JustWrite

Okay, so I'm kicking back reading Bad Boys: Why We Love Them, How to Live With Them, When to Leave Them by Carole Lieberman. A girlfriend of mine walks up to me and takes the book out of my hand. She gives me this look that says, "Shame on you for reading a white authors book" (for those that don't know, I'm African American). Anyway, I'm like, "What's the problem?" She first asked me if I was able to understand the lingo in the book since our cultures are much different from each others. Then she's like, "This book wasn't written for you (meaning a black woman), so why take her advice. You should be reading this kind of book coming from a black person so you could at least relate to what they're talking about." Hmmmm ...

I'm just wondering if that was a good point. I mean, when I write novels, I do tend to cater to black folks---I deal with black issues. I'm not racist, I don't think, I just like staying with what I know. Am I alone on this one?????

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xtratorque

Hey,
Believe me I understand what you mean. I'm a white guy from Suburban Boston so I tend to write about what I know and write to the people who came from where I came from. Pretending to write about a group of people you don't know anything about is a waste of energy and talent. All I suggest is that you don't write anything that would alienate anybody. I'm sure that you wouldn't but I'm just mentioning it.

Eric

Nazareth

No, you're not a racist by any stretch. But I think it narrow to limit yourself to reading only black authors while excluding chinese/aisian/mexican/american/russian etc etc etc. Your friend sounds narrow and unwilling to 'waste' time outside of her culture. If anything, I think her mindset borders on racist.

If you choose to write to cater to your culture, there is nothing wrong with that and it is not racist. It's your passion. However I don't beleive that turning up ones nose at someone who chooses to write to multiple cultures is very un-racist for lack of better word.

I don't agree with this- Science fiction writers know nothing of other planetary 'races' yet they produce great books -- some with deep meaning and introspection on our own race

rashadow

That's probably because science fiction writers write fiction, ie they make up a lot of stuff.

I'm a black man myself and I can tell you, I think that it's true that some, not all, white writers are very hard to relate to because they come from a completely different background. But that can be said by and for a lot of people. I think that if you found it pratical for whatever reason you shouldn't care who wrote it. I grew up in a family of addicts and criminals but does that mean that I can't read a book written by a black man that didn't know such a life? Or a white man that did but was from a different hemisphere? Or a chinese woman who can't even speak a word of english? Why wouldn't I want to read and expand my knowledge of things that perhaps I know nothing about? Because I cannot relate? That borders on ridiculous.

If you are a writer, than the best thing that you can ever do for yourself is to read any and everything that ever even slightly interested you.

Read what you will sweetheart

just my opinion...

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Airborneguy

I am sure you can understand the "lingo" as you seemed very literate in your post, but it is absurd for your friend to say something like that. If she cannot understand this supposedly "white" lingo, she will have a hard time being successful because what she is representing as "white" lingo is actually the correct way to speak english.

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JustWrite

I understand what you're trying to say, Airborneguy, but I must ask you this...
What makes "white" lingo so correct? Because it's proper?

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"You can never win the battle if your mind is too weak to fight."
Paula Edwards
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Spudley

Hmmm.... well, that would surely depend on the content of the book in question.

In any case, I got the impression from the original post was that the context of the remark was not saying that the lingo was linguistically wrong, but rather implying that it was culturally wrong to be reading it.

On that I would disagree. If we can't read and learn from each other's cultural perspectives, how can we ever expect to understand each other?

Broaden your mind - read anything and everything.

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Airborneguy

No, look at the quotes. Your friend called it white lingo, I'm just inferring that she must mean regular english. I apologize if my remark was misunderstood. The reason I used the quotes was to show that I do not consider it "white" at all. I just consider it normal english. Pardon my statement, but I imagine she was referring to the lack of slang or at least certain slang in the book as the basis for her statement. Trust me, I meant nothing at all other than the fact that maybe your friend is being a little unreasonable.

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gabriella

Haha, I love it when people bring that up.

It is correct. No matter how offensive that may sound, it's correct. If it's not in the English dictionary, then it's not English, no matter how you want to look at it.

Americans pulled Africans out of their country to become slaves with no education of their cultures - which means, no literacy to speak of save for words they needed to know to do their job efficiently. There was nobody to teach them the proper form of grammar, sentence structure, pronunciation, etc. Not only that, but not all races can pronounce the words of other languages efficiently - for example, any english person would have a hard time pronouncing Chinese words unless given proper lessons on it, something the African slaves didn't have.

There's nothing wrong with it, but the stereotypical idea of how an African-American speaks is incorrect, and that's not racist or anything. Under the same circumstances, any culture would face the same thing.

Not only that, but it's used so often nowadays by white and black adolescents as just a casual form of speech. Nobody wants to speak like their living a Shakespearean play, after all.

I really don't find that African-Americans have a harder time with the language and "big" words than white people do. In any class, the white people are often just as clueless as every other nationality in that room, but some of them end up mastering the language and increasing their vocabulary. That has nothing to do with English.

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Joseph

You took the words right out of my mouth.

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Vixen

When it comes to lingo, I try to follow the advisement of Strunk and E.B. Yes, sometimes you can get away with using non-dictionary terms, ei slang, in stories, and even get published. However, such non-dictionary terms tend to date a work. Very few people would actually like thier work to be remembered as a great peice of writing during a certain time, by a person of a certain culture or geographical area. It would be better to simpley be remebered as a great writer. (Emphasis on that period) Geography is meaningless, and good writing should transcend time. Though Elements of Stlye is rather harsh on slang, I think moderation is key.

Now, back to the actual starting topic. As rashadow said

Do not worry about reading books by thier target audiance. A work should be judged by it's quality, not it's creator, or it's ethnic background. So what if you write what you know, this is not a problem.

As for relating, well, has anyone here read To Kill A Mockingbird? If so, would you consider it a good book? Did you only like it because you too grew up as a white girl, with a lawyer father, in the South? I seriously doubt it.