What would you say if I told you a white supremacist writer has self-published a book depicting "ghetto life" with almost every character trafficking in drugs, prostitution, and murder. The female characters are luridly described as, "a large woman, her legs were as thick as tree trunks. . . . She had a small waist and large booty which switched from side to side with each step she took." Every other chapter includes details about murder or illicit sex and portrays black people as oversexed, drug-dealing, hyper-violent, and psychopathic.
Would it bother you to know book stores carry such pornographic and racist literature? What about high school libraries?
Change "white supremacist writer" to "black novelist" and you'll have the tale of "Oakland Devil," a work of fiction in the fast growing segment know as "gangsta' lit." Renay Jackson, a custodian at the Oakland, CA police department, has written four novels. "I don't try to write for nobody's social conscience or nothin'," says Jackson. "I don't worry about nothin' when I write, I just write. . . . It's, like, fiction. I can say what I want to." His books, part of and increasingly popular genre, share self space next to hardcore titles such as "Thugs and the Women Who Love Them," "One Crazy- Ass Night: A Hardcore Novel," and "Threesome."
Times have definitely changed. In 1984, Alice Walker's "A Color Purple" was removed from an honor's class at Oakland High School because of it's "troubling ideas abou race relations…and human sexuality." Now when books like "Oaktown Devil" disappear from the library shelves its because the students are stealing them. Librarian Iantha Cooper just "shrugs it off and buys more -- occasionally with her own money - - because she's happy to see teenagers so enthused about fiction."
In Alameda, Jackson has joined award-winning authors Ji-LI Jiang and Terry McMillan as a guest speaker at the juvenile hall's Youth Literacy Program. While it might appear odd that a writer of hardcore fiction would be addressing juvenille offenders, the author could view it as securing his readership. His works are popular in jail where the books can even be bought with postage stamps.
As with any culture destroying product, you don't have to look far to find a corporation willing to exploit a trend. Malaika Adero, an editor for a division of Simon and Schuster, is happy to publish such books for the simple reason that "they sell."
"These books, if they haven't crossed over yet, I don't see why they wouldn't, " says Adero, "Surely there will be an Eminem coming around any day."
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It's the same deal with the majority of rap/hip-hop/r&b music; the black culture is promoting and living out the stereotype about which it complains. Non-blacks are buying into it too; rap is cross-culturally popular, and that's one of its biggest attendant problems.
While "white" music certainly is not without its problems, it does tend to have some variety that rap lacks. For example, just listening to some top ten list from MTV or whatever, I bet six or seven of the top ten songs will be rap and that all, maybe one excepted, will have a line in it to the effect of "shake it like a Polaroid picture."
Objecting to this trend is not an expression of prudishness or white supremacy; it is concern for the black culture in America. Of course, all other cultures are not without their problems, but the proliferation of black leaders decrying their culture's own problems should at least get us to wake up and realize that something is wrong, regardless of our agreement or disagreement with the causes promoted by those leaders.
posted on 12.19.2003 10:21 AM3
So again we have a situation where if anything is said against this "novelist" we are considered racist and yet, as you stated, if it were a white person (not even a white supremasist) "writing" this material everyone and their mother would be filing a lawsuit. Sigh...I think I will go back to reading my "dead white guys".
posted on 12.19.2003 10:48 AM4
The Thought Police are so hypocritical. Remember the outrage over Ghetto-opoly? So far, not a peep about this.
posted on 12.19.2003 10:56 AM5
Excellent point, Commissar. Of course Ghetto-opoly was produced by an Asian entrepreneur so I'm sure that had something to do with the outcry.
posted on 12.19.2003 10:58 AM6
"Well at least they're reading"...
Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Personally, i wish i'd never read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It set's a dangerously high standard for drug abuse...
Not that i didn't try...
posted on 12.19.2003 11:34 AM