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People Don't Buy Your Books Because They're Lousy. That's one of the prominent opinions expressed in the comments section of author Carleen Brice's Washington Post article "Reading Too Much Into Race."

Her article stems from the cheeky initiative she started, National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Someone Not Black Month.

People Don't Buy Your Books Because They're Lousy (and of course we know those who spit this actually have never read any of her books) and it's uglier stepbrother, Black Authors Don't Write Books About Stuff that White People or Any People for That Matter Care About exemplifies the ignorant/racist attitudes that many people hold towards books written by black authors.

I don't know about you but I've read bad books by writers of all colors. Why do we get the bad rap? Okay, stupid question, we all know why.

I also thought it was funny that many of the comments about the article implied that white=universal=better. But maybe it wasn't that funny/surprising since most of the reading lists from my elementary, middle, high, college, and grad school days echoed the same sentiment.

This blog entry is making me tired. Perhaps I'll finish it later. Instead, I'm off to continue reading THE JIVE TALKER by Samson Kambalu about the author's journey to become an artist. Because he's black (from Malawi no doubt), his subject matter is already considered a black (African?) thing, and the masses will not be able to appreciate, understand or relate to it?

Yeah, okay. I encourage EVERYONE to check it out.