What box do you live in?

Are a Drag / Me First and the Gimme Gimmes



Note:  The Me First and the Gimme Gimmes is a punk cover band.  They cover country, folk and this is their cover album of soundtracks: Over the Rainbow, Science Fiction Double Feature, What I did For Love... and the list goes on.


Okay, I’m ranting again. An article appeared in the news media last week about Walmart. A Walmart in the Midwest had opted to shelve their books by race, or rather specifically by Black subjects and by default White subjects. I’ve not doubt that this was prompted by a line of fiction written by Black authors, with Black characters and dealing with what might be considered cultural issues. However, this particular store also shelved non-fiction and various topics this way. Thus, books about the president were in the “Black section.” Two books on sports figures – the one about the Black athlete was not in the same section as the White athlete.



Now, personally, I think this was just stupidity on the retailer’s part. I think they had figured out that there was this line of mass market fiction and that it sold and they were thinking of marketing and ease and nothing else. I tend to think big business is pretty, well, dumb.


This story prompted a flood of twitter in the librarian circuit. People have come at this from all directions. One such person said they thought this was perfectly fine, as it was just a matter of a kind of genre shelved by skin color. This galls me.


Now, okay, I can kind of understand where the person was coming from on the notion of genre. S/he was, I’m sure, thinking of the Black fiction I mention above. It’s surfaced around the same time and I’d put it in the same category as “Chick lit” and Christian Fiction. But would we say it’s okay to shelve books by gender? By religion? Skin color?!?


So, tan people should have a section of good beach reads? Who knows where gay writers or transgendered authors should go. What if a Black, Jewish woman wrote a book about Asian gay men? There are days I just think I should not have any contact with the public. Any of them. Ever.