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Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1628
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 03:08 pm: | 
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Reading Too Much Into Race
By Carleen Brice
Wshington Post Sunday, December 21, 2008; B04
http://tinyurl.com/a8t4sh
..."The accepted wisdom of the publishing industry is that books by black authors should be marketed to black audiences; after that, hopefully, they will cross over to whites and others. This is what a writer friend of mine was told when she wrote her first book. Ten books later, she has yet to cross over, despite respectable sales and favorable reviews. Without that crossover success, she's having a hard time finding a publisher for her latest literary novel. One editor rejected her latest work with the comment that it was beautifully written, but since there hadn't been a new "breakout" African American author in years, she would have to pass on it...
You can find a video related to this article here: http://aalbc.com/authors/carleen_brice.htm |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 717
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 05:38 pm: |
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Hello All,
I disagree with that premise that if the black audience loves it that hopefully it will cross over to the white book reading audience. This has never been the case. The black author either had to initially breaking into the upper white echelon of the white reading audience and then have their success trickle down to the black audience (I'm thinking Toni Morrison here or even how Bill Clinton brought Walter Mosley to everyone's attention) or the black author would need an EXCELLENT movie version of their book to make it from the black crossover to the white audience.
Understand a few years ago when the negro was in vogue again, THEN was the time for the white reading audience to catch on to black authors due to the fact that prior to that the popular collective thought in the publishing industry was that black folks could not write good fiction or good literary fiction. Hence the reason their was only a handful of black authors that anyone could find at any bookstore, again Morrison, even Alice Walker comes to mind. While this period introduced some wonderful, fabulous black writers the market become oversaturate due to books that were written on the same subject over and over again and the publishers recognizing, notice I did not say RESPECTING, that there was a black book reading audience. So, the recently newly published black author who had the skills and the stories were lumped into the same gangsta, half illiterate written books; thereby, instead of destroying the notion that black writers can not write well written fiction, the notion that black folks could not write or that the quality of the writing was sub par was reinforced instead. When you throw in that now those books stop selling, well the black author is not only back where he started, but 5 steps back from that.
I'm afraid the once prosperous wave AA lit was riding is now officially dead, we are going to have to wait on the next one. I have no idea when that will be. I doubt if I will be alive when that time come. But, if I was an AA author, who knows they have the skills but don't have the marketing, I would like to suggest a few things that might work:
1.) Don't put your picture on the book, or all of those wonderful biographical items you think will impress somebody (it usually don't).
2.) See if you can bribe one of the judges of the high class book awards. Even if you don't win, just to have the book mentioned as a nominee will raise a few eyebrows and people will make note and may pick up your book. Then get the word of mouth in the white reading audience going, because believe it or not, white folks will pass book titles among each other just like black folks.
Believe it or not, white folks are writing some of the same subjects AA writers write about, except the gangsta thing. Take for instance the book Sweetsmoke that I reviewed for the site a few months ago. It took me looking at the author's picture to see that a white author had written a murder mystery where the detective was a proud black slave. So, its not that white folks wont read a book with black characters being the focus of the book. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1630
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 08:16 pm: |
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Thumper's review of sweetsmoke: http://aalbc.com/reviews/sweetsmoke.htm
Thumper I think the next wave of AA authors will be the authors who appeal to an audience beyond a soley Black one. An author whose books have a universal "Obamaian" appeal. They will be the next blockbuster authors.
I don't think however, that we will end up 5 steps behind. I think enough of us have demonstarted that they can successful publish authors on their own.
The problem we have is that we have, when it comes to self-publishing, so many individuals reinventing the wheel, and competing against each other that most of us can't get anywhere.
If we could figure out a way to pool resources, intellect, time and money we could have one bad ass publishing house. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 718
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 20, 2008 - 11:48 pm: |
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Hello All,
Troy: I disagree with you a bit. I don't believe that the black authors who has universal "Obamaian" appeal will be the next blockbuster authors. Look, the key to good books, I dare say even half of those that are considered "marketable" is whether the book is telling a good story, not only does the story have to be good, but it has to be told well. Bottom line, this goes for ANY reading audience, a solid story, told well, you can sell it to ANYBODY, but until you get that, it doesn't make a difference how you pool your resources, it won't fly.
Second, let's keep it real or keep it movin', you have to know your audience, not only what they like or dislike, but the key that will make them raise their eyebrow and decide to read that book. Let's take a look at James Patterson. How do you explain the success of James Patterson's Alex Cross mystery series. Whether you like the book or not, Patterson managed to do what many of AA authors have failed to do, get a white audience to go CRAZY and stay extremely loyal about a black male hero character. The Alex Cross books is no more well written than say Guy Johnson's King Tremain.
The only differences between the two series:
1.) the Alex Cross series was always market to the white reading audience, never the black reading audience. Because truth of the matter is, if the book is market to the white reading audience, you will get at least half of the black reading audience with it. That is the way I heard about the Alex Cross series.
2.) When the reader flip that hardcover book over to the back there's a picture of a white man for Alex Cross, and a picture of a black man for Guy Johnson.
Ask yourself, how did Patterson get Alex Cross off the ground, produce a book series that are instant bestsellers, and have not one, but two become major motion pictures, you may get the key that will unlike this marketability puzzle that many AA authors find themselves in.
Obama or no Obama, you know for yourself racism is alive and well in the publishing industry. Racism in America...hey, "still waters run deep". So if we are to make a difference, the books and their stories MUST be tight, because its not just the white American reading audience that should be targeted, but the foreign or global reading audience as well. With the internet, our world has become smaller. To reach and penetrate these markets, the product (books) has to be solid. So, if we keep writing, producing these girl gangsta books, I was a ho but now I found Jesus books, or books where we have to constantly defend because of the poor writing quality, and IGNORE the books that are well written and has it on the ball, I say don't waste your time.
So, I say, keep the picture off the back cover, get it mentioned on the Today show, or USA Today, and off we go. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13201
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 02:09 am: |
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Just a pertinent little tid-bit to interject here. When one of my son's white co-workers found out that his mother self-published books as a hobby, this 30-something career girl expressed great interest in reading what I wrote, requesting copies for her perusal.
Well, since all of my little "gems" are about black folks and the minor white characters don't come off that well, I was somewhat hesitant, torn as to which book to break this curious co-worker in with. Naturally, the little devil perched on my shoulder won out and I sent her a short novel entitled "The Only One" with a cover blurb that read thusly:
Everyone agrees that Carole Everly is bright, attractive and charming! Especially the men in her life, none of whom have been able to make the grade with her. But things change when superfine Troy Briggs comes on the scene, and instead of responding to Carole's interest, turns his attention to Debbie Jensen, their blond, blue-eyed co-worker. Left to deal with this familiar dilemma, THE ONLY ONE is Carole Everly's story, an urban-contemporary romance novel that reveals how an exceptional young black woman copes with the eternal triangle that pits "sistah" against "snowflake".
Guess what? Our "Becky" just loved this book, just loved the Carole-character and was delighted with the ending. This young white woman apparently had no problem identifying with a love-struck heroine betrayed by a man who preferred someone else, and she didn't seem to be offended by a passage describing what inspired the brotha to finally see the light when his snowflake started to bug him because of her smile that had become an idiotic grin, the incessasnt babbling that escalated into a high-pitched, nasal whining about things that he found corny and subjects he found irrelevant...and last but not least was how his desire had started to diminish when during sex, Debbie had begun to remind him of a yelping shaggy, sweaty-smelling poodle..."
I don't know whether the message here is clear-cut, but we all know that some themes are universal and race can become irrelevant when a reader bonds with the sympathetic protagonist of a book. In any case, happenstance seems to play a part making this point.
Incidentally, "Becky" also claimed to have enjoyed the other 2 books I sent her. She offered to pay for them, but I said they were complimentary copies, something I had no problem with since she said she was going to lend them out to her friends. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1632
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 05:18 pm: |
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Thumper, dude, you and I have been in this business far too long to know that a book being simply "good" is not good enough for a book to sell well or cross over. Do you think Will Smith is the best Black actor?
Using James Patterson as the benchmark is like using JK Rowling to gauge the success of a childrens book author -- James has been publishing books for 3 decades and has had 39 New York Times bestselling books! No other authors has done that.
More reasonably, I’m sure we can agree that a good book, with a sufficiently large audience, and some publicity and advertising dollars has a chance to do well. The problem is most books fail on all fronts.
I argue that a Black author who writes a book that can appeal to a Black and white audience (the way Obama has) has a shot at resurrecting AA Lit. But then again if it that happens the novel will no longer be called AA Lit, and relegated to the AA Lit section in the corner of the store.
Others have argued on these boards that you limit success by limiting your audience to Black people. I’ve always argued that there are enough Black folks to make any author rich. The competition in the boarder audience is much greater. But if you have a great book with broad appeal and the money to launch a great campaign I say go for it!
Keep in mind if you’ve written a great book which would appeal to a large audience, you are going to have to spend a lot of money to get the word out about your book. If you have a “Platform” you may have to spend less but you still have to spend money. Authors like TD Jakes and Tavis Smiley have it much easier than an unknown author.
Cynique, I would have made little "Becky-Sue" pay for those books :-) |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7631
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 10:21 am: |
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Thumper is right.
A black author can cross over but he's gonna have to write for white folks--Black writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker get over because they appeal to femnists.
They don't have many white MALE fans, nor do they appeal to your average lover of genre.
An author whose books have a universal "Obamaian" appeal.
(This "appeal" is vastly overstated) |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 719
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 11:11 am: |
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Hello All,
Troy: Please don't misunderstand me. One, I am not, nor have ever said that the black author has to change the story he/she is telling. A good story, a well told story, like music, can/will/has cross all lines. What must be overcome is the PERCEPTION. Look at it like this: on one hand there is the black author and his book, on the other there's the white reading audience. What stands between the two and stops the two from connecting? I say, the major obstacle (I know there are others) is the PERCEPTION that most of the black literature is inferior in quality to that of white writers. This perception is not only in academia, but it is in publishing, bookstore managers, etc.
Now, you brought up Obama, let's take a closer look at Obama. In order to get to where he is, Obama had to do what...reach across ethnic, political boundaries. He could not have been elected president by the black voting block alone. It took him appealing to the white female voters, the gay/lesbian voters, not only the liberal white male voters, but a piece of the conservative white male voters as well. In his reaching what did Obama have to overcome...the perceptions that he was: 1.) an ABM, 2.) that he was less intelligent or smarter than his opponent, 3.) that he could not be cool, calm, collected in the face of disaster. All I'm saying, using your model, is that we, in the black publishing business, follow Obama's example by defeating the PERCEPTION that the current black literature has in order to crack the white reading audience. But, we can't defeat that perception if we refuse to acknowledge that the perception exist.
Now, I know that if the books by black writers could reach the white reading audience that they could succeed. Look it, while I'm sure Toni Morrison had a black following, it wasn't the black following that propelled her to the Nobel or National Book Prize. It wasn't Alice Walker's black following that made The Color Purple a classic. Neither of these authors bit their tongues in the books concerning racism. So there wasn't a "let me make this over for the white folks" aura over the books. Somehow, these authors got around the PERCEPTION. Charles Johnson won the National Book Award for The Middle Passage. Somehow, he got around the PERCEPTION. All I'm saying is that ONE of the main component of getting around the perception is good, solidly written books. Because, if (WHEN) you find away around the perception and the book you're doing it with is lousy, you will shut that road down and it will be a lot harder the next time you try to use it. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7633
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 11:52 am: |
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Now, I know that if the books by black writers could reach the white reading audience that they could succeed.
(They could never reach the whole white reading audience. There is plenty of white folks who don't want to read about black people and do not want a book about black characters or with a black author on the dust jacket in their house.
And many of those who might don't want to go through the crap they have to go through when Uncle Charlie sees you got a book by "one of them" on the shelf.
Troy, America is not like New York. That ought to be the greatest lesson of Obama. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1635
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 01:03 pm: |
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Chrishayden, I know the rest of America is not like New York (City). The differences are actually quite stark after Chicago, DC, maybe Los Angeles the rest of the country (even New York State) is amazingly different.
Thumper, yes perception is a very strong thing; but Patterson nor Rowling's literary skills will ever be confused with greatness despite the astronomical sales.
It seems you are saying this "perception" has nothing to do with the quality of writing and everything to do with race. Therefore a Black writer with a great book will not crossover because white people percieve Black writers as inferior (save a few exceptions). Do I understand you correctly?
I'm adding that a book's writing does not have to be great in order to crossover and realize great sales. But if I understand you these Black writers can not cross over because of the "perception" that their writing is subpar.
One easy thing one could do to prove your point would be to get a great Black writer ghost write for a white person and see if sales take off.
However I would be willing to bet that more white people ghost write for Black people than the other way around.
If this is true, it would indicate that is a large enough group of whites who are willing to buy a book written by a Black person (my thesis).
So while the vast majority of America is nothing like NY City, I believe there are more white people willing to buy a book by a Black author than you seem to believe. I believe white folks will make the buying decision the same way the rest of us do.
We (Blacks) buy books by white authors do you really believe white folks (even the ones outside of NYC) are that different? |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1462
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 01:27 pm: |
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This is a great discussion. I've found myself in agreement with both sides. They both have made valid arguements.
There is one segment of the discussion that I'd like to address.
I think these points are clear and I believe all will agree: 1.) If history serves us well, the book has to be well written to cross over. 2.) Chris made a statement that clouded the issue "they could never reach the whole white reading audience", hell, what book does that? I don't care if the author is black or green, the reading tastes of all individuals depends on the genre and the subject matter. 3) Thumper hit on something that rings true; I too believe it's about perception. Look, we know that perception is basically a reality for many. If a person believes something to be true, then, in their minds it is. Regardless if it is a fact or not, they own that truth. A quality product might change their minds but then are we not back to step one... I think we are. How do we expose white readers to black literature that they just don't wish to read because of preconceived beliefs? Well, is it about money... could be. Is it about changing their minds? Sure it is, but how do you do that.
One of the things Thumper said made me pause. He compared King Tremain to Alex Cross. For those that have not read any of the books involving these two individuals, it is important to note that they have little in common. King Tremain KILLED white people; several white people. His reasoning is not important. What is important is the fact that few whites would call another to tell them to read this book about this Ni**er killing white folk. Now Mr. Cross is someone most could relate to. In short, I am saying that race matters and the subject does too. Is quality important? Absolutely.... |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13206
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 01:30 pm: |
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Regular book readers are discriminating. If given a broad choice, no book reader just randomly selects a book and reads it cold. Instead, the cover art is examined, the synopsis is read, the pages thumbed through. The perspective reader then makes a decision as to whether a particular book is one that captivates their interest. Of course if the book is a hyped best-seller, then the reader is motivated to read it just to see what all of the hoopla is about.
I don't think there is necessarily a pre-conceived notion about black books any more than there is about white ones. The culprit remains book stores' classification of "black" as a genre instead of integrating books with black characters into the appropriate category according to their subject matter. |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 720
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 01:33 pm: |
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Hello All,
Troy: You wrote: "It seems you are saying this "perception" has nothing to do with the quality of writing and everything to do with race. Therefore a Black writer with a great book will not crossover because white people perceive Black writers as inferior (save a few exceptions). Do I understand you correctly?"
Yes. But not all white people, mainly those in the major publishing houses and academia. The white folks who serves as judges on the award committee's, etc. But, the average white reading audience most love a good story, no matter the race of the feature characters in the book; hence the reason I brought up James Patterson's Alex Cross series. How about Mosley? While Mosley has a solid following, who brought Mosley that first big major push...Bill Clinton. So, its not that the black author has to change his story, or the way he tells it, if its solid, but that for that book to reach the white reading audience it has to go through publishers, or distributors, or book store managers, bookstore clerks, or librarians. How many of these have that PERCEPTION. The judges of those book awards how many of those people have that PERCEPTION? Recall that article I posted on the site a few months ago where that white idiot said that black authors are not on the same level as white authors?
You wrote: "One easy thing one could do to prove your point would be to get a great Black writer ghost write for a white person and see if sales take off."
Or easier still, don't put a picture on the book and take all AA reference in the bio out.
Yes, I do believe that there is a large enough group of whites who are willing to buy a book written by a Black person. Look at The Known World by Edward Jones. That book took off when...it won one of the major book award. See, what I'm sayin? |
Carey
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Carey
Post Number: 1463
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 01:50 pm: |
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Troy it appears that your thesis champions Thumper's claim. You basically said that if the white reader didn't know (Thumper said take their face off the back cover) that the book was written by a black person, they might be more proned to read it. Having said that are we not back to the dynamics of race and racism. Also, you stated that the Alex Cross series was not a great work of art. That shades the issue and could imply that is was not well written and that is not what Thumper is saying. |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 416
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 09:34 am: |
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Nobody seems to be talking about Obama's books, so I'll give you another perspective. What impressed me the most about "Dreams From My Father" was its honesty, including laying out some of the typical identity politics of that era that he (like all of us) picked up at college and which, in my opinion, he wisely started putting aside during the campaign:
"We took a cab to the revival theater where the movie was playing. The film, a groundbreaker of sorts due to its mostly black, Brazilian cast, had been made in the fifties. The story line was simple: the myth of the ill-fated lovers Orpheus and Eurydice set in the favelas of Rio during Carnival. In Technicolor splendor, set against scenic green hills, the black and brown Brazilians sang and danced and strummed guitars like carefree birds in colorful plumage. About halfway through the movie, I decided that I'd seen enough, and turned to my mother to see if she might be ready to go. But her face, lit by the blue glow of the screen, was set in a wistful gaze. At that moment, I felt as if I were being given a window into her heart, the unreflective heart of her youth. I suddenly realized that the depiction of childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen, the reverse image of Conrad's dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white middle-class girl from Kansas, the promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different."
First of all, the movie is set on the day of the carnival in Rio, so of course there's singing and dancing. But I guess what's funny is the presumption that there are no "childlike blacks" in any movies by black filmmakers, like Buggin' Out and Radio Raheem, to name a few, in "Do the Right Thing."
Just like there are no "dark savages" in this novel I'm reading now, "Rails Under My Back." Page fifteen:
Word, used to be able to drop yo garbage in the incinerator. Every floor had one. Til people started stuffing their babies down wit the garbage.
It's a double-whammy for the reader: Bigger Thomas at the incinerator plus multiple Morrisonian infanticides all in one sentence. I can dig it, but I don't think most readers want to read about that any more.
[Note: The word "handsaw" moved from the second paragraph in the NY Times review of Morrison's "Beloved" on Sept. 2, 1987, to the ninth paragraph in their April 1, 1988 piece on Morrison, to the FIRST SENTENCE of the Nov. 3, 2008 review of "A Mercy," a novel which doesn't have anything to do with either infanticide or a handsaw!]
[Note: There is an infanticide in "The Good Earth" when, facing famine and forced to move, O-Lan -- the slave wife of Wang Lung -- quietly suffocates her infant girl, who as a female, is born a slave and is subject to sale, in just a slightly different way than Florence (Florens) in "A Mercy."
According to certain political ideoologies of art and representation propogated in the 1960s, Pearl S. Buck was guilty of "cultural theft" by the mere act of writing about characters of a different ethnicity/culture/race, even though she was raised in China and only returned the US to attend college.
Her father was a missionary who translated the King James Bible into colloquial Mandarin to take it out of the domain of the priests and make it readable to the people. She, in turn, translated a Chinese epic novel into English for the first time. "The Good Earth" itself is a folk novel, but on an epic scale -- not unlike, I suppose from what I've heard, "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
She used the success of her novel to campaign for political causes, appearing on podiums (podia) with Paul Robeson in support of an anti-lynching bill. Unlike Richard Wright and those cats, she was like a dream come true for the NAACP and the Urban League, who sang her praises. She lobbied for every progressive cause you can think of: an equal rights amendment, birth control, repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, transnational adoption of Chinese children who at the time were considered unadoptable, she urged caution on Chiang Kai Shek, and so on. She had a personal correspondence with Chester Himes, of all people, on black civil rights, and she had accumulated a 300-page FBI dossier.
Until the 1960s, there is not a generation of men that would call such a person a "racist," or "Orientalist," or intimate that she was "stealing somebody else's story." End of Sermon]
Anyway, the two postcolonial tropes that Obama uses in that paragraph (the jungle trope of the "dark savage" and the plantation trope of "childlike blacks") were just a rhetorical way of putting all white people into one of two rhetorical boxes, even though they didn't believe anything that stupid.
Later in "Rails," after Gracie has two miscarriages, she's knocked down in the street by "babies." I initially thought that "babies" referred to some poor women's out-of-control children who grew up to become thugs.
But no, that's not how he means it. You see, they ain't "haints," they're little Beloveds and when Gracie puts out the scriptures by the front door to ward them off, the babies defecate all over the scriptures.
It's always interesting to me how the same cultural ideologues who propagated the free jazz aesthetic as the "authentic" expression of ethnic art during the 1960s, moved on, only a few years later, to promote a simplistic type of literature that anyone could follow (as opposed to free jazz, which was almost incomprehensible to the average listener). |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13218
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 01:47 pm: |
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Shouldn't we be glad that the literary scene in reflecting the times, changes when the times change, Steve?
Of course, reflecting does have to do with prisms, and your observation about incomprehensible free jazz ideologies of the 1960s changing to the present-day simplistic approach singles out just one facet of the black literary mind set. Today, other black voices are also lamenting the current trend toward the dumbing down of black literature. So your observations about this prove that Blacks are not the only ones guilty of dismissing other groups by putting them in boxes. Groups or individuals always tend to advance their own arguments by stereotyping their adversaries.
Or was Pearl Buck the only one put down by black militants during the 60s. They put down members of their own race who did not adhere to their reactionary agendas. Pearl was probably dismissed for being a woman as much as for any other reason by the notoroiously mysognistic young black turks flexing their muscles back then. She spoke the truth, but this was not something which she had a monopoly on.
Yes, Obama has modified his radical cynicism over the years. So did white weatherman bomber William Ayers who Republicans tried to link Obama with. This is all about growth. It is commendable to acquire wisdom with age, isn't it? |
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