Monday, October 26, 2009

Their Eyes Were Reading Smut














The following is an article by Nick Chiles, the editor in chief of Odyssey Colour Magazine.

He is also the co-author w/ Denene Millner of, "A Love Story"
This article was published a while ago in the New York Times.
What is your opinion?
Has "street-lit" been a blessing or a curse?
Should African-American books be lumped together in one section?
What kinds of books do you enjoy reading?
Last month I happened to go into the Borders Books store at the Stonecrest mall in Lithonia, Ga., about a half-hour from my house here. To my surprise, it had one of the largest collections of books by black authors that I've ever seen outside an independent black bookstore, rows and rows of bookcases. This is the sort of discovery that makes the pulse quicken, evidence of a population I've spent most of my professional life seeking: African-American readers. What a thrill to have so much space in a major chain store devoted to this country's black writers.

With an extra spring in my step, I walked into the "African-American Literature" section - and what I saw there thoroughly embarrassed and disgusted me.

On shelf after shelf, in bookcase after bookcase, all that I could see was lurid book jackets displaying all forms of brown flesh, usually half-naked and in some erotic pose, often accompanied by guns and other symbols of criminal life. I felt as if I was walking into a pornography shop, except in this case the smut is being produced by and for my people, and it is called "literature."

As a black author, I had certainly become familiar with the sexualization and degradation of black fiction. Over the last several years, I had watched the shelves of black bookstores around the country and the tables of street vendors, particularly in New York City, become overrun with novels that seemed to appeal exclusively to our most prurient natures - as if these nasty books were pairing off back in the stockrooms like little paperback rabbits and churning out even more graphic offspring that make Ralph Ellison books cringe into a dusty corner.

Early last year I walked into a B. Dalton bookstore in a New Jersey mall where the manager had always proudly told me how well my books were selling. This time, I was introduced to a new manager who was just as proud to show me an enhanced black books section teeming with this new black erotica. I've also noticed much more of this oversexed genre in Barnes & Noble bookstores over the past few months, although it's harder to see there since the chain doesn't appear to have separate black fiction sections.

But up until that visit to Borders in Lithonia, I had thought this mostly a phenomenon of the black retail world, where the black bookstore owners and street vendors say they have to stock what sells, and increasingly what sells are stories that glorify and glamorize black criminals. The genre has been described by different names; "ghetto fiction" and "street lit" are two I've heard most often. Apparently, what we are now seeing is the crossover of this genre to mainstream bookstores.

But the placard above this section of Borders in Lithonia didn't say "Street Lit," it said "African-American Literature." We were all represented under that placard, the whole community of black authors - from me to Terry McMillan and Toni Morrison, from Yolanda Joe and Benilde Little to Edward P. Jones and Kuwana Haulsey - surrounded and swallowed whole on the shelves by an overwhelming wave of titles and jackets that I wouldn't want my 13-year-old son to see: "Hustlin' Backwards." "Legit Baller." "A Hustler's Wife." "Chocolate Flava."

I've heard defenders say that the main buyers of these books, young black women, have simply found something that speaks to them, and that it's great that they're reading something. I'd agree if these books were a starting point, and that readers ultimately turned to works inspired by the best that's in us, not the worst.

But we're not seeing evidence of that. On Essence magazine's list of best sellers at black bookstores, for example, authors of street lit now dominate, driving out serious writers. Under the heading "African-American Literature," what's available is almost exclusively pornography for black women.

As I stood there in Borders, I had two sensations: I was ashamed and mortified to see my books sitting on the same shelves as these titles; and secondly, as someone who makes a living as a writer I felt I had no way to compete with these purveyors of crassness.

That leaves me wondering where we - writers, publishers, readers, the black community - go from here. Is street fiction some passing fad, or does it represent our future? It's depressing that this noble profession, one that I aspired to as a child from the moment I first cracked open James Baldwin and Gabriel García Márquez about 30 years ago, has been reduced by the greed of the publishing industry and the ways of the American marketplace to a tasteless collection of pornography.

I realize that publishing is a business, but publishers also have a responsibility to balance street lit with more quality writing. After all, how are we going to explain ourselves to the next generation of writers and readers who will wonder why they have so little to read of import and value produced in the early 21st century, why their founts of inspiration are so parched?

At times, I push myself away from the computer in anger. I don't want to compete with "Legit Baller." But then I come across something like "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones and again I am inspired.

But I must say that I retain very little of the hope and excitement and enthusiasm that I had when my first book was published eight years ago. I feel defeated, disrespected and troubled about the future of my community and my little subsection of this carnivorous, unforgiving industry.

How do you feel after reading this article?

Learn more about Nick Chiles: http://www.celebrateblacklove.com/

To learn more about RL Taylor: http://www.rltayloronline.com

3 comments:

  1. I agree somewhat with what Nick Childs had to say. I prefer buying first prints of books because sometimes they have plain cover. The pics on the cover don't attract my attention the title and they synopsis sway my decision. However, if a good looking guy is on the cover I will give it a look. I do love reading the Urban lit/African American literature.

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  2. Regarding your question, "Should African American writers be in one section," I don't think so. The books should be in sections for literature, non-fiction, etc., then alphabetically by the author's last name. I can understand why a book store might have a set-apart section for African American writers for customers' convenience, but based on what you report about the type of books that dominate the shelves in that section, it would be preferable to dispense with the practice. I anticipate publishing my first book as soon as I find an agent, if we can avoid Marshal Law long enough - "The Cochran Firm Fraud." (Google for that online.) Like you, I would not care to see my work suffocated by soft porn. Another remedy might be for bookstores to start a "soft porn" section separate from regular African American literature.

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  3. I have to agree with ick 1000%! All you see are books that glorify the gangsta and/or street life lifestyle, and that's sad. Its telling publishers and bookstores that we won't read a non-fiction novel about our history or even a book about Blacks in Politics, but we rush to the store to pick up Pookie and 'nem doping and shooting, and sexing everybody in the hood!

    As and author and a lover of reader, I only buy romance books...but rather than the books by my favorite authors being in the Romance section of the store, I have to go to the AA section to find their books smashed between "Ride or Die Chick" and "Thug Luvin'"! There are nothing wrong with the Urban/Street genre, but it appears that they all have the same plot with a different title...money, drugs, car, clothes, and whores...as if there are no other struggles in the "hood" but that.

    Placing all authors in one area because of race can effectively lose some of your fan base because they may not even know to look in that area. For example, I found my niece reading a book in the Twilight series I quickly went to the store to introduce her to LA Banks, unfortunately, her books which span several genere's were all clumped together because she is an AA author. That is not fair to Ms. Banks because she is more than a Black Author, she is a skilled writer of various genre's and whose fan base is not all black.

    I honestly believe that street fiction has gotten a generation of non readers to read, but at what cost? What is the grade level of most of the novels? If the newspaper is written on a n 8th grade level, is it safe to say that street fiction are written on an 4th grade level? Whose to say...but Nick Chiles hit the nail on the head, AA literature in some ways resemble soft porn...after-all isn't that how Zane makes her money or got her start????

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