The Ethnic Book Awards Debate

This week's book awards reminds me to post about a series of interesting pieces that came out a few weeks ago on the subject of ethnic books awards. The first I had heard about it was from Read Roger, who provided some useful links and started a very interesting discussion in the comments. The arguments for and against having book awards specifically for authors of a certain ethnicity sound very much like those regarding affirmative action. While many believe that is the only way to "level the playing field," others believe that it is the wrong way to solve the problem.

Links to some wonderfully thoughtful pieces on the subject:
Marc Aronson
Andrea Davis Pinkney
Mitali Perkins

I'm no authority. I hadn't even thought about this problem until a few weeks ago. But it seems to me that an ethnic literary award's goal ought to be to recognize and publicize quality books about different cultures, and not necessarily their authors. I like the idea of requiring books to be about a certain culture or ethnic group in order to qualify for an award rather than requiring the author to be of a certain ethnicity. If the goal is to celebrate diversity in literature, then the literature should be the first and foremost consideration.