TimeOut's Article on Race in Publishing

I don't usually think the articles in TimeOut New York about books are that good, but this weeks article was actually a little interesting. They covered, believe it or not, the rather thorny subject of race in the publishing industry. I thought that it was interesting and not really surprising that the article's writer had a hard time finding people willing to talk about the subject. He summed up the situation well when he said:

From an article on TimeOut New York by James Hannaham:
"White Noise" —

Most of the people interviewed seem to agree that the lack of nonwhites in the industry mirrors the social problems of society at large. “It’s a reflection of the culture,” Davis says. “There’s no empirical data to show that publishing is ‘whiter’ than other industries. People of color are unequally represented in several [professions].”

I think that one of the solutions to this problem is to have more black publishing houses. But anyone reading this blog for any amount of time can see what a daunting task that would be given the state of the book world right now. Though, it's still interesting that TimeOut New York would choose to investigate this subject.