FAQ

[sanguinity]

Frequently Asked Questions

General
Why make a special point of reading authors of color?
Is the challenge going to be hard (depressing, unpleasant, just like having homework)?
Who counts as a 'person of color'?
How can I find out if an author is a person of color?
Where can I find book recommendations/suggestions?
I think the comm would be

Comments

[sylvan_dweller]

Is there a running list somewhere of POC authors?

or,

How can you tell if an author is a POC?

Just a thought that some people might be having that would be good for a FAQ.

[sanguinity]

Google Images, to see if there's an author photo on the web anywhere. And yes, the categories box at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, if the bio doesn't say outright.

The thing that I find frustrating is that you only ever get confirmation that someone is POC; you never get confirmation that an author isn't. Yeah, sure the photo may be kinda white-looking, but that doesn't rule out a Native author, nor a Latin@ author, nor Middle Eastern or North African. So you poke at the internets for a while, and eventually decide, "No, it's not just that I've hit five pages in a row where no one saw fit to mention the author's ethnic heritage; they're not mentioning it because she's white and the people writing these pages think that means there's nothing to mention."

[allyphoe]

When Google doesn't have the answer (no Google images on the author's name, no author website, no Wikipedia entry - all I get is a list of books attributed to that author, at which point I actually wondered whether it's a pseudonym for multiple authors), is it ever acceptable to ask someone you think may be the author "Are you the author of this book?"

The author I'm looking for is Madeline Donaldson, who wrote a children's biography of Ruby Bridges, among other things. There's someone by that name on Facebook, who appears to be in the right age range, and appears to have a professionally-made picture. But I hate to be all "O hai, person of color! Could you do my homework for me?"

[sanguinity]

It seems to me that "Hi, are you $particularindividual? I'm a fan of her work," is an acceptable question to ask of someone. (With the caveat that one's sentiment should be genuine, and one should be careful about respecting personal boundaries and not tripping stalkery signals.)

However, "Hi, are you $particularindividual? I'm trying to find out personal information about her that she hasn't made readily available to the public," is a very sketchy question to be asking.

[allyphoe]

Thanks! What I ended up sending was something along the lines of "If you wrote this, I really enjoyed it - thank you!"