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Brian_egeston
Regular Poster
Username: Brian_egeston
Post Number: 28
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 09:38 am: | 
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What is the definition of a Black Book?
Can a white writer pen one?
Does it have to be about Black characters?
Brian
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 307
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 10:16 am: |
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Oh oh. Yukioville again. Well, I'll take a shot:
To me a Black Book is a book that a) features black characters and/or b)covers topics or questions of interest to black people and/or c)is about Black history or culture or features some aspect of it in style or treatment and/or d) is written by a black person.
Under d) above it would not have to be about Black characters--the works of Frank Yerby or Samuel R. Delaney for instance. White writers have written them--they just haven't, for the most part, been pleasing, genuine or good--one of the best I remember was "Black Like Me" |
Crystal
Regular Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 39
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 12:47 pm: |
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I was thinking about this while reading Percival Everett’s newest, American Desert. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t identify the race of the main character and his family but I read them as black. Maybe because I know Everett is black [didn’t he write a rant of some kind about this in either Erasure or Glyph] or maybe something about the speech and actions of the characters. I’m going to read it again later to see if I can figure it out. So I guess it would fit under Chris Hayden’s d) above.
But I don’t think there can be “a” definition of what is a Black Book. Folks have opinions, as we see here on a daily basis.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 635
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 01:01 pm: |
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To me, a black book is about black people. I think a white author could write a black mystery because race would figure very little into the contruction of a suspenseful plot. And, a skilled white writer, through a lot of research and interviewing, could conceiveably write a credible black novel but such an attempt would be met with pre-conceived skepticism on the part of prospective black readers. The true test would be whether the reader was aware of the race of the author of such a book. White authors can and do write commendable non-fiction and biographical books about notable black figures. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 530
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 01:23 pm: |
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I concur with sagacious cynique and comedic chrishayden.
Now, whether or not it is in the black literary tradition, another topic... |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 309
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 01:43 pm: |
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Yukio:
How so? |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 533
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 02:11 pm: |
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Chrishayden: I guess i should have qualified what exactly i meant when i said I concured with u and cynique. For me, the rendering of the book and the issues addressed are what makes a book a black book.
I believe there are books that are by black writers and with black subjects, but their prose, style(s), topics, etc...may not be, as the other thread suggests, idiomatic of a black literary tradition...
For example, you can have a book with black characters with a plot, etc...and it is just a story with characters who happen to be black....or the topics may not be particular to black people, etc...
It is the point that it is solely a universal story, not a universal story rendered in an particular tradition. It is neither a black or a white novel, for it has no cultural relevance.
This is how i assess Bernice McFadden's novel Warmest December. It was a competently rendered story about generational child and drug abuse and how it breaks down a family and the antagonists' journey to embracing her father but not his behavior. Now, I don't quite remember the details, but it could have been a white family and it wouldn't have made a difference.
This just shows the universality of generational drug and child abuse.
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 538
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 05:24 pm: |
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actually, chrishayden, the cultural symbols in mcfaddens' the warmest december, do u agree thumper and others, referrenced black culture...hmmm...i guess that wasn't a good example, but hopefully u got my point...maybe not? |
Thumper
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 172
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 08:48 pm: |
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Hello All,
Thanks Brian for bringing up this question. It has been a while since we examined it.
I don't know if I can definitively state as to whether a book is "black" or not. There have been a few books written by white authors that have fooled me. Naturally we can say that if the atuhor is black or the characters are black then its a black book. But, here lately, I have seen a few books that is void of any blackness at all and the author is black. I guess, I'm looking for a certain feeling in order to determine whether a book is black or not. I can only illustrate my point by using the telephone. You all know when you pick up a phone most of us can identify or get an ideal of the person by his/her voice as to whether the person is black, white, or a black person that's trying to talk "white", etc. Quickly, very quickly, we assess the caller's tone, diction, word choice, etc in order to say I'm talking to a black/white person. I think this same method can be and is applied to books. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 542
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 08:57 pm: |
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thumper: interesting ...the "phone voice theory"...this is why i changed my assessment of mcfaddens' warmest december, because I remembered the tone, style, etc...seemed "black."
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Brian_egeston
Regular Poster
Username: Brian_egeston
Post Number: 29
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 09:36 pm: |
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So does James Patterson write Black books? Alex Cross is a Black man, isn't he? Was Huck Finn a Black book? |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 545
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 10:12 pm: |
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hmmm...james patterson, his characterizations of black folk are more pseudo-sociological than anything else...also, his assessment of Cross and his family is part of the background....so I say no...i've only read jack and jill...so i can't speak on the others! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 643
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 12:17 am: |
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In the James Patterson books I've read about Alex Cross, Cross operates in a diverse setting, so he is actually a black character in a multi-cultured arena. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 310
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 09:46 am: |
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Brian:
Patterson doesn't write black books. He writes books with black people in them. Just like Joel Chandler Harris, Faulkner, Kyle Onstott, Dubose Heyward, Carl Van Vechten, etc. The story Huckleberry Finn is about Huckleberry Finn. Nigger Jim is a supporting character What do you think of the unsupported theory that Twain
based Huck on a little black boy?) |
Bimsha
Newbie Poster
Username: Bimsha
Post Number: 23
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 01:01 pm: |
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okay - Susan Straight - I been in sorrows kitchen and licked out all the pots -- never finished it - but before I saw the author's picture I assumed she was a black woman - well we know now that the woman was white and from what I've heard and what I know from my short experience with the book - Susan penned a black book and penned it quite well. |
Blkmalereading
Regular Poster
Username: Blkmalereading
Post Number: 49
Registered: 02-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 09:15 pm: |
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A Black book has an Africanism to it in some form or fashion. Even if it just boils down to the writer simply having African ancestors. Frank Yerby's books mostly had white characters. Gordon Parks also wrote a book with all Irish characters. It was actually pretty good.
I guess you guys are only speaking about African-American authors? Because some of these thoughts wouldn't hold true for Black folks who live in other parts of the world.
Even Thumper's test of the voice wouldn't hold true in this instance. |
Whistlingwoman
Newbie Poster
Username: Whistlingwoman
Post Number: 23
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 11:32 pm: |
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Bimsha mentioned Susan Straight and she's a writer I have read and enjoyed. She's a white writer but, in my opinion, she writes Black books. This is based on the characters, the situations, the environment, the language, etc. My favorite of her five (?) novels is The Gettin' Place - a small story well told.
Now, Richard Price also writes books with Black lead characters but I don't consider them black books simply because of the fact that they are crime novels (which in my mind is it's own category) and that trumps it all because the genre is so big.
Basically, all that to say, I have a judging system that doesn't seem to adhere to anything but my own specific ideas.
Anyone else familiar with Straight or Price? How do they figure into the equation for you?
Whistling Woman |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 555
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2004 - 03:35 am: |
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blkmalereading: I think they would; caribbean and african novels often have distinctive style...being of african descent is insufficient...PE writes fiction--neither black nor white. It would be interesting to read a book with white charactes but rendered in black motifs:african, african american, caribbean, etc... |
High_density
Newbie Poster
Username: High_density
Post Number: 3
Registered: 08-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 07, 2004 - 05:45 pm: |
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Why is it even necessary to define literature as either black or white? Bottom-line is that our human experiences are more alike than unlike. For me, each book is a unique experience that reflects the author's attempt to explain the human experience through his or her creativity. I'm currently reading a great book, penned by a white writer about a unique human experience involving black people: The Secret Life of Bees by Susan Monk Kidd. A beautiful story about a young woman's southern life journey and discovery. Simply just another good book..... |
Bleekindigo
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Bleekindigo
Post Number: 85
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 12:12 pm: |
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When I go into mainstream bookstores, many times, whether the book is Alice Walker's, Color Purple, John Mcwhorter's, Authentically Black, Toni Morrison's, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, or Terry McMillans, Waiting to exhale, they are all in the "Black Book Section". Not in the sociology or psychology or political sections but "the black book section" which implies that the folks at the bookstores define black books as any book on any subject written by a black person. So, the author of the work is the determining factor for them. If the author is black, then the book is a black book. The only part of this defining of the black book that I agree with is the author being black fact.
I cannot see a black book being named such if the author him/herself is not black. While I cannot say that I believe that there is a set outline that a book must follow to be considered a "black book", I have to say that a black author seems to me to be a given in the equation. A book written by a chinese author -peopled with black characters, about a black issue, makes it a book written by a chinese author about a black issue and black characters, but not a black book.
High_density:
Even if our human experiences are "...more alike than un-alike." What of the unlike element?
There is difference between a Flannery O'Connor an Alice Walker and an Amy Tan. Their experiences will be different, their cultures are different and so the story they tell, even if it is the same story will be different even in all of their "human" glory.
It makes me nervouse when folks try to mask our differences with the fact that we are all human. What does that mean really? "We are all human." Does it mean anything besides we are all living beings that share the same anatomical make up? And Even then really, that is not always the case--so really, what does "We are all human" really mean?
I think that we should embrace our differences just as we do our likenesses. Being human always seems to be the taste of the day where race is concerned. It is convenient. It's a copout, an evasion and a ripoff!
Bleek- |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1257
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 05:24 pm: |
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I'm trying to remember what the consensus was when we posed this quesion once before. Could a black person write a credible book about white people? What do you ladies think? |
Soulofaauthor
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Soulofaauthor
Post Number: 101
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 07:55 pm: |
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miss_wysteria didnt Earnest Gaines the same man who wrote a lesson before dying write the autobiograhy of miss Jane Pittman and isn't he a black man? |
Soulofaauthor
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Soulofaauthor
Post Number: 102
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 08:20 pm: |
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Ok girl lol you had me confused for a minute cause I was like dang I can't tell a big man from a white one now.Anyway Mrs Tyson is a very talented woman and she should take pride in that she proved all of them wrong in the end cause shes a dang good actress.I am surprised that she had that problem since she is such a fine actress.I was really surprised when speilberg directed the color purple.I always felt such a important movie should have been done by a African American.I still felt he done a good job and still cry when I see it.I use to have this book call mammies,popas,mulattos and bucks by Donald Goines and in that book he talks alot about the injustices blacks had in hollywood.It's a good book I have got to find it again.I guess it's one of those books I lost when I moved from my old house. |
Soulofaauthor
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Soulofaauthor
Post Number: 105
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 09:24 pm: |
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miss_wysteria that book mammies,popas,mulattos,and bucks was written by Donald Bogle not Donald Goines.I guess I must been thinking about Goines.Maybe it's time for me to dust off some of his old books and reread them. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 1154
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 09, 2004 - 10:30 am: |
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I think virtually all of the nuances of this particular issue have been eloquently cited here and elsewhere. Thus, I'll try to avoid belaboring any of your points.
However, I'll ask all of you the following:
@ Is it important/vital that African American Literature be separately/specifically defined/catagorized/identified? And why?
@ How does doing such help and/or hurt the genre?
@ Lastly, does and/or should the genre exist purely/solely for the edification and pleasure of Black people? And why? |
Soulofaauthor
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Soulofaauthor
Post Number: 109
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 09, 2004 - 07:36 pm: |
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Really Abm I don't think it should be.To me good literature is good literature no matter who writes it.Say for instance most walmart's have a African American section in their stores.And I usually go straight to it.So I am thinking some of the other's mainly white's skip over it for what ever reason.I they might be missing out on some real good literature simply because they don't check in the African American section for a good book.Also we don't really need a label.We don't go in walden or barnes and noble and see Eupropean American section do we? I guess I somewhat answered all of your questions. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1275
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 09, 2004 - 08:45 pm: |
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Soulofaauthor, I think we're on the same page. When it comes to preferences it's about what you look for in a book, whether you want a book that deals with the familiar and with characters who you can empathize with, or whether you want a book that will take you away from the familiar and acquaint you with strangers. Obviously one will entertain you and the other might enlighten you. With this in mind I am inclined to believe that a person of one race could write a book about people of another color when it comes to the genre of mystery or horror, subjects that deal with the universal emotions of fear and bafflement. So a black mystery could be written by a white author. And a white horror story could be written by a black author. Am I making any sense??? |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 1177
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 10, 2004 - 12:40 pm: |
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Ladies,
Thanks for your responses. And I concur with them. Isn't it ironic how we often see fit to maintain strictures that are analogous to those that our parents fought to abolish.
I have often read doubt expressed here about whether non-Black people can pen books that accurately portray authentic Black life. I disagree with that sentiment.
I think a person who has talent, skill and true experience in and empathy for the African American experience can. Of course they'll probably have to spend more time research/clarifying some of our more unique social/cultural elements/criteria. But if they are serious, deligent, respectful...and can WRITE, they can pull it off.
We should all be free to creatively explore the full expanse of the human experience. But we (especially Black) people can't really achieve that level of freedom if we our ownselves erect walls. Because the very barriers that keep others out are what keep us imprisoned within.
Cynique says: "Am I making any sense???
ABM says: Amazing enuff, Babe...you are. (hehe!) |
Soulofaauthor
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Soulofaauthor
Post Number: 113
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 10, 2004 - 08:16 pm: |
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Yes Cynique you made alot of sense girlfriend.Ok I am going to say this one of my favorite writers is not African American.She writes historical romances.And to be honest she is somewhat credited for my love of not only reading but writing.Johanna Lindsey I love her work.I have every book she has ever wrote and if you look into it that almost forty.Anyway at my house I have a African American library and a non African American library.That's where my kids and husband's Dean koontz's and Stephen King's,and of course my Johanna Lindsey's book's goes.My husband is for ever trying to put his books anywhere{and of course I throw a fit).But I guess I said all that to say I just love a good book no matter who wrote it. |
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