Thread: African American readers?

Originally Posted by WriterJohnB

Geez, there's no place to send a message on this forum? I'll get back to you as soon as I get off my work computer, which banned your link. By the way, Moses Grandy was from Camden County, NC and much of my novel takes place there.

Take care,

JohnB

What a great turn of events and publicity for your book, good for you John. I saw your work on the AALBC forum.

Originally Posted by JosephB

There are even websites that offer fiction specifically aimed at African Americans – so apparently someone thinks it’s a good idea. I’m betting it’s African Americans, who don’t really care about white people who try to tell them what’s good for them.

that's a terrible distortion of my point. i don't try and tell any group, real or imagined, what's good for them. partly because there's no point and i don't have the authority to do it, but mostly because i just don't recognize the existence of 'them' in the first place. if groups must exist, they should be formed on the basis of an interest that is both common among those within the group and distinct from the interests and opinions of those who are not. you prove to me that the average black man has distinct opinions and interests from me, a white man, stemming from his race and i'll be the first to champion 'african american literature'.

but no, black people do not constitute such a group, and the insistence that they do is symptomatic of the racial divide that persists in america - thanks both to black and white people - and has no intellectual merit. and so what if a lot of black people think its a good idea? there's a lot of black people think homosexuality is a sin. are we to presume that view is also that of 'black people' and therefore has validity too? of course not. being interested in and opposed to slavery is not a 'black' view unless it is one white people do not also have, and there are virtually no white people in the 21st century that believe slavery to be a good thing. so there you go.

like i said, i don't care if african-american literature exists one way or another, but i will not hold back from saying it is no more legitimate a genre than putting up a shelf labelled 'white anglo-saxon literature' and shoving the complete works of dickens or shakespeare under it. its true that this is not a debate area, and to be honest i never tried to debate it. my initial post was actually to tell olly that there were areas in UK bookshops containing 'black literature' and then to answer the OP's question about whether or not i target the african-american market by saying i don't and that i don't like the idea of targeting audiences based on race. an entirely valid post that the OP then felt the need to press me on. but no, i did not initiate the debate, i simply addressed the responses of the OP to my initial post. and i must ask that you kindly do not distort my words.

I don't see anyone twisting your words, they stand out... alone..

i'm pretty 'whatever' about it because i'm white and as such their existence is pretty irrelevant to me.

I'm having difficulty understanding how you plead to be so not racist, when you say that their existence is irrelevant.




what racist crap goes into deciding what makes an AFRICAN-AMERICAN book anyway? does it have to be set in the ghetto? does it have to star lil'kim? does everyone eat fried chicken? give me a break, its such a fundamentally racist concept.

Do you see how this statement sounds? Did'nt you mention negative stereotyping? Like below?


thereby encouraging negative stereotypes and giving less-talented writers preference on the basis of their subject matter.


is the suggestion that black people have specific common interests? that really sounds quite racist to me.

Yes they do, and their interests are many. To increase minority representation in all levels of government from the city school boards on up to the highest levels of government. To end discriminatory practices that still exist; particularly in arrests and beatings that are obviously racially motivated. To educate their own race toward repairing the obvious breakdown of the traditional family through unwed pregnancy which was unheard of in the 60's in black families. To address the unemployment rate and imprisonment ratio of young black males. There is also, believe it or not, a keen interest in slavery and the contributions of black people in history, to name just a few. It may be hard for a white person to understand this as they were not raised with the yoke of discrimination around their neck.


as far as i'm concerned, black history is human history.

See the above paragraph. White were never enslaved in this country or denied basic civil rights such as voting, equal education or even being able to drink from the same water fountain. their history is vastly different.


but 'black' is not in itself a valid culture, an interest or a 'group'. sorry but it isn't.

I know a lot of blacks that would debate this point with you. That statement alone is so ludicrous I won't even begin to address it.


and i didn't call you racist. when did i ever accuse anybody of racism?

See your above comments.




aside from slavery, which ended almost one hundred a fifty years ago and which i guarantee you'll be hard pressed to find a single black man or woman outside of a history classroom. who considers it an interest of theirs.

The remaining plantations along with the preserved slave quarters continue to be well visited by people with an avid interest in their particular history. I myself visited the slave huts on Belize, long before I ever thought of writing about slaves. A lot of literature is devoted to this era. a quick Google search might just educate you on this topic if you try.

Originally Posted by Ditch

I'm having difficulty understanding how you plead to be so not racist, when you say that their existence is irrelevant.

wrong. i said their existence was irrelevant to me. meaning its not an area of the bookstore i would tend to stop at, along with the gardening and cookbooks. whats racist about that?

Do you see how this statement sounds? Did'nt you mention negative stereotyping?

whats wrong with that statement? i didn't say i agreed with it. on the contrary, i cited it as an example of stereotypes. which i said repeatedly i am against

Yes they do, and their interests are many. To increase minority representation in all levels of government from the city school boards on up to the highest levels of government. To end discriminatory practices that still exist; particularly in arrests and beatings that are obviously racially motivated. To educate their own race toward repairing the obvious breakdown of the traditional family through unwed pregnancy which was unheard of in the 60's in black families. To address the unemployment rate and imprisonment ratio of young black males. There is also, believe it or not, a keen interest in slavery and the contributions of black people in history, to name just a few. It may be hard for a white person to understand this as they were not raised with the yoke of discrimination around their neck.

see, problem with those 'black interests' is that they're not specific to the black community. sorry to burst your bubble on that one, but most of those issues are common to all races (discriminatory practices that still exist, breakdown of the traditional family through unwed pregnancy, etc) and have increasingly been for quite a few years now. the only issues there that i can agree with as being of specific pertinence to the AA community are the ones to do with historical slavery and current day high levels of imprisonment. you're correct that those are two issues that are particular to black people, given the nature of the slave trade and the fact black men are over-represented in the prison system. but, here's where you still have a problem. its NOT just black people to be interested in these things. i recently went to the movies to watch the movie 'the help', about segregation in the deep south, and the majority of the audience were actually white. and this was in columbus, ohio, which is a pretty mixed area. so my point is that the issues you mention which are the most relevant to the black community are not demanded solely, or even predominantly, by a black audience. the audience is all colors. which is why i disagree about the need to construct a genre about it, since all that creating a genre does is create boundaries.

let me put it another way. if you write a book about slavery and put it in the general fiction, white folks like me will probably make up at least half, and maybe even more, of those who buy and probably enjoy the book. the same book placed in a section labelled 'african american' will not have the same result. that isn't because we're racist, its just that you've categorized it in a way that might limit our access to it, in much the same way that an african american reader probably wont go look in the 'latin american' section, or somebody who doesn't dive won't go look in the diving section. in the case of a specific interest, thats fine, because somebody who is not interested in diving probably wouldnt care to read a diving book. they would be indifferent to it. but when it comes to novels on, say, slavery that is something EVERYONE can and arguably should read about and understand. so what good does it do to label it 'african american'? if it predominantly appeals to african americans thats fine, but by actively targeting them and labelling it a certain way you have to understand you may be alienating a potential white, latin or asian audience who would otherwise gain a lot from reading it.

White were never enslaved in this country or denied basic civil rights such as voting, equal education or even being able to drink from the same water fountain. their history is vastly different.

obviously that's true, but so what? does that mean only black people should want to read about it? black history is human history because black people are part of the human species. the history of slavery is as relevant to white people as ancient greek history is to black people. it doesnt matter if white people were never slaves any more than it matters that black people never wrote 'the iliad' or shakespeare. all these things form a part of modern humanity through the history they're a part of, and as such no race has any business to claim authority over them.

I know a lot of blacks that would debate this point with you.

so what?

The remaining plantations along with the preserved slave quarters continue to be well visited by people with an avid interest in their particular history. I myself visited the slave huts on Belize, long before I ever thought of writing about slaves. A lot of literature is devoted to this era. a quick Google search might just educate you on this topic if you try.

yeah, um, that's my whole point. the slave quarters do continue to be well visited by PEOPLE. not black, not white, but all races. i remember visiting a similar ex-plantation in south carolina. i'd say three quarters of the people there were white. i never said there wasnt a lot of literature on the subject. i don't know if you're just dumb or perhaps you've pigeonholed me to the point where you're going to continue to misunderstand me ad nauseam, but my point is NOT that i don't think what you describe as 'african american' history is pointless or irrelevant, but that the act of labelling it as such is pointless and irrelevant. saying a book on slavery is an african american book is like saying 'schindler's list' is a jewish history movie. yes, it may technically be correct but it really understates the importance of the issue. the holocaust is for the whole world to learn about, and so is slavery.

I won't continue to try to make you agree that certain things peak the interest of blacks, more so because they are black, but it is painfully obvious to me, having worked closely with them all of my life. Go on believing as you do, it is not a group or a culture.

thanks, i will. and hopefully someday you'll realize people are made up of free-thinking individuals and not arbitrary groups.

Got it...


ar·bi·trar·y

   [ahr-bi-trer-ee] Show IPA adjective,noun, plural -trar·ies.
adjective1.subject to individual will or judgment without restriction;contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.

2.decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law orstatute.

3.having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law;despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.

4.capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demandfor payment.

5.Mathematics . undetermined; not assigned a specific value:an arbitrary constant.

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To educate their own race toward repairing the obvious breakdown of the traditional family through unwed pregnancy which was unheard of in the 60's in black families.

The longer I live the more convinced I become that most people involved in online discussion are motivated more by seeing their names up in lights than by the opinions they supposedly hold. Applying this statement to blacks only is clearly ridiculous, and no one who thinks about it for a few moments before posting would continue with the posting.

Put another way, it’s pretty obvious there aren’t many thinkers here.

Originally Posted by luckyscars

that's a terrible distortion of my point. i don't try and tell any group, real or imagined, what's good for them. partly because there's no point and i don't have the authority to do it, but mostly because i just don't recognize the existence of 'them' in the first place. if groups must exist, they should be formed on the basis of an interest that is both common among those within the group and distinct from the interests and opinions of those who are not. you prove to me that the average black man has distinct opinions and interests from me, a white man, stemming from his race and i'll be the first to champion 'african american literature'.

but no, black people do not constitute such a group, and the insistence that they do is symptomatic of the racial divide that persists in america - thanks both to black and white people - and has no intellectual merit. and so what if a lot of black people think its a good idea? there's a lot of black people think homosexuality is a sin. are we to presume that view is also that of 'black people' and therefore has validity too? of course not. being interested in and opposed to slavery is not a 'black' view unless it is one white people do not also have, and there are virtually no white people in the 21st century that believe slavery to be a good thing. so there you go.

like i said, i don't care if african-american literature exists one way or another, but i will not hold back from saying it is no more legitimate a genre than putting up a shelf labelled 'white anglo-saxon literature' and shoving the complete works of dickens or shakespeare under it. its true that this is not a debate area, and to be honest i never tried to debate it. my initial post was actually to tell olly that there were areas in UK bookshops containing 'black literature' and then to answer the OP's question about whether or not i target the african-american market by saying i don't and that i don't like the idea of targeting audiences based on race. an entirely valid post that the OP then felt the need to press me on. but no, i did not initiate the debate, i simply addressed the responses of the OP to my initial post. and i must ask that you kindly do not distort my words.

Well, you’re looking at this strictly in black and white terms -- so to speak. But it’s not that cut and dried. Of course -- interests or opinions aren’t going to be 100% distinct to black people or white people – no one is claiming that’s the case -- so I don’t have to prove anything. What we are talking about is cultural, historical or issue oriented subject matter that might appeal or pertain to black people more than white people -- because of the greater likelihood of some shared experience. That’s what makes it “legitimate” -- maybe not to you -- but to the people who might want to read it for that reason. Unless you were appointed the Great Arbiter of Legitimacy -- and we just haven’t heard about it.

And I never said that being interested or opposed to slavery is uniquely a “black view” or of interest only to black people. I don’t see that slavery as subject matter is some mandatory feature of all African American literature -- so you can save the “there you go.” Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to assume that it might be of more interest to African Americans, given that slavery and it’s legacy is the at the core of the their common experience.

There isn’t a category called "White Anglo-Saxon literature" -- because there has never been a need for it. There are uniquely African American institutions and traditions that were necessitated by segregation. Those things are declining in importance and relevance -- black colleges, Miss Black America pageants etc. -- but it’s black people who are determining when and how it happens. Apparently -- as time passes, more black Americans aren’t seeing them as a “good idea,” or that there is still a need for them. Someday, the same will likely be true for “African American Literature” as a category and there will no longer be a need or demand for it either. Otherwise, it’s absurd to compare any of these -- things that arose from necessity -- to something like a belief that homosexuality is a sin -- what a bizarre analogy. Your thinking speaks to my earlier point -- that you see yourself as more qualified to evaluate what might be a good idea for black people than they are. I think that's unlikely -- and I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that this is because you are not black.

I see the idea of African American literature or books targeted to that market as detrimental only if it promotes ideas that are divisive -- rather than simply acknowledging a shared experience through character portrayals and storylines. If there is a demand for books that do this -- then of course publishers just might try to satisfy it by offering those books -- and retail and online outlets might market them as a separate category. I think you’d have to go out of your way to see this as something harmful -- and I’m betting that most people outside the black community wouldn’t have a problem with the idea -- or they probably don’t care -- so it seems like a stretch to suggest that it somehow could widen or perpetuate the racial divide. And if some people outside the African American community are uncomfortable with the idea or feel it’s a problem -- too bad. Black people will decide whether or not it's "legitimate" -- and when and if there is no longer a need for it.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

The longer I live the more convinced I become that most people involved in online discussion are motivated more by seeing their names up in lights than by the opinions they supposedly hold. Applying this statement to blacks only is clearly ridiculous, and no one who thinks about it for a few moments before posting would continue with the posting.

I don't think he's suggesting that this a problem unique to African Americans. That would be ridiculous. However -- the problem is disproportionally large among African Americans. It’s not ridiculous to say that it’s something that needs to be addressed and resolved within the community. Maybe if you lived here you'd know that.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Put another way, it’s pretty obvious there aren’t many thinkers here.

Mmm Hmm.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

The longer I live the more convinced I become that most people involved in online discussion are motivated more by seeing their names up in lights than by the opinions they supposedly hold. Applying this statement to blacks only is clearly ridiculous, and no one who thinks about it for a few moments before posting would continue with the posting.

Put another way, it’s pretty obvious there aren’t many thinkers here.

I'm going by what is reported as the number of children born out of wedlock, which anyone can tell you has skyrocketed in the black population, from their own studies.

Originally Posted by JosephB

I don't think he's suggesting that this a problem unique to African Americans. That would be ridiculous. However -- the problem is disproportionally large among African Americans. It’s not ridiculous to say that it’s something that needs to be addressed and resolved within the community. Maybe if you lived here you'd know that.

Exactly, just as there is a disproportionate number of blacks in our prison systems as compared to the population. Some of the most vocal African Americans like Bill Cosby point this out and blame those of their own race, not others.

Although nobody's contributed to it for over a thousand years, there is certainly a body of work known as Anglo-Saxon literature. I'm not sure anybody really knows exactly what color they were but my suspicion is, if you got them washed off some, and shaved, they'd be fairly pale.

Like or believe it or not, blacks are a separate group and a culture. They do read and have certain distinct interests. I've had 1,963 views of my work in less than 3 weeks.

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