This was the topic of the day yesterday.
For those of you that aren’t fortunate enough to read the piece in it’s entirety, I saved the text to my email and will quote the gist of it here:
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.
I’ve responded on Felicia Pride’s blog:
This is certainly the topic of the day, isn’t it? LOL! I don’t get into those books (tried reading one and my eyes immediately started hurting) but I do not doubt that there is a place for them. However, there needs to be balance and I don’t think they should represent the majority of our literary diet.
… and on funkdigital:
The mere existance of these books is bad enough without it being catagorized with the more legit stuff. Justify it however you like, but I don’t like the way they dominate black literature.
…and on Simply Fred Smith:
While I agree that these books are tacky, badly-written, sensationalistic and just overall trash, I don’t think we should try to hold them to the same standard as the more legit works. But that’s the only defense I have for them. I’m just annoyed by how nowadays they represent the majority of black lit, at least according to the booksellers. It’s downright insulting. You would think that was all we were reading. The quality of the books is bad too. A lot of them haven’t even been within sniffing distance of an editor.
and I responded to Danyel Smith’s comment on Rod 2.0 via email (snippet):
I don’t disagree that there is a market for everything and every writer has a place, but I think the main thing that bugs people like me is how these low-quality, low-brow books represent the majority of black fiction, at least in the minds of booksellers…I mean, I’m no booksnob, I love Jackie Collins, but a lot of these ….books are being published at breakneck speed with little regard to quality or the english language. I’m all for some true-to-life, gritty storytelling, but I think there are still certain things that need to be adhered to in the case of novel-writing….I won’t dog anyone for reading them, but I think there needs to be more balance.
This list is more or less to help me make sure my views are consistent. I hope they appear to be. But my main thing is, this ain’t about “write and let write”, “read and let read” or even “if you don’t like it, don’t read it.” It’s about representation and balance, or lack thereof.
I am open to criticism if my views appear a little knee-jerk. In fact, here’s some ammo: I thought about writing one of these books to see if it would get my foot in the door, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
GO!!
