A question though–and one that doesn’t detract from your overall point one whit–where did you get the stat that 72 percent of the population is white? The 2010 Census has it 78.

Again, that’s not a substantive criticism; I enjoyed the piece quite a bit. I’m just wondering if the Census has different totals listed, which would be odd.

Here’s the Census page where I got the data: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

You need to think about this harder.

Another important issue is not the sheer amount of coverage but the type of coverage authors of various ethnic, racial, and national backgrounds get. As part of my PhD thesis, I looked at what critics (mostly NYT) were writing about “ethnic authors”. Data is from 265 reviews, you can find the article online by googling: “reading difference chong”

Love to hear your thoughts!

1) It must be published in the United States
- Americans miss out on amazing literary experiences that other countries have. The numbers seem to change, but for safety’s sake, 3% of books published in America come from outside the states. That is dismal and I’m not sure why we’re not disappointed by that sort of institutionalized censorship.

2) It must be sold in a general interest bookshop

I don’t mean to disagree with any of the valid points already stated by the author and commenters, but instead add one other point. Perhaps one portion of responsibility can and should be given to booksellers who do little to promote non-white American work on their shelves. I’ve worked at multiple bookshops and found it a battle to face out or give decent display to international and non-white works. The owners can’t blame what publishing companies promote, either, since they are given a wide arrange of books and galleys that they ignore for what they know they can sell with little effort. Anyone can send their self-published book to a bookshop for review and to sell, which many do, including the marginalized groups we’re discussing here.

We consumers and readers might not have much say on which books are reviewed, but we can ask out local bookshops to better represent our community if they want our business. And then we, as readers and consumers, have the responsibility to purchase these books. I’m not sure we can change these numbers any other way.

It’s good to be discouraged by these numbers and it is good to be informed. It seems futile to me to ask reviewers – or anyone – to change his or her behavior without changing ours. Sometimes it seems to me that the way we speak about things lends itself to a trickle-down theory of responsibility – once those at the top modify their behavior, the rest will follow. It isn’t true economically and I don’t think it’s true here, either. The books are out there to buy and if you don’t see them on the shelf, ask your local bookseller to order it. Bookshops want your business and they will respond to consumer demand.

As are so many things in our consumer culture, it’s really about the money, and it is our money that they want. If we want a wider array of authorship, then that is what we should spend our money on. Anything less is pure talk that they don’t have to listen to.