PSA ‼️ A black author writing a contemporary romance with black characters does not make it urban fiction novel. Black Romance is not synonymous with Urban✌🏾 #booktok #blackbooksky #booksky - ThreadSky

mecireads.bsky.social • 30 days ago

PSA ‼️
A black author writing a contemporary romance with black characters does not make it urban fiction novel. Black Romance is not synonymous with Urban✌🏾

#booktok #blackbooksky #booksky

Comments

superducky800.bsky.social•30 days ago

it’s incredibly depressing that this is a real issue outside of The Office and Michael Scott. what is wrong with people 😭

kangareu.bsky.social•30 days ago

What if we pronounce it “urbane” so it sounds fancy?
Sorry, I’ll leave quietly

mahaloka.bsky.social•30 days ago

This. 💯 It’s a romance book. Full stop.

webpuppy45.bsky.social•30 days ago

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23561236/?ref_=nm_flmg_knf_t_1

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

I need to see this movie!

webpuppy45.bsky.social•30 days ago

Loved this movie, big fan of Jeffrey Wright too.

bluemela.bsky.social•30 days ago

It’s a romance novel? Like, are we still allowed to read books?!

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Who said you couldn’t?

bluemela.bsky.social•30 days ago

Project 2025?

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Oh I misunderstood your comment and yess hopefully these books will still be available in this new regime😩

sinnaphyle.bsky.social•30 days ago

I always wondered about that… doesn’t the term “urban” just mean the environmental setting of a novel? Or am I misunderstanding the usage of the word in this case?

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

You are correct! Any book can urban book if it has that setting

shygun.bsky.social•28 days ago

Tyler The Creator opened my eyes to this issue with his Igor acceptance speech. I actually did not realize how all black artists are shoved into the "urban" category. It must be infuriating!

momsrule.bsky.social•30 days ago

Excellent point.

mztee08.bsky.social•28 days ago

Say it!👏🏽👏🏽

cmongetcrafty.bsky.social•30 days ago

Since I found this thread, would love any recs you might make! Time for new reads on my shelf!

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams (about two authors falling in love)

Before I let go Kennedy Ryan (second chance romance)

mollygrant.bsky.social•30 days ago

Both are awesome, can I also mention Talia Hibbert and Farrah Rochon- excellent banter, skilful prose, rich back catalogues, just excellent

cmongetcrafty.bsky.social•29 days ago

Wonderful, thanks!! Love to start with good recommendations, I’ve been starting and stopping more often than not lately on my own picks

joannamtx2011.bsky.social•29 days ago

Thanks for the recommendations. Just started one of Farrah Rochon's books. She's a great writer!

bwandzen.bsky.social•27 days ago

Talia Hibbert is also excellent at writing well-done filth. It's not over the top - it's sort of cheesecake-drizzled-with-chocolate-sauce vs. full-on Coldstone Creamery hedonism. LMAO.

elephantherbs.bsky.social•30 days ago

Idk if I'm missing an important point but when I worked at a bookstore I was always baffled there was a separate section for black authors especially if it focused on black authors who wrote black main characters. It always felt like passive erasure to me bc why not be with all the other genres?

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Exactly! I hate when bookstores do that! Luckily most bookstores have stopped with that model

elephantherbs.bsky.social•29 days ago

I'm glad they did. I wad very young when I worked there but as a white person it almost felt like the store was telling me I'm not supposed to be in that section. Now that I'm older I know I can read whatever I want and it will make stuff more mainstream but it wad an awful symbolism on both sides

heathergrimm.bsky.social•30 days ago

It's supposed to enable people who want to support bipoc authors find their work without having to google. Same as the anthologies that focus on publishing those authors.

A shelf tag would probably work better, though.

elephantherbs.bsky.social•29 days ago

That's kinda what I wad thinking as well. People should be able to stumble on them as authors just like any other. And in the store I worked in it wasn't just a last shelf of the asile thing it was completely separated by the religious section instead.

heathergrimm.bsky.social•29 days ago

Yeah, the people that go over there definitely won't be interested in supporting those authors (/jk... mostly)

It's like the person that designed the layouts used malicious compliance to do the exact opposite of what they were supposed to. Or... they segregated the books on purpose (ick!)

elephantherbs.bsky.social•28 days ago

At the least malicious possibility it was lazy and poor planogram planning. At most is was deliberate to make people who wanted those authors uncomfortable or unable to find them (also had a small sign) and was meant to remove them from casual browsing discoveries.

heathergrimm.bsky.social•29 days ago

Yet another reason to count myself lucky that I have a local, independent book shop. Sure, the sections all sort of bleed together, and the open hours aren't exactly what's online, but there's something comforting about a place so crammed with books they're in (neat!) knee-high stacks on the floor.

elephantherbs.bsky.social•28 days ago

Those are my favorite kinds of bookstores. I had one local that was very progressive and punk but thanks to the cities efforts to suppress small businesses and such the rent got too high and now they're online only at the moment.

kaurifish.bsky.social•29 days ago

When a euphemism... isn't.

My favorite urban novel is "War for the Oaks," which features a lot more city streets than it does trees. 🤣

lylobills.bsky.social•29 days ago

Lmaoo. This made me laugh and cry at the same time. Like, do black authors not have the right to be creative? Do we not have the right to have different world/local settings? I'm not a contemporary romance writer but a writer nonetheless, and I feel you.

melanieinmiami.bsky.social•30 days ago

Do not want to speak for a community I don’t belong to, but imo Black people anything is not synonymous with “urban”. It has always felt like coded racism to me.

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yep!

eliotopia.bsky.social•30 days ago

Ffr

dolly41.bsky.social•30 days ago

Libraries and bookstores need to give black romance a category. ❤️

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

I think it just needs to be in the contemporary romance section. For far too long black books have seen separated under the urban section

dolly41.bsky.social•30 days ago

That would work, too.

crazygemini12.bsky.social•30 days ago

There’s an episode of “Girlfriends” where Maya tells her publisher to stop saying “urban” when she means “Black” because the two aren’t synonymous, citing “a lot of Black folks are straight country!”😂😂😂

desertphile.bsky.social•30 days ago

That conflation sounds like a fine example of poor writing. "They black, so they Urban." Good gods!

By the way, the novel BULLETS written by Elijqh Drive has a black amateur detective from New York City who, mercifully, did not talk Street, and it is excellent.

lisa-catara.bsky.social•30 days ago

Tell em

mamaguevopd.bsky.social•30 days ago

Perhaps you're unfamiliar. "Urban" is just a code word for a lot of other things they'd rather call it.

wyles.bsky.social•29 days ago

This reminds me of that scene in The Walking Dead game where Kenny assumes Lee knows how to pick a lock because he's "urban".

Kenny doesn't come across as a racist character at all in 99% of his scenes with Lee, it's a great example of how little bits of bias can exist subconsciously in people.

jmanndx.bsky.social•30 days ago

It's almost as if black people live literally anywhere, and not just in urban areas.

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

👆👆👆👆

shebasenz7.bsky.social•30 days ago

For true.

didntgetamemo.bsky.social•30 days ago

2025 and idiots still call black culture "urban".
This is how stupid we are. 80% of our population lives in an urban setting.

generichero.bsky.social•30 days ago

This must be exhausting to deal with. My condolences are with you.

jsnyderart.bsky.social•30 days ago

It also doesn’t make it “political.”

kendallopolis.bsky.social•30 days ago

“Urban fiction” is crazy 😂. People in cities doing fictional things? Nope just black people 🫠

bwandzen.bsky.social•27 days ago

"Urban" is such a stupid phrase meant to prevent WPP from having to say anything about Black people. Can we come up w/a catchier word that refers to peoples of the African Diaspora? I heard someone call Lupita N'yongo African American and I about fell out w/laughter.

wickedcrim.bsky.social•30 days ago

It's the lack of depth and limited experience

conjam.bsky.social•30 days ago

Also seen "gritty" tossed in a lot in similar contexts.

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

What! Nooo 🫠

sophialuxe.bsky.social•30 days ago

Say it again louder for those in the back (traditional publishers who haven’t figured this out yet)

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yep them and these book content creators. Describing a black romance as an urban romance just because the author is black.

furelise17.bsky.social•30 days ago

Thank you for clarifying.
As a black woman reader I
STRONGLY AGREE with your statement!

yotetheelf.bsky.social•30 days ago

Hollywood's whitewashing of the American West is astounding. When you tell people that 20-25% of working cowboys were black they hardly believe you.

doeryti.bsky.social•30 days ago

Truth

voicefromthemtn.bsky.social•30 days ago

Imagine there was a time when the stereotypical black character was rural.

wyles.bsky.social•29 days ago

It's not unrealistic either. People forget there's still a very large population of black people in the south. It's not like there was some mass exodus to the north after the civil war, moving is an expensive venture after all.

voicefromthemtn.bsky.social•29 days ago

Well, there was, but a lot of people stayed there too.

wyles.bsky.social•29 days ago

Yeah, but really only among people who could afford to, not like the vast majority or anything.

borisslav.eu•30 days ago

Unless that’s a juxtaposition to ‘Rural fiction’ where people of the pale complexion fall in love with their sheep, you’re 101% right.

nealholt.bsky.social•30 days ago

MRW

antonatonitaye.bsky.social•30 days ago

I wrote abot that years ago.
Crazy
#blacksky

dreamweaver1960.bsky.social•30 days ago

I am just an old white hippie, but what does romance have to do with color. Fuck romance is romance! Gay or straight, black or white. I just don’t get it.

stripedtiger2.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yes! It is just romance, no?! 🌷🌹🌺

mecireads.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yep

slimmity.bsky.social•30 days ago

BIG TRUE

antidramallama.bsky.social•30 days ago

Yup. Urban is not-secret code. Thanks for the reminder.

andeeharry1.bsky.social•30 days ago

so true

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