Letter from a Former Black Conservative

Guest blog by Anthony Broaddus

[My brother wrote an interesting piece which he's given me permission to post here. Because, you know, I hate to post anything even remotely controversial.]

I am a conservative at heart. I voted for either a Republican or for Perot from 1988 to 2000. Since George Bush came into office, the climate in politics has gotten ugly. Bush came into office promising to be a "Uniter....not a divider". How ironic.

With Karl Rove leading the way, Bush had divided the country so badly that friends and family members can't even talk about politics out of fear of a serious arguement breaking out. That would have never happened back in the 80s. Heck even arguing over BILL CLINTON never got into friends or family members literally getting into fist fights. Under Bush, only "Red States" were considered "Real America" (except when 9/11 could be exploited) while "Blue States" were America-hating Liberal socialists.

This is the politics that made me queasy. This divisive politics that was brought in with the Bush Administration.

But here is my major point. I am a Conservative on most issues. I proudly voted Republican. Then I saw all the ugliness and racism (yeah I said it) that came with their party. I always wondered why Dwight Eisenhower could get the majority of the black votes in the 50s, then up until the mid 60s, the black voters were almost nowhere to be found in the Republican Party. If you do some research on Nixon's Southern Strategy, you will find out.

To make a long story short, Richard Nixon (with Pat Buchanan and Kevin Phillips advising him) made an unholy alliance with "Southern America" and totally abandoned the African American vote. Richard Nixon created this Frankenstein and Republican Candidates after him, from Reagan all the way to George W Bush took it and ran with it. Bob Dole being the exception to the rule.

Put it like this, I went to three Obama rallies in Indiana during the primaries and the crowd looked like America. Whites, blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Indians, and Asians. You go to a Republican rally and it is a sea of white faces with a few black people. It has been like this for about 45 years. Why is that?

Well here is my opinion. Dwight Eisenhower cared about civil rights for all Americans. He was the president that ordered the integration of a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas (research the "Little Rock Nine" for example).

Well, after Dwight Eisenhower left office, John Kennedy came into office and though not perfect, he supported civil rights. After his assassination, Lyndon Johnson carried out a lot of ideas that Kennedy promised to do. It was under Johnson that the Civil right Act was passed. When that law was passed, he said to a colleague, "We have lost the South for a generation". How prophetic. He lost the South for three generations (and counting). It was also under Johnson that the Voting Rights Act was passed. Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court under Johnson as well.

Hypothetically, if Eisenhower could have gotten another term, I am 100% positive he would have passed a lot of the civil rights laws that Johnson eventually passed. Maybe then the black vote would have stayed Republican or at least be more evenly divided. But we'll never know. I doubt that Nixon would have done a thing for civil rights if he had beaten JFK in 1960. His actions in 1968 show me that he didnt care about furthering civil rights.

In the 1950s, the Blacks were the Republican BASE. The 1960s was the era when Africans migrated to the Democratic Party. When Richard Nixon got into office, he realized that he was not going to get a huge amount of the black vote. Kennedy and Johnson won the Democratic Party a lot of cool points. So Nixon made an unholy alliance with the segregationist south called the "Southern Strategy". One of Nixon's advisors (Kevin Phillips) described it best:

"From now on, the Republicans are NEVER going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they DON'T NEED any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the NEGROPHOBE (ie racist) whites will quit the Democrats and BECOME REPUBLICANS. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old COMFORTABLE arrangement with the local Democrats".

So the stars alligned (via a Democratic President passing Civil Righs Laws and Nixon's Southern strategy) and those events made 90% of African American voters vote Democratuc over the last 50 years.

There is a reason why Ronald Reagan deliberately campaigned in Philadelphia, Missisippi in 1980. Philadelphia, Mississippi was the town where three Civil Rights workers were lynched and buried (two Jewish and one black). That town (of all places) is where Reagan stood and said "I believe in State's rights". If you lived in the deep south before 1965, you knew exactly what "States Rights" meant. Reagan was just keeping the "Southern Strategy" flames burning and to help keep Lyndon Johnson's prophecy alive. Ironically, Nixon's advisor, Pat Buchanon also became one of Reagan's advisors. Imagine that.

Reagan had another advisor named in his Administration named Lee Atwater. We will get to him in a few paragraphs, but here is how he compared Ronald Reagan's "kinder, gentler" 1980s version of the Southern strategy to Richard Nixon's uncut version:

"You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" (in public). That hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like "forced busing", "STATES RIGHTS" and all that stuff. You're getting so ABSTRACT that you're now talking about CUTTING TAXES, and all these things. You're now talking about totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites. And SUBCONSIOUSLY maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that CODED, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

After Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush kinda used the same strategy to get elected. He hired the same Lee Attwater to run his campaign. Most consider him the "father of modern day dirty divisive politics". One of Atwater's main pupils was a young Karl Rove. We will discuss him later.

Anyway, I believe that neither Lee Atwater nor George Herbert Walker Bush had a racist bone in their body. As a matter of fact Atwater played back-up guitar for Percey Sledge and B.B King on occasions. That being said, they knew politics. They knew they had to appeal to the same "southern voters" that voted for Reagan and Nixon.

Initially Michael Dukakis had a SEVENTEEN point lead on George HW Bush in the polls and it looked like he was going to be the next president. The Bush campaign got desperate and needed a "Hail Mary" to win. Hence the infamous "Willie Horton" add. It was the Atomic Bomb. You all know about that add. Lee Atwater said he basically wanted to make Willie Horton a "household name" (which it is to this very day). Even in 2010, you can't think of Dukakis without thinking of Willie Horton. Well basically, that add scared whites in the suburbs and enraged whites in the south and it was one of the main reasons why George Bush was elected President. It was kind of disappointing to find out all this stuff about George HB Bush because I loved him as my Commander in Chief when I was in the Marines. I still adore him, but his learning of his campaign leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

By the way, Lee Atwater died of Brain Cancer three years later. On his deathbed, he said that he regretted that campaign he ran in 1988.

As we skip to 2000, we see another Bush running for office. Bush had appointed Karl Rove as his campaign manager. Karl Rove had learned all his tricks from the Master, Lee Atwater. Karl Rove took things to another level and helped create the toxic environment we now currently live in. Ironically, the tactics George Bush and Karl Rove were used in the Republican Primaries against a fellow Republican.

John McCain had won the New Hampshire Primary and was favored to win in the South Carolina Primaries. If McCain wins South Carolina, he had unstoppable momentum. So Karl reached into his bag of tricks and spread the rumor that John McCain had fathered a BLACK BABY out of wedlock. That "black baby" was an orphan that he and Cindy McCain had adopted from Banglasesh. It didn't matter. The South Carolina voters bought into it and John McCain lost South Carolina. The "Southern Strategy" flame was rekindled and John McCain paid the price. He lost all his momentum and eventually lost every southern state in the Primaries. George Bush won the nomination and the rest is history.

Like all Republican candidates before him, George Bush spoke at Bob Jones University. Bob Jones University banned interracial dating on their campus until AFTER Bush spoke there. They lifed their ban because of the backlash and media scrutiny they recieved.

During the whole Bush Administration, it has been nothing but division. Like I said earlier, ironically Bush pledged to be a "Uniter". Instead, the only times the country has been more divided were during the Civil War and during the 1960s. You can thank the Bush Administration for that. I personally think George Bush is probably a genuinely nice person, but he surrounded himself with people that didn't have an ounce of honor in their DNA (like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney).

The environment is to toxic and divisive. Having Right Wing Talk Radio and Fox News easing (and oozing) their way into the political environment only muddied the waters even further. Now blacks are pitted against whites, "Real America" (meaning Red States) are pitted against "Fake Marxist America" (Blue States).

You listen to talk radio and Fox "News" and whether it is from Rush, Coulter, Malkin, Sean Hannity, or whoever and it some of the most vile stuff you will ever hear. I go to the Hannity Message boards and they echo Rush Limbaugh's views on African Americans. According to them (or a majority of them), the ONLY reasons African Americans vote Democratic is that Democrats give us free handouts. Also according to them, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are our "leaders".

So basically the majority of African Americans are Democrats because we are lazy and can't think for themselves? I bet a LOT of white Republicans have been thinking like this for generations and now they have some people that will voice these opinions over the airwaves and into their televisions. How simplistic and dismissive can you get?

So unlike what Rush, Hannity, and their followers (ignorantly) say, blacks didnt just say all of a sudden say "hey lets all vote Democrat because theyre now passing out Government Cheese and other free houndouts to us negros".

Like I also said earlier, I regretted voting for George Bush and I haven't voted Republican since 2000 (on the national level). I went to three Obama rallies here in Indiana and you could see every color in the rainbow. You go to Republican rallies and you can spot out the ten blacks out of the thousands in their rallies. I always wondered why.

I live in a "middle class" neighborhood where the houses are worth between $100,000 and 250,000. I also have friends that live in the black suburbs where the houses are worth MILIONS. The thing these neighborhoods have in common is there are Obama signs all through their yards, so it can't be because of Government handouts, can it? I'm sure those blacks that live in those huge houses didn't get to where they are at by listening to Al Sharpton either. I know that I didn't and I consider myself to be living the "American Dream". So what gives?

I mean, don't get me wrong, the Conservatives have good theories. Nothing wrong with "family values", lowering taxes and being fiscally responsible (even though there hasnt been a fiscally responsible president in more than fifty years). Economically, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams make a TON of sense to me.

It's not the MESSAGE, it worked with African Americans when Eisenhower was President. It is the MESSENGERS and the history. African Americans have very long memories and we pass history down from generation to generation. We haven't forgotten which party passed all the major Civil Right laws. We also haven't forgotten which party totally abandoned us to cater to the "southern vote".

African Americans that vote Democrat also notice that the Pat Buchanons, Bill O'Reileys, Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters, Sean Hannitys, and the Glenn Becks of the world all flock to the "conservative" side. The same guys and gals that say blacks vote for Democrats are lazy, love handouts, and can't think for themselves. The same people that dismiss and sterotype a whole race of people.

Maybe these are the reasons why blacks have voted 90% Democratic since the 1960s. That won't change any time soon and won't change after Obama is out of office in 2016.

In my opinion things will never change because the history is too deep and to be honest, only a few Republicans have even tried to court the black vote. One is Jack Kemp and the other is Mike Huckabee (who got 47% of the black vote when running for Governor). Unfortunately Jack Kemp died last year and Mike Huckabee made that stupid comment at the NRA Convention about someone SHOOTING Barack Obama.

I know that "Politics make strange bedfellows". How comfortable are the African Americans here with your fellow "conservative" talk show hosts dismissing blacks as sheep? Or do you agree with them? Or better yet, how did you feel when you went to You Tube and saw Republican rallies where people brought in Monkeys to Sarah Palin rallies (some with nooses around them) that had Obama pins on them? Did you notice all the people around them thinking it was funny? Was that funny to you?

How about when that Republican was circulating a picture of the "new Obama White House Lawn" and it was a garden with nothing but watermelons in it? How about the picture of the new "Obama Dollah" and it is a Welfare Check with Barack Obama's picture in the middle? Is that funny to you? These are your bedfellows, your fellow "Conservatives". These are the same guys who wore shirts saying "Keep the White House White". Do you think these Republicans respect you? Do you think they respect Michael Steele? I don't.

My question is how much do you embrace the divisive retoric that Rush spew or do you just listen to "the good parts"?

Do I think the Republican Party is filled with racists? Absolutely not. Do I think the Democratic Party are filled with Martin Luther Kings? That's laughable. Hillary Clinton ran a despicable campaign that would have made Nixon proud. Hillary and her "First Black President" will never get back the cool points they lost among a lot of people. I'm glad the good prevailed over that mess.

Your party doesn't even bother to court African Americans. Just like in 1968, you have written off a whole race of people. It's quite a shame that there are no Jack Kemps on the national level. He was for tax cuts in urban areas and even wanted to speak at the Million Man March. Imagine that.

So in my opinion, the way your party to get back the African American vote is to:

1. COURT THEM!! (duh)
2. Get as far away from the Southern Strategy as possible.
3. Distance yourselves from Talk Radio personalities.

But the Republicans won't do that and will mainly be a "Whites Only" club. They will screw around and make the Hispanics vote in the same percentages as African Americans. That hurts the Republicans because the Hispanics will be the majority of the US population within a generation.

These are the same Hispanics that turned Republican strongholds (like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, my state of Indiana, Iowa, Virginia, and North Carolina) into Obama states in 2008. There are huge Hispanic Populations in these states and they will only get bigger. Could you imagine Texas not voting Republican? I can.They have long memories too. They will remember being dismissed and all lumped together as "illegals" who sneak over the border to get on Welfare. Your party has a reputation of stereotyping whole races.

The point of this super long message is that until your party ditches your Southern Strategy and dumps the Rush Limbaughs and Glen Becks of the world, your party will continue to only get 5% of the African vote and a "Black Conservatives" Facebook page will only have only 200+ members (1/3 of which happen to be white) instead of having 10,000 members.

Unfortunately, the Southern Strategy has been embedded into the Republican Party and the Rush Limbaughs arent going anywhere. That is sad for your party and it is sad for America.

On World Building

I am in the throes of one of my favorite parts of writing: world building. It’s one of the things I love most about science fiction and fantasy writing (my second favorite thing is actually a subset of this: character building). My plate is full at the moment as I have two universes I’m building and playing in:

1. My alt-history, steampunk universe of Pimp My Airship. I am revisiting and expanding this universe because I have another short story I’ve been asked to write for an anthology that’s too early to talk much more about. Plus, I’m in the beginning stages of expanding “Pimp My Airship” into a novel length work. Ironically, one of the criticisms I heard pretty consistently about the story was that there was a lot of world-building that went into the story that then made it feel like part of a much greater piece. So obviously I was having too much fun.

2. Then there’s my Knights of Breton Court universe as I plot out the final arc of the series. Okay, admittedly, that universe keeps growing, to the point where I even my series Bible is full of flow charts and maps attempting to keep track of that universe.

3. I’m strictly at the worldbuilding stage for an apocalyptic novel project with Wrath James White. I need to be prepared for when he sends me the first pages and I see what he’s done to the planet. (no, we don’t coordinate these things: half of the fun of writing together is the game of oneupsmanship we like to play).

Admittedly, I may have a bit of a God complex. As writers, we’re gods after a fashion: we create worlds, people it, and often direct the characters actions as much as the characters take on lives of their own and do their own thing. We’re not exactly creating ex nihilo (out of nothing): with Pimp My Airship, part of the fun is turning history on its head; and with Knights, I still have the Arthurian legends to muck about with.

Our job as writers is to out-imagine our readers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we’re paid to “make shit up”, thing is, we can’t just make it up as you go along. Your story will suffer if you do so. On the other hand, while doing the actual writing, there are times when you have to make it up as you go along, then once you’re done, you go back and revise so that the rules are consistent. So I have some basic issues I have to think through, a world building checklist:

-rules of magic. Actually, you make up the rules to anything, the key is that once you’ve made them up, you play within them. Magic may seem like one of those areas where you can just make it up as you go along, which means it’s one of the first areas a reader will call foul on when you blow the internal consistency.

-history. Not my strongest suit, but a place should have the feel of being lived in for a while. We’re all swept up in the story of what came before us.

-customs. We would we be without the niceties of society? Then again, I love a good tea ceremony.

-religion. Regardless of your own (a)religious beliefs, you can’t argue that faith has doesn’t have an impact on a person or society. It can be a vital backdrop to your world.

-dress. I’ll tell you right now, if you ever have any wardrobe questions, you need to have Kathy Sedia on speed dial. If there’s a piece of clothing that she hasn’t heard of, the folks on Project Runway simply haven’t designed it yet. And she’d be the first to remind you that dress tells a lot about a character and their culture.

-commerce. Business must get done. The entire set up of the Pimp My Airship world ultimate spins on the commerce system and the world it creates.

-language. Now, I’ll admit to a fantasy heresy: I couldn’t get into The Lord of the Rings. Now look, I loved The Hobbit, but I was barely 100 pages into the “hey dude, I got this ring. We need to drop it in a volcano. We can’t just fly there because we need three books worth of chase scenes to get there” plot when I got sick of the elf songs and trips down language lane. Got it. You spent lots of time putting together maps, languages, and history and you want to make sure we know you did your homework. BUT NO MORE SINGING. Then there was another song and I put down the book. Um, but you do need to know how your characters speak and how to differentiate them.

There’s a great world building checklist on the SFWA website.

Sermon Exhaustion

I think I’m suffering from a case of sermon exhaustion. Either that or I’m simply not fed that way anymore. After 30+ years of accumulated a lot of head knowledge, I’m wondering if sermons are the best way to transform lives. Too many folks leave their weekly gathering questioning “what you get out of a sermon?” which I actually shouldn’t complain too much about since just as many times the sermons are forgotten once folks are in the parking lot yelling at the jerks who just cut them off.

It's not like pastors slough this off as an insignificant part of their job. For some it's a point of pride as great teachers want to be heard. But sometimes church becomes a sermon show and we shop around for the best speakers, reducing the pastor’s role to ear tickler and there’s more to pastoring than giving a sermon. Not to mention the fact that it can also lead to pastor worship, or congregational pride, a sort of intellectual idolatry. The kind of church body this can form is one of a whole lot of head puffery and too little praxis, or to quote my friend, Rob Pallikan, “It’s like going to college and never actually getting a job.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve put in my time. I started thinking back trying to add up the number of sermons I’ve listened to over the years. I’m just going back to the age where I was cognizant of church for my own self:

Fourth and fifth grade – 104 (Sunday mornings only)

Junior high and high school – 936 (Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and a midweek service)

College years (before I dropped out of church) – 624 (Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and a midweek service)

1996-2000 – 1040 two Sunday mornings services, a Sunday night, and a midweek.

2001 – 2004 – 416 a Sunday morning and a mid-week service

2005 – present – 260 a Sunday morning gathering

This is all “approximate”. It doesn’t count the occasional absence or conferences I attended. It doesn’t include class work or any classes I took either. And I’ve been blessed with great teachers over the years. But sermons simply aren’t a big part of the worship experience for me anymore. Spiritual formation is important. Walking in community is important. Developing a rhythm of life is important. How they may express themselves might not always look like a traditional service.

My friend, Aaron Story, said “measure a believer by how worn their knees from praying, how dirty their hands from serving, how marked their Bibles from studying, and how empty their wallet from giving.” Serving, doing, is the only thing that makes sense of my faith. That being said, discipleship and life transformation are tied up in relationship. People who can speak truth into your life. This is just where I’m at now. Often times, sermons are reminders and reminders are good. And at any rate, God uses all of these things. Truth be told, I’m still stuck at Jesus’ boiling down things to “Love God and love each other” and seem to be spending my lifetime trying to figure that out and how to practice it better.

Professional Daydreamers

It’s difficult enough to explain to our spouses how going to conventions, drinking, talking, and hanging out with friends counts as work. Or how playing Scrabble on Facebook counts as networking (“honey, I swear, I’m playing with my publisher and my agent.”) Now I’m trying to justify how lying in bed staring at nothing counts as work.

You see, we writers always face looming deadlines, the pressure to produce, and there’s always something to be done or written. Think about it: as a friend put it, “we get paid to make shit up.” We professional liars need time to recharge. We need time to just let our mind wander, time to just ease up and let ideas play out, take root, or untangle themselves in the back of our mind. Charlie Jane Anders agrees with me, as pointed out in the blog 12 Secrets to Being a Super Prolific Short Story Writer:

Don't be afraid to stare at the blank screen for a few hours. Sometimes you gotta spend some time chewing over the turning point in your story ... there's no substitute, on occasion, for sitting and sweating it out. Think about the characters, and what they're actually thinking and feeling in the situation you've set up. Think about the themes you've established and what sort of resolution they're leading to. Take the time to visualize the right ending for this story.

Where do you writers get your ideas? Probably the most asked questions, if least understood why we find it so inane. We all get ideas all the time. We’re just focused enough to write them down and form stories out of them. It’s one reason why we carry notepads with us all the time. Our imagination is our tool and we need to tend to it. Let it breathe and have room to do its thing. like anything else, to get the most out of it, we have to discipline it.

I say all of this to tie up the reality of my life. I’ve just spent the last two hours in bed, just letting my imagination run wild as a part of my world building exercise. And currently I’m on the toilet, notepad in hand, not knowing when a good idea will strike nor wanting to let a moment go by wasted, when I had the idea that maybe this would be a good blog.*

Or maybe not.

Hey, not every idea is a winner.




*I keep thinking one day either my editor or publisher is going to ask “what the hell are you doing on your blog?” and somehow issue a cease and desist order.

Hairbanger’s Ball – Winners and Losers

My weekend was made of WIN. Allow me to deconstruct a few tweets I made over the weekend:

I've been talked into attending the Hairbanger's Ball. My ghetto pass is about to be revoked.
-I like to think of myself as a cultural ambassador, out to sample the best that various cultures have to offer. It was in this spirit that I let my wife once talk me into going to Supercross. So when some friends heard that there was a show of 80s hair band music, they determined that this was a must do event.

I've spent over a decade trying to repress my memories of 80s music. All undone.
-As an interesting aside, we ended up reminiscing about how when we were all in Youth Group, these were the bands and songs that were railed against. More than one of us ended up burning or trashing our cassette/record collection (dear young people, we once listened to music on these things called cassettes …) and was left with nothing to listen to besides Stryper, DC Talk, and Stephen Wiley (please tell me I wasn’t the only recipient of the classic tape, “Rapping for Jesus”).
-On the plus side of those Youth Group vs. music seminars, I would have never known what they lyrics to “She Bop” meant until they explained them to me.

I would have so rocked a mullet.
-Um, apparently not.

The part of my brain the holds all of the lyrics to Talk Dirty to Me stored I'm sure would have cured cancer.
-I can no longer in good conscience mock my wife’s love of 80s hairband music when apparently I know all of the lyrics to the entire set.
-I will take issue with their definition of hairband though. I never considered Metallica a hair band. Metallica rocked, I don’t care who you are.

Two things I've never forgiven pop music for: "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and Spandau Ballet.
-I will once again point out that I often write about politics, race, and religion. Apparently nothing will generate nearly as vehement a response as pointing out that Spandau Ballet sucked. In fact, to quote my buddy Robert N. Lee “True" may actually be the most meaningless pop song ever in history. And that's a strong statement, I realize - I mean, it's up against everything by Duran Duran.”

A guy dressed as Richard Simmons just groped me.
-I soooooo regret not getting a picture of him. There was a love connection.


Losers: Amazon vs Macmillan aka AmazonFail

Granted, this probably ripped through my Twitter and Facebook so hard because it impacted writers so much. We were the ones (as well as readers) caught up as collateral casualties in this pissing match between industry titans. Jay Lake, Scott Westerfeld and John Scalzi pretty much sum things up for those interested.

Speaking of winners and losers, here are the winners of our Drood drawing (as chosen by my twenty sided die which have seen too little action of late):
-Sandra K321
-Anita Yancey
-Nickolay
-Nicole
-Antmusic

Congrats to all the winners. Drop me an e-mail if you haven’t been contacted already so that I can get your addresses.

Cover Stimulus Package

This is the cover art for The Knights of Breton Court Book Two: King's Justice by the incredible Steve Stone (the model’s name is Lloyd Nwagboso*). Now contrast this with this news item:

Last year, Bloomsbury chose a white cover model for a YA novel about a black girl. They fixed it — but now they've done it again. Outcry over the white-washing of Justine Larbalestier's Liar prompted Bloomsbury to issue a new cover featuring a black girl, and to apologize (kind of).

Lavie Tidhar’s already done a great blog that lays out the situation. For the sake of staying focused, we’ll ignore that Bloomsbury’s new cover featured the lightest black person they could find. Though, this was a fact noted by Ellen Datlow (who is quite white) and she goes on to point out in her open letter to Bloomsbury.

I was trying to explain this scenario to a friend of mine who is not connected to the publishing world at all. He found it stunning that in this day and age such racism is openly practiced. The idea that white people won’t buy books with black people on a cover or that there’s not a book buying public among the black community who would purchase books borders on the irrational. Yet it seems that once again it seems like racefail is in full effect.

Now would be the time when I would point out that not all publishers buy into the cycle of reinforcing racist ideas. I would point to Angry Robot’s cover for South African writer Lauren Beukes' second novel, Zoo City (art by John Picacio). Or my own novel from them, Knights of Breton Court: Kingmaker. Instead, I will point to the just released art for my second novel, Knights of Breton Court: King’s Justice one more time because it’s just so pretty:
We’ll soon find out whether or not black people on a cover will hurt sales. Nevertheless, having this conversation won’t hurt. Apparently it’s long overdue to happen.

*Lloyd was actually the second model chosen. In an interesting parallel to the Bloomsbury debacle, Angry Robot asked me what I thought of the first model the artist was leaning towards. I said that I thought he was too light as I had imagined King as much darker. The folks at Angry Robot immediately, and I mean, IMMEDIATELY agreed and changed course. You can't ask much more than that from your publishers.

Convention Schedule 2010

For those interested, here's a list of where I'll probably be out and about this year:

Indiana Horror Writers Retreat – February 19th - 21st

Mo*Con V – April 30th – May 2nd

WisCon - May 27-31

InConjunction – July 2nd – 4th

Gencon – August 5-8

Context - August 27th-29th

World Fantasy – October 28-31

Kentucky Book Fair November 7th


There are still a few conventions that are on the "maybe" list depending on how finances shake out. Hypericon. Necon. KillerCon. And a retreat at a haunted house.