Did you know that December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month? Welcome White Folks says it is, and what the hell, I'll believe them.

Oh, one other thing, white people already know about Toni Morrison, so please choose something else besides A Mercy.

The books I'm buying to give to white friends this year include:

Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate
Kinky Gazpacho by Lori Tharps
Going Down South by Bonnie Glover
No Place Safe by Kim Reid
Seen it All and Done the Rest by Pearl Cleage

A couple years ago, while at Book Expo America. I noted the segregation of black titles:

There are a number of panels, as well, that are not independent-bookseller centric—for instance, a discussion, sponsored by the stellar new magazine A Public Space, about the future of short fiction, and a seminar titled "Their Eyes Were Reading Smut: The Impact of Ghetto Fiction on African-American Literature." As the only white man in the room, I find the latter to be especially interesting: Literature is one of the most ghettoized art forms in America today, and current African-American lit, to hear the panelists tell it, is mostly about either gangs and violence or hot-sex romance, most notably written by an author named Zane. An author on the panel points out that it's possible to include sex without making your novel a porno; by way of example: "I'm sure lots of you have read Po Man's Child or Howard Street," and these two titles set nearly every head in the room to nodding. I've never heard of them, and I'm sure that 95 percent of other white bookstore employees haven't heard of them either. The panelist, whose name I never catch, goes on: "Books are the freest media we have—it's the only media where we're not advertising drivel." These wind up being perhaps the most honorable words I hear all weekend.

Even the most avid of white readers could probably stand to brush up on their African-American-written fiction. I'm not a fan of African-American Fiction sections in bookstores—besides the segregation aspect, I'm usually for less subcategories in bookstores to increase the chances of miraculous non sequitur finds while browsing—but I do think blogs like Welcome White People should keep recommending good books by black authors to non-black readers, because we're sure not finding them on our own.

(Via MOBYLIVES.)