Only very few exceptional individuals read and write with a neutral mind about real life.
Also, let’s face it, everybody only reads books that present their real world nation/opinion/plight in a sympathetic light and the other views as moderately evil and stupid.

When I feel like cursing the whole time or thinking “Take that, political stance X”, then I’m not getting the whole picture.
When I read about the enmity between dwarfs and elves and it is funny, then I’m able to think about the causes of racism and war and even evaluating my own opinions anew. Because I’m at ease, not fuming or triumphing.

i am a serial reader of her work and wonder what statement that makes? of her and us as readers?
*shrug*

Which is why I’ve kept my online discussions on race in places where I feel “safe”. I can only imagine how Monica feels, having been fighting in the trenches for much longer than I have. The “safe” space created by the romance genre (or any genre of womens fiction) has bothered me for a while, and I’m still sorting out the trouble, but to put it succinctly, it feels like the mainstream feminist movement: the “safe” place is to keep the white middle-class reader “safe” from anything “disturbing”–which is why any discussion of race (or at least a discussion by someone avowedly non-white) raises hackles.

But I wrote the review here: http://blackromancereader.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/iron-kissed-by-patricia-briggs/

I think it’s really interesting that you referenced stuff white people like because it’s not only a critique of a certain blithe and self-satisfied ignorance, but a critique that seems (to me) to be directed at a very specific class of white people- well-off urban liberal hipsters. We’ve been passing the links around my campus and it’s awful and funny and uncomfortable all at once because UofC is a campus full of white well-off urban liberal hipsters who think that they’re going to save the world. Evaluating their own privilege and baggage would only slow them down. Even though I don’t like to think of myself as one of this crowd, my scarf and New Balance wearing-body might testify differently!

I agree that it is insulting that white readers/writers might like to engage with race in the mediated and comfortable environment of genre fiction but not in the real world. I haven’t really gotten to a lot of urban fantasy, so my critique missed this genre. However, in the romance that I have read to date, race is almost universally invisible- unless, of course, I walk over to Border’s African-American fiction section. What struck me about Monica Jackson’s post was that she notices that people tackle all sorts of anxieties both within and around the romance novel. (Whether or not these conversations translate into action in nonromanceland is debatable). Yet race seems to be *the* most uncomfortable-to-the-point-of-avoidance topic for almost every (not-black) romance reader and writer.

Perhaps most disturbing for me is that there is not even a space to bring up a critique of this state of affairs. Any mention of race brings up the affronted “are you calling *me* a racist?” and quickly shuts off any sort of reasoned or productive dialogue. This is, in my opinion, one of the sillier responses because no one in America really escapes imbibing race prejudice; if we cannot be honest about this, then what’s the point of having a dialogue?