Thread: African American readers?

Originally Posted by ppsage

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.

You really only need one word: Bede.

Nice to see you Shawn, but a bit more than that I think, Anglo Saxon culture was fairly established in Eastern England by the 500's , there was an English Kingdom by the 700's and it went on until the Normans turned up after the millennium, though a lot of it was in the oral tradition.

Sorry if I started something in your thread Ditch, looking back I think some have difficulty distinguishing between racial and racist, Personally I don't see catering to that demand as much different from catering for a demand for specialist cosmetics and hair products, I was just surprised it existed, I suppose our histories of both immigration and slavery are very different, in some ways the young black people I know are more integrated into the customs and culture of the mainstream society than the children and grandchildren of white Jewish immigrants who arrived here before the second world war. I have been a bit stay at home lately, the period changing between medications is not easy, but I will ask about when I get back to town, if there is a literature over here you may well find it a bit different and interesting.

Sorry if I started something in your thread Ditch, looking back I think some have difficulty distinguishing between racial and racist, Personally I don't see catering to that demand as much different from catering for a demand for specialist cosmetics and hair products, I was just surprised it existed, I suppose our histories of both immigration and slavery are very different, in some ways the young black people I know are more integrated into the customs and culture of the mainstream society than the children and grandchildren of white Jewish immigrants who arrived here before the second world war.

No problem Oily, the entire point of this forum is to help each other write better and to help each other to promote our own work. I never intended to target a black readership, as I have said before. It just turned out that my story had a lot of black people as main characters and African Americans yearn for books in which blacks take a leading role. As you pointed out, the histories of our countries are very different and so are the viewpoints of the people who live here. I really don't see anything racist about any group wanting strong role models within their own race, particularly when historically they have been viewed as second class citizens by prejudice and ignorance.

Saw my friend N today, she is of Indian extraction from Guyana but was born and brought up in South London. She says in Guyana there is a considerable literature, both a Black one and an Indian one, some in patois. They are imported over here, but I think more for the older generation. She is in her early forties and although she will read black authors, like Ben Okri, and reckons other black people do as well, these books are not really 'aimed' and probably have as many, if not more, white readers. She also pointed to people like Ben Zephaniah, the poet, but again a lot of his appeal is to white audiences.

There is also a question of audience size, the USA has more than four times our population, and I would guess that a larger proportion is African in origin.

Nice to see you Shawn, but a bit more than that I think, Anglo Saxon culture was fairly established in Eastern England by the 500's , there was an English Kingdom by the 700's and it went on until the Normans turned up after the millennium, though a lot of it was in the oral tradition.

Yeah, I know. Haha. I was just saying that if one wants to say that there wasn't a distinct era of pre-Conqueror literature, one only has to mention the name "Bede."


On the subject of this thread, there's a huge swath of unrecognized black writers. I went to a university where a large proportion of the student population was black. When I started editing the school's literary review, I found that every single submission that was passed onto me by my faculty supervisor was from a white student, usually female. I like to chalk it up to intrepid spirit, but it was more just to spite my supervisor, my gay, scrawny, white self decided to get some of the black male students to write down their oral tradition: basically just the raps they'd come up with whilst smoking pot behind the performing arts center.

I sort've expected the "b**ches and hos" sort of thing; but I stand corrected and severely humbled by the skill of these people that had never considered writing. That February, the first edition of our literary review was released with over 80% of the works written by African American students. So, I can't say I've ever written for an African American audience, but I have edited for one.

... I got to bite my thumb to my supervisor and increased circulation in one blow; which may have made me very, very happy. That, and I got as many Newports as I could smoke.

Originally Posted by Ditch

No problem Oily, the entire point of this forum is to help each other write better and to help each other to promote our own work. I never intended to target a black readership, as I have said before. It just turned out that my story had a lot of black people as main characters and African Americans yearn for books in which blacks take a leading role. As you pointed out, the histories of our countries are very different and so are the viewpoints of the people who live here. I really don't see anything racist about any group wanting strong role models within their own race, particularly when historically they have been viewed as second class citizens by prejudice and ignorance.

i'd just write what you see from your own viewpoint. it fits with YOUR story, right? there are always going to be people
who try to emotionalize an issue, especially one like this. black writers write about white people from their perspective all the time.
what's the difference?

Before I published my novel about slavery, "...and Remember that I Am a Man.", I entered it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. The first two reviews I received were glowing, but then I got to the quarterfinals and I got slammed. But not for my writing or the quality of the novel. I was slammed because I dared to use Moses Grandy's own narrative as the base for my novel. It was strongly hinted that I was guilty of plagiarism and told I had no right to tell his story. The reviewer didn't say it was because I was white, but it was implied.

No one else has said that, however. My black friends and colleagues and other blacks I met at a racial genetics seminar thought it was great that I was raising awareness of this man. In fact, I got to spend a couple of minutes with L. Douglas Wilder, our Virginia governor who was the first black governor in the nation, and he was interested in my book. I gave him a copy and got an e-mail a few days later that he was looking forward to reading it. If he ever gets back to me and says he enjoyed it, I'll ask him to write a forward and republish it.

I live on land that was once part of the Great Dismal Swamp (before the canal was built in early 1800's) and the swamp plays a role in Louisa May Alcott's writing. Longfellow wrote the poem "A Slave in the Dismal Swamp." The swamp was also a part of the Underground Railroad. I'm interested in the history of my home, both black and white, and make no apologies for writing a story that might make more people interested in our history.

Take Care,

JohnB