience, so having that experience dictated to detracts from that. In other words, I don't think its a bad thing if you take from a novel something the author didn't intend.

Perhaps i'm thinking that the best way to read a novel is with as little as possible background knowledge initially (accepting that we are all well read and thus will possibly know a lot) but after reading the novel, one should then immerse oneself in that background. Then one might be challenged by the views of the author, if s/he expected something different from ones own take on the material. One would then have to ask why one viewed things so differently from these expectations. This is very different from knowing from the beginning what the author intended and recognising those themes etc as one reads the book.

Granted, if one is close minded then no approach is really going to work.

From reading this thread, i'm not sure there is a problem with the idea of colour-blindness as a whole. (Nobody is going to argue that another's colour should completely dictate how one responds to that person). The problem is more that there is a perception (probably with a lot of truth) that it equates to seeing everything in one colour, white. The pursuit of a happy medium continues...

[hyperbion]

Debates on whether or to what degree one should inquire about the cultural background of an author when reading a book aside: surely when the original article was alleging that those who read "colorblind" are "willing accomplices to institutional segregation", he wasn't talking about the manner in which a reader reads a particular book. As if two people who buy and read the same book, one who pays particular attention to the race of the author and the other who does not - as if this difference in the motivation or reading style of the reader has any significant material effect on the author. Either way they bought and read the same book - they have had the same material and economic effect on the author's position. How could one be an accomplice to racism while the other is not?

No, I think when the article alleges complicity in "institutional segregation", he was talking about readers specifically going out and buying books based on the race of the author. Hence the example of his "culturally diverse, gender-balanced" etc. bookshelf. This is a separate issue: whether an author's race influences your buying habits, not merely your reading and interpretation of the book. What the article alleges, and I find ludicrous, is that not buying books based on the author's race constitutes a form of racism.

--

I still say "strawman" to Durham's interpretation of what it means to read "colorblind". I don't believe the average person who says they read "colorblind" means that they attempt to live in a culture-neutral zone where race has no influence on the writing or reading process. They say they ignore an author's race so that it doesn't influence their value-based judgments on the author or the quality of his work, or their purchasing habits. As in, they won't say, "this book seems OK, but I don't like it because the author's black", or "This books sucks, but give the author credit, he's black, so I guess it's OK". Or, "this novel doesn't really appeal to me in any other way, but because the author's Latino I'm gonna give it a try, just because I can't remember the last book I read written by a Latino". Not that they're unaware or uninterested in how an author's background influences their writing - I believe many, if not most, "colorblind" readers are aware.

So no, Mormont:

but again: you can't pretend to a neutral perspective when in fact what you're adopting is a default perspective. It might be that you're not interested in 'diversity', and that's fair enough. But if you're not looking for a diverse cultural perspective, the latter, not the former, is what you wind up with

I say I'm uninterested in cultural diversity as a criterion for buying a book or reading it. This is my response to the original article, which urges readers to buy specifically according to race, or to otherwise be complicit in racism. I do not deliberately strive for a "racial neutral" perspective when reading a book I've otherwise decided to read. That's not what "colorblind" means (to me, anyways). And I don't believe it's really what most "colorblind" readers mean, either. Frankly, I'd much rather read a book with knowledge of the author's perspective specifically because I find it more enlightening (usually. Depends on the book - not very applicable in most fantasy books...) The issue is not about reading from "a neutral perspective" or otherwise, because I don't so attempt, and I don't think that's what "colorblind" is about. It's about not buying or judging a book based on the race of the author, and nothing more.

[dadurham]

Hi, so yesterday or so I posted here saying I was glad to see folks talking. Said also that I found the discussion interesting, and that often when I disagreed with a point it wasn’t long before somebody chimed in with what I thought was wisdom. There were so many different points, though, and so many folks were talking to each other, that I didn’t really feel inclined to weigh in. I was tired, too.

All this is still true. I’m still tired. But I’ve also been thinking about a few things… It began earlier today when I remembered that a few folks here seemed to doubt my assertion that there even was a black literature section in Borders. (And it’s specifically Borders that I mentioned.) I think somebody else said explicitly that there WASN’T such a section in Borders. That did disturb me. For one, they didn’t ask me about this, but spoke here. For another, I was a bit surprised that something so basic to my whole discussion would be casually set aside.

For the folks that lean that way - on what is that assertion based? A gut feeling? The fact that you haven’t noticed it before? The notion that you don’t like the idea of such a thing and therefore assume it doesn’t exist? And if that’s your line of thinking… where does that put me? Did I make it up? Do I not know where my OWN books are shelved in one of the major chain stores in the country? Or am I willfully making it up? Am I liar?

I didn’t open the discussion based either on lies or on vast misunderstandings of factors that have affected my life for years. Let me be clear…

Borders as a chain does have a section of the stores cordoned off for Black writers of fiction. It’s not there just for people that are writing about black issues, although most of the writers there are doing that. B&N does not have such a section. Borders does. It’s not the same as a Black Studies or a Black History section. I’ve been to these sections many a time. (Have you?) I’ve seen my books there, and I’ve seen many other authors’ books there. The discussion of what such a section means is one topic. Exactly which books by what authors may be fluid too. It’s also possible that your Borders is in such a white area that the African American section has been eliminated. There are plenty of variables, but I say without fear that such sections do exist in many, many Borders.

So that’s what I was thinking about earlier. But this evening I saw this post from Tia Nevitt at Fantasy Debut. It’s a thoughtful post, but what struck me was when she pointed out that she thought responses on my blog were… politer than they might be. She said, “I think most white people feel held back most of the time. I hate to generalize, and this may not be true in your particular case, but for the most part, I think this is true.†I agree. I found the responses on my blog largely supportive and introspective.

Which makes me wonder… Why are you all talking here to each other instead of talking to me? I was glad to be summoned, but I started this on my blog, and I can’t attend to this Forum as I do to my own turf. Bring your opinions over there, where I’m obligated to respond. I do think it’s great that you’re talking to each other about this, but when it comes down to suggesting that I’ve lied or made things up I’d much rather you bring that to me. You want to know if there’s an African American lit section in Borders? Ask me. Tell me to prove it. I’ll walk out of my house, get into my car, go up to Borders and take pictures. (I’ll get some white folks to pose in them, just for balance.) Challenge me on it. Don’t just talk amongst yourselves.

A lot of you are talking about what I said or meant here, but not all of you are doing me the courtesy of asking ME about it personally. Some of you have misinterpreted and misappropriated things I’ve said rather drastically. I’d rather you didn’t define what I’ve said or what I mean – not unless you’re speaking directly to me to find out how I’d respond. I can’t answer all of it here, but I will if your address comments, thoughts, questions to me.

So bring your thoughts to me. HERE'S THE PLACE. Let’s talk. Call me on something and I’ll answer. I’ll always do so with respect, and I’ll always try to be clear and try to hear your side of things as best I can. We might both learn from it.

[Ran]

Pod,

I don't think it matters when you learn about the author you're reading. So long as at some point you do, so that you can further contextualize the work and maybe discover some insights that you didn't have before.

[Padraig]

Ran right, thought I may be stating the obvious but sometimes the need for clarity gets overwhelming.

[Filippa Eilhart]

Which makes me wonder… Why are you all talking here to each other instead of talking to me?

Because this way, we can have a great discussion between people who don't read your blog and (sorry) don't even know who you are

[Bellis]

Which makes me wonder… Why are you all talking here to each other instead of talking to me?

Speaking for myself, 1. because Dylanfanatic started a thread here and I thought I'd do him the favor of responding to and bumping his thread (sorry to pass the blame) and 2. speaking strictly for myself, I very rarely post on people's blogs or on forums other than this one unless I have something critical to say - for me, it's a way of self-limiting the amount of time I spend on the internet. I've noticed that several people who participate on these boards have posted on your blog though, or blogged about it on their own. In any case, I mostly agreed with your original post.

[Rhaegon Targaryen]

We are talking about this here, because for us the debate started here and because this is where we talk about things. Did read your piece though through the initial link.

[mormont]

Meant to get back to this earlier, but haven't had time.

I was being fascetious on boarders revealing their ethnicity. That may not have come over but my point is I would have found that objectionable just as I find the idea you should choose what to read based on an author's skin tone.

There's a lot more to ethnicity than skin tone: the two terms are not interchangeable. It's interesting that you use them as such, because I think it shows what I've been talking about all along - the conflation of what might be termed 'racial awareness' with racism, of being informed about an author's ethnic background and even allowing that to influence your reading choices with the mentality that creates a 'black author' section. The two are not the same, in fact they're largely opposed.

Either way they bought and read the same book - they have had the same material and economic effect on the author's position. How could one be an accomplice to racism while the other is not?

The problem is, they probably didn't buy and read the same book. The 'colourblind' reader probably picked up a book written by a white author instead, because they're marketed as the 'mainstream' and not as a sub-genre of their own. You need to go out of the way to even pick up the book written by an author of non-white background in most genres.

As to why the way the book is read affects this? Because so long as readers go on thinking that they are 'colourblind' and mistaking the default position for a neutral one, they will never even realise that there is a problem.

What the article alleges, and I find ludicrous, is that not buying books based on the author's race constitutes a form of racism.

No, I think what it alleges is slightly different: that believing that your buying habits are ethnically neutral when in fact you read almost exclusively books by white authors is a form of racism. Unconscious racism, of course, but nonetheless it's a valid point. As DAD says, we tend to assume that we live in a world where ethnicity (or indeed gender, sexuality etc.) is irrelevant but never ask ourselves if this is actually true.

DAD: sorry, I will pop over to your blog when I have a minute.

[Errant Bard]

No, I think what it alleges is slightly different: that believing that your buying habits are ethnically neutral when in fact you read almost exclusively books by white authors is a form of racism. Unconscious racism, of course, but nonetheless it's a valid point.

The more I read about it, the more "unconscious racism" sounds like an oxymoron. Doesn't racism imply the notion of conscious choice?

Also, If we work on that idea, we could say that anyone not getting out of his way to get friends of every ethnicity is unconsciously racist. Is that it? I would argue that extending more effort toward one group based on ethnicity is precisely that, racism.

I feel that what you are doing is accusing "blind" readers of society's faults because they chose to not discriminate, and not favor one group over the other. "If you're not for us, you're against us" sounds a bit too simple in our context. Wouldn't it be good if the publishing houses modeled themselves after the non-discriminating people instead of always skewing the balance one way or another as the generations go?

Edit: @DAD I posted here rather than on your blog mostly because I find the way the comments are displayed very uncomfortable to read there, compared to here, and of course, we get a faster, more heated discussion on Westeros because we get a somewhat wider and diverse crowd than on a blog, and it is an effort to go over and adapt to another website and its community. Laziness is a prime characteristic of humanity after all.

[mormont]

The more I read about it, the more "unconscious racism" sounds like an oxymoron. Doesn't racism imply the notion of conscious choice?

Possibly. Unconscious bias might be a better term.

Also, If we work on that idea, we could say that anyone not getting out of his way to get friends of every ethnicity is unconsciously racist. Is that it? I would argue that extending more effort toward one group based on ethnicity is precisely that, racism.

Well, you're certainly not alone in arguing that: we hear it a lot. Yet I do feel, as I say, that to treat the world as if it is as it ought to be can be an error. A level playing field approach makes sense only if the field is really level, not if it has a pronounced slope.

I feel that what you are doing is accusing "blind" readers of society's faults because they chose to not discriminate, and not favor one group over the other. "If you're not for us, you're against us" sounds a bit too simple in our context. Wouldn't it be good if the publishing houses modeled themselves after the non-discriminating people instead of always skewing the balance one way or another as the generations go?

What I'm saying is that these readers may believe they're not discriminating, but they believe that mostly because they don't really reflect on the subject. If I 'm picking flowers in a field of daisies, I might not be setting out to pick only daisies, but the end result will be the same as if I had.

Publishers, at the moment, do model themselves after the 'colourblind' people. They're not thinking about it either. Why should they? There's no pressure to do so.

The whole situation reminds me of football (lots of things do ). There is occasionally discussion in football in the UK over why there are no (homegrown) Asian footballers at the top level. The clubs, the managers, etc. insist they are 'colourblind too. They are not consciously discriminating - it's just that 'there aren't any Asian players good enough'. But they don't reflect on why there aren't any ethnically Asian players good enough. They don't consider whether their scouting policies really cover the Asian community, for example, or whether something in the culture of club football is a barrier to Asian kids.

That's the essence of the colourblind approach: assume everyone is the same, even if they're not. It's the old diversity vs equality argument, and it's way too complicated for me to solve at this time on a Friday.

[salinea]

The more I read about it, the more "unconscious racism" sounds like an oxymoron. Doesn't racism imply the notion of conscious choice?

Why ever would you think any such thing?

Also, If we work on that idea, we could say that anyone not getting out of his way to get friends of every ethnicity is unconsciously racist. Is that it? I would argue that extending more effort toward one group based on ethnicity is precisely that, racism.

yadda yadda, back to the 'people who try not to be racist are the true racist, because they're not colour blinds like me!' Which is exactly why the use of 'colour blind' used like this is an issue.

I feel that what you are doing is accusing "blind" readers of society's faults because they chose to not discriminate, and not favor one group over the other.

Yes, that's the issue. Not individuals' racism, but the society's racism. Yet the problem is society is made out of individuals. if we let the issue stands as is, who's going to make the change? Do you think it's not your responsability as well? Even if it's just in little, tiny things? You can't do much to change society besides talk about it, speak against racism when you see it, and yes, try to get to know people from minorities or at least see things from their PoV (including buying books written by them ^^). You're not a horrible person if you don't do those things, but that means you do go along with the flow of society's racism. And yes, it's is our (your and mine and everyone else's) problem and responsability to do such thing. Don't let only minority people speak out.

No one said it would be easy.

[Rhaegon Targaryen]

There's a lot more to ethnicity than skin tone: the two terms are not interchangeable. It's interesting that you use them as such, because I think it shows what I've been talking about all along - the conflation of what might be termed 'racial awareness' with racism, of being informed about an author's ethnic background and even allowing that to influence your reading choices with the mentality that creates a 'black author' section. The two are not the same, in fact they're largely opposed.

As to why the way the book is read affects this? Because so long as readers go on thinking that they are 'colourblind' and mistaking the default position for a neutral one, they will never even realise that there is a problem.

No, I think what it alleges is slightly different: that believing that your buying habits are ethnically neutral when in fact you read almost exclusively books by white authors is a form of racism. Unconscious racism, of course, but nonetheless it's a valid point. As DAD says, we tend to assume that we live in a world where ethnicity (or indeed gender, sexuality etc.) is irrelevant but never ask ourselves if this is actually true.

DAD: sorry, I will pop over to your blog when I have a minute.

Ethnicity and skin tone may not be interchangeable, but skin tone is an indicator of ethnicity is it not? On your point on the conflation of racial awareness and rascism, what's really the difference? Which discrimination on the basis of race is acceptable?

Buying books based on the author's ethnicity, race whatever, is rascism is it not?

How should the conscientious reader be helped to read books by differing ethnicities they otherwise would not read though? Should all books have a picture of the author to help readers racially profile the authors? Should black and white authors be stocked in different areas? Wasn't this part of what Mr. Durham was complaining about?

Books should be categorised in shops (and libraries) by their genre. Fantasy, sci-fi, literary, historical, biographical whatever. If a book is about the experience of growing up Irish or of interest to irish people in particular I have no problem with it being in the Irish section as they have in Waterstones here (the branch on Patrick St. in Cork I browsed last saturday). I think the same should apply to books about the African-American experience in American bookshops.

I will NEVER buy or choose not to by a book based on the ethnicity or race of an author.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Samuel R. Delany is black? I need to get rid of his books.

[Decius]

Samuel R. Delany is black? I need to get rid of his books.

I didn't know that most of the people named here are black. I didn't even know Mr. Durham is black. I'm probably the perfect example for the "colourblind" reader, who doesn't care for anything behind the books written about authors (that's probably the only reason why I can still read Dan "kill the Muslims before they kill us" Simmons). Which - according to some voices here - means I'm ignorant and/or racist.

[Nerdanel]

I wonder what Durham has to say about us Europeans who don't have that African American section, let alone a Black History section, or a Black Anything section. His whole argument is feels so parochial from the other side of the pond. Am I being racist when I go to the common science fiction/fantasy shelf and choose books without any idea about the author's race? Even in America, It sounds like they don't have the African American section in everyone's local bookstore. And doing research and making a checklist to make sure I read from every possible background sounds very much NOT like a way to an enjoyable reading experience. I mean, is there even any Indonesian or Inuit fantasy available in English, let alone good such fantasy? Are there any published authors that are known balloon fetishists? The law of averages dictates that a smaller a given subset is, the less likely it is to include top grade stuff. (That's why Christian Rock is worse than normal rock.) I for one go for quality first and foremost, and if that means I have never knowingly read any Bulgarian literature, I don't consider that a problem. And while I have never set out to read any African American literature either, it turned out I had read it anyway.

[geeky confusing stuff]In the blog discussion Durham is talking about the Amazon recommendation system being biased. His examples fail to convince me. I suppose I should insert here a long and dry piece of speculation of how I think the recommendation software works, but I'm feeling lazy at the moment and I think I'll just say that in addition to sheer numbers, there is also the correlation in buying habits. Drawn-from-hat example: For example lots and lots of people buy Harry Potter, even say the fans of WWII airplanes, but let's say that while the WWII airplane folks' highest favorite by numbers is Harry Potter, but by percentages books about WWII ships have more WWII airplane fan buyers than the omnipopular Harry Potter, making WWII ships potentially the better recommendation since it's less one-size-fits-all. Also, people really do have genre preferences, so that while I adore Stephen R. Donaldson, I have never read his mystery novels, because I'm not particularly interested in mysteries. Again no conspiracy.[/geeky confusing stuff]

This discussion actually discourages me from trying out Durham. "Read me; I'm black." Even if his writing is of good quality, I get the nagging feeling that viewpoints held that strongly just may come through in the text and add preachiness, which I hate with the fury of a thousand burning suns.

[/end shockingly unstructured rant - I really should be able to do better...]

[Errant Bard]

Why ever would you think any such thing?

Well, because in this case you're always unconsciously racist, one way or another, since the world is not perfectly fair. If the intent is enough then those guys trying to not be racist in a way you disagree with are ok, but if it's a matter of implication depth, then it becomes problematic.

What a bastard you are, giving money to white people for nearly everything in your life, instead of going out of your way to seek the minorities to support significantly enough, on this note.

yadda yadda, back to the 'people who try not to be racist are the true racist, because they're not colour blinds like me!' Which is exactly why the use of 'colour blind' used like this is an issue.

Yet that's the exact argument used by both sides, you just need to replace colour blind by ethnically aware. Take the previous arguments about people being "unconsciously racists" and you can synthetize them that way too. So everyone is racist except those who agree with me... (neener neener)

Maybe we could forget about the word racism and talk about acceptable discriminations? From my standpoint, if you compromises your principles in order to counter something already compromised, you compound the mindset that it's OK to be unfair and all goes downhill from there. That's why I don't want to discriminate a priori, at least consciously.

Do you think it's not your responsability as well?

It's my responsability to not be racist, it's not my responsability to be an activist for minority groups. I'm sorry but I can't think that not going out of your way to favor some few selected minorities is racism. I might add that it's not doing nothing than trying to be fair, much to the contrary, it's contributing to a society without bias. In my humble opinion, of course.

[Larry.]

Umm...I wouldn't worry too much about "preachiness," to be honest. And as the man asked, why not ask him directly about this? I did check the Amazon thing for Toni Morrison's Beloved and he is right, not just about the wide differences between the Recommended for You and the After Viewing This Page, People Bought sections. But there was something else:

Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > African American > Morrison, Toni

Add that to whatever algorithms that Amazon uses to determine buyer preferences (which seems to be working to an extent, as I have noticed the books suggested to me and checked out many of them, enjoying most of those), and authors will find their books typecast and readers will, based on a few purchases here and there, find they are being shunted away from others.

I just looked at "my Store" over at Amazon. Eight out of the first 15 books recommended to me were in Spanish, virtually all the rest were various spec fic works (but no epic fantasies outside of Tolkien). Why is this so? Probably because of past viewing/purchasing actions - I have to order online most of my Spanish-language fiction, while only some spec fic is purchased there (since I get review copies from the publishers or I buy some in regular bookstores). But yet not many here would have heard of the vast majority of the books listed there, not just because the titles are in Spanish (many have been translated into English), but because if you're browsing through Amazon links, you'll find that you have to go far out into the links tree to reach such sections. And that I believe was Durham's point - you're not going to be recommended "African-American fiction" at Amazon if you purchase R.A. Salvatore books, for example. It may or may not be an oil and water thing with that example, but the point remains that recommendation links there, just like the groupings in a regular bookstore are based on strong "genetic" links and you have to think consciously about if you ought to walk over "there" to the "other" fictions to see if anything is of interest. But most of the time, people stick to what they know best...things written by people like them, for people like them, without a thought in the world for those people who are not like them.

I remember a few years ago a spate of blog articles about "breaking out of the ghetto" in regards to SFF in stores. Not just about how such stories were not being found in "Literature", but also about how readers of SFF ought to try more general lit and vice versa. In many regards, what we're discussing here is much the same, except that pesky issue of the author's origins/background has come into play. As Durham says, why not ask him personally why he feels this way, what he's experienced, suggestions for books (just like how we ask each other for book suggestions here)? Is it such an "alien" thing, this idea that "other fictions" might have different perspectives? Is it an uncomfortable faux pas to discuss different ethnic/racial groups in public? Or are there still other factors at play?

I seriously doubt that Durham is being "preachy" or "combative." If anything, it's probably the questions themselves are jarring because we rarely ask them to ourselves and it's like a group of people sitting in a room for a long time, nobody talking. Ever notice how the first to speak tends to startle the others and at first few know how to react? I suspect that's at the heart of this. I could be wrong, but what if I were not? Just something to consider.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I didn't know that most of the people named here are black. I didn't even know Mr. Durham is black. I'm probably the perfect example for the "colourblind" reader, who doesn't care for anything behind the books written about authors (that's probably the only reason why I can still read Dan "kill the Muslims before they kill us" Simmons). Which - according to some voices here - means I'm ignorant and/or racist.

Ignorance is a bliss. I was 8 years old when I saw my first black person(a proper black man from Africa, not some silly chocolate colored American) outside of TV.

I do not understand why the question of race should be imporant when reading a book.

Just because people from a country with a social system which has more in common with those found in third world countries than with the one I grew up think so?

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

It's my responsability to not be racist, it's not my responsability to be an activist for minority groups. I'm sorry but I can't think that not going out of your way to favor some few selected minorities is racism. I might add that it's not doing nothing than trying to be fair, much to the contrary, it's contributing to a society without bias. In my humble opinion, of course.

Well, except it's not contributing to a society without bias. The bias is already there (see the disproportionate number of educated-white-male authors). By contributing to the status quo, you are maintaining this disproportion.

I say this as someone who does the same thing. I am a lazy consumer -- if I don't already have a book in mind, I browse the shelves of my local stores' sf/f sections, and pick something that seems interesting. However, because I am picking from a pre-limited selection, I'm not aware of what I'm missing, even though I personally have no objections to reading books by an author who is fill in the blank here. I'd never really thought about it, until I read this thread, because I've read books by straight/gay/bi/white/black/brown/yellow/men/women (no transgendered folks that I'm aware) so surely I'm choosing from the gamut of authors writing sf/f, right?? No, apparently I'm not.

Now, I don't think that means you have to go out and read X books by underrepresented authors, any more than I think you need to read every new release by the e-w-m authors. I do think it means that you need to be aware of the selection from which you are choosing, and that there may well be other good books -- other good sf/f books -- that are not being marketed as such. This, in turn, may affect future underrepresented authors' chances of being published. (See tons of examples of women using male pseudonyms, or initials, in order to break into sf/f writing. Even now, people will say they won't buy from a woman author, yet they read CJ Cherryh or Robin Hobb. Some books by female authors are categorised as "women's literature", or "general fiction", rather than sf/f, which in turn perpetuates the idea that women can't write saleable sf/f, particularly sf.)