What's Up With That Cover ?

So Readers, how do you feel about Authors using what I can only describe as "seemingly" racially ambiguous cover models on their books? In the past few months I've noticed a trend in Urban Fiction cover art. Namely White women on the cover of Urban Fiction books. Is this misleading?

Now let me be clear. I could give less than a damn if there is a White woman on an Urban Fiction book cover but as a READER, when I crack the book open, there better be a White woman in the damn book! Don't let me open the book and there's not a white character to be found in the damn story. And the woman isn't passing for a mixed-race woman either. She's straight up White. Now I could go into the whole description topic, but that's a whole other issue. Today we're just discussing cover art.

I ran across a cover I LOVED! The woman didn't really look African-American to me so what did I do? I tailored my story around the way the cover model looked. ( Pretty.Young.Thugs. I also gave a detailed reason as to why the character looked the way she did and how it all played into the story.- I'll show the cover in this post.)

For ME if there isn't a White woman in the story-line somewhere, why is she on the cover? Now I realize there is a huge shortage of African-American stock photos available for use. I get it. But this is also where I think standards of beauty come in.There are tons of Black women available but some are dismissed because they don't look a certain way or have characteristics either the Author or Designer finds unattractive.

Every cover doesn't need to have a big booty woman on the damn cover. YEAH I SAID IT! I'll take it even further, every cover doesn't even need a person on the cover! I myself am going to explore my options in regards to this. Why not? Every other genre of writing embraces a multitude of options in regards to cover art. Why shouldn't Urban Fiction?

It's gotten so bad in Urban Fiction, some Authors and Designers are resorting to just stealing celebrity pictures off the internet and slapping them on the cover.

Surely you didn't think we the public wouldn't recognize that celebrity did you? Tisk,tisk. Anyway, that's my observation of the day.