Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dera R Williams on June 25, 2011 at 11:07am

Hmmm. Okay, Zetta I need to think on this and get back to you later. I am about to go into the cave to meet a deadline. But this topic bears discussion. I hadn't thought about this and just scanning in my head books I have read, I want to say that the endings were in most cases realistic and that did not always equal to happy, but satisfying. Let me think on this.

 

 

Dera

Permalink Reply by Zetta Brown on June 25, 2011 at 2:58pm

That's true, but when does it stop being realistic and become a self-fulfilling prophecy?  It's like a person who is always told they're ugly to the point where they believe it when it's not true at all. 

Sometimes I feel like that as a black woman, I have to write characters who have a chip on their shoulder or is a single mother, or abuse victim/survivor--or if not the protagonist, someone else involved in the book.

I've been working on what I hope becomes a (short) series to demonstrate that although we may have knowledge of or experience of these things in our lives, it's not the SUM of our lives and experiences.

Permalink Reply by Totsymae on June 27, 2011 at 10:58am

I hope I'm not misunderstanding you but the experiences of single parenthood and the other areas you mentioned are not exclusive to the African American community and of course you know that. We have to keep in mind that white folk and other type folk are writing about this as well but like anything that's media driven, where blacks are concerned especially, it gets the most attention because these are areas that people may associate with black life.

 

Some of the same things that we are experiencing have a white and yellow face on it as well and we can't forget that. We must also not submit to the concept, as writers, that this is all there is but we should respect where a writer is coming from and just do us as individual writers. Also keep in mind that it's all about business and trends come and go and that's in anything.

Permalink Reply by Toya A. Barnette on June 27, 2011 at 12:39pm

Tosh, I think your summation is right on point which takes us back to the question of who is representing the numbers? The masses who read and draw revenue to a particular genre are the same people who determine the trends. Until we, as a people are able to manipulate those trends in terms of our buying power as well as our interests, the outcome remains the same. We are collectively responsible for changing some of those world perspectives - dark areas generally associated with Black life. You are so right; we do not have a patent on suffering. Personally, I think we are globally challenged to see or live the lighter side of our spirit and should conciously set aside time to move out of the "heavy" or at least demonstrate the celebratory aspects as Love Babz mentioned in an earlier post. I'm all for happy endings, especially since they do exist in real life!  Zetta, thank you for channeling our thoughts towards the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Permalink Reply by Ginger McKnight-Chavers on June 25, 2011 at 11:41am

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend Ernessa Carter's "32 Candles."  She's a fellow She-Writer as well.  Charming, smart and well-written.  And it's an "upper."

Permalink Reply by Zetta Brown on June 25, 2011 at 2:51pm

Yes! I've heard about it. I'll put it on my TBR list :)

Permalink Reply by Miss Queenly on June 25, 2011 at 12:49pm

Zetta, I agree with you on this. I also agree with Dera about the realistic factor of some of the writing.

 

I don't want to generalize people's experiences, I know some people have it better or have set their mindset to be positive, but I am working class/poor, living in the great historical U.S. South all my life and I have been taught the history and I live the reality--not all of all stories tend to be happy. That's just the way it is in many cases.

 

In conveying the stories of my ancestors (and reading them) and speaking to the truth of the many experiences of the people around me, I feel that I honor Black folks and myself and give voice and life and create memories of my people. I don't want to sugar coat or play down certain experiences. But that doesn't stop me from wondering why that kind of writing appears to be the limits of our imaginations.

 

I write fiction. Right now I'm working on a story that includes a Black female hero(ine), faeries, erotic romance, demons, racism, classism, religion, sexual violence, angels, and one of those epic battles between good and "evil". Trust me, except for the vernacular, its very well-conveyed, I promise. It may never be published because its not exactly "urban fiction". The point: For me its not so much an issue of being happy as it is a question of the scope and reach of our imaginations and ingenuity as writers.

Permalink Reply by Miss Queenly on June 25, 2011 at 12:52pm

Most books that my sister own, for example, are about chattel slavery and the Jim Crow Era era, everything before the Black Pride Movement in the U.S. --a whole lotta rape, violence, forced breeding, exoticification/eroticizing, harsh labor, torture, people's children getting taken away from them, Black people doing each other wrong while white people do the same thing (especially women, don't read The Darkest Child, *shudder*), and more rape. Or are there the contemporary writings by Black authors, which are labeled as "urban fantasy" or "urban fiction", I don't understand why, especially when some writers write from what they know to be real. I don't feel that my writing fits with that categorization and I also, like Zetta, tend not to read it. There's no way out, its just an endless maze of suffering and any ending offered pales in comparison to the rest of the horror of the story or is just as depressing. Why read it when I can just go outside and see it for real, with endings inspiring wrist-slitting and all?

 

Even Octavia Butler, who is labeled as a sci-fi writer, bless her, has scenes full of rape and misery and pain. I couldn't finish two of her books that I got from a white friend for my birthday for this reason. I guess you could say I'm really sensitive to having to read/watch/experience twenty to one-hundred pages or so of someone's people's suffering, especially women of color. We live in a day and age where Black peoples/people of African origin (or at the very least least in the United States) are still very oppressed and caged spiritually, mentally, psychically/psychologically, and emotionally by the world we live in. As a writer of African origin, I believe my imagination has been caged in some ways as well, though I steadily work to my freedom and hope to someday present a different sort of writing to the world as a literary fantasy fiction writer with most of my characters people Black/of African origin/people of color.

Permalink Reply by Zetta Brown on June 25, 2011 at 2:44pm

I hear what you're saying, and believe me, I do not think or believe that the struggles our ancestors have gone through and what we continue to go through today.

But I think a lot of it is just so much compounded misery. Like you said--"why read it when I can just go outside and see it for real?"

I'm not talking about pure escapism either, but DAY-YUM! Can't we show some happiness in African communities? Can't we celebrate the survivors or just plain SURVIVING and not always mire ourselves in the misery and/or defeat of the dead?

Instead of reading about the poor kid who grew up in the ghetto, who had dreams, etc., only for them to get thwarted and end up either becoming a victim or the next drug lord, why not show the same kid rising above and making things better not just for himself--but possibly even the community around him--oh, and he did it LEGALLY! Now there's a twist.  

My family has been from boom to bust and back again. I've lived in "good" neighborhoods and some bloody well scary neighborhoods. I've had friends who make it to the big time and those who drop out and disappear.

I'm not trying to be Pollyanna, but instead of compounding the negative all the time, why not inspire? You never know who is reading your work and may be inspired by something you've written.

 

PS - I enjoy reading Octavia Butler :)  I've only read Kindred and Parable of the Sower so far, even though she touches on some heavy issues. It's too bad she's gone.

Permalink Reply by Miss Queenly on June 25, 2011 at 3:42pm

I hear you. One way to inspire is to create the positive. You want to write what's really going on, but sometimes we have to imagine and dream. In my own philosophy and style of writing, I also agree that complete escapism is a mistake because it disconnects us from reality and risks potentially dishonoring and ignoring our struggles as a peoples. I try to rise above and beyond simple metaphor, historical fact, and anecdote and portray fantastical stories where the same or similar struggles are happening but there's more of an uplifting aspect to the struggle and less of a you're-shit-out-luck-no-matter-what-you-do-so-just-give-in.

 

Its hard to describe and that's why I suppose its called literary fiction, lol, maybe this is all too out there, abstract, and anachronistic for Black folks, but I want to inspire with my writing and I want to do it in a way that provoke's people's dreams, imaginations, and passions, which is something that I don't see writers of African origin doing on a large a scale for one reason or another. I just feel defeated sometimes by the state of the Black writer's market and the fact that I have to practically write the next slave narrative and/or urban this-and-that defeatist novella in order to have my work taken seriously.

 

P.S.--Those are exactly the two Octavia Butler books that I can't finish! -_-; lol I'm glad you can enjoy it, but I'm way too over reading about all this sexual violence on a nonstop reel.

Permalink Reply by Kakwasi Somadhi on June 25, 2011 at 2:23pm

I agree with you about the violence and negativity in urban lit.  What journal or magazine will you review appear in? I'd like to read it.

Permalink Reply by Zetta Brown on June 25, 2011 at 2:50pm

It's for New York Journal of Books and it'll be out mid/late July. I'm not going to say the title because I don't want to risk giving anything away--you'll just have to wait until the review goes up LOL. But overall, I will say that I did enjoy the book.

 

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