Tayari's Blog: Anybody Got A Tape Measure?
Posted by TayariJones on September 18, 2006 04:07 PM
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Maybe next time, there will be a phrenological explanation.
Many of you have been following my conversation with Sara Gran about the absence of African-American authors from the literary scene. Apparently, S.G. is shocked that some readers took umbrage at the idea that black people are less literate than white people and she provides us with some amateur statistical analysis. (Bless her heart.) Her basic point: that black folks are more than twice as likely to be illiterate, so it only follows that black folks don't publish as many books as white people, which may be why she hasn't really heard of that many black authors, although she insists that she reads lots of black authors. Did you follow that? (I am not making this up. Read her post.) And guess what, she is going to pick up Scott Poulson’s Bryant’s book, HUNG. Yes, that’s the one about the cultural fixation with black male genitalia. She says it “looks totally fascinating and important.” (I am not making this up either. Read her other post.)
Anyway, this is my thought on the subject. The big question here isn't going to be answered by a read-off between black people and white people. (We'll leave the racialized team sports to the idiotic new Survivor.) The point is this. There are at least three reasons why African Americans publish fewer books than white people.
How you would rank these three factors tells us all we need to know about your worldview.
I know there are those of you who would say that I am being unfair to S.G., that I should give her some concession for bringing up this issue of segregation and discrimination in the literary world. I do applaud her efforts, but as many of us know, this sort of conversation is never easy. And for those who would agree the conversation is difficult, just imagine how it feels for those whose lives and livelihoods are regularly impacted by such injustice.
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There are 6 comments on "Anybody Got A Tape Measure?". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.
Comment #1, by bballmom ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.tayarijones.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
I couldn't take it. I had to post a comment on her blog about this. People like this drive me crazy.
September 18, 2006 04:48 PM
Comment #2, by Jackie
Once gain, Tayari, you have provided a reasoned approach to an explosive issue. Personally, I would like to get a caravan together and head up to Brooklyn tonight and drag that woman out of her ivory tower and rough her up a bit. Force her to read some black literature. Show her around Barnes and Noble and Borders for starters, know what I mean? If she looked like she hadn't suffered enough, I would whip out some street lit and lock her in a room until she could point out Harlem on a map..
September 18, 2006 08:12 PM
Comment #3, by Ladylee
@Jackie...
You know, I was wondering silently to myself when I read Tayari's first post... Let's lock her up in a room with some of that extremely popular and profitable black URBAN/STREET Lit (which I am SURE is for sale everywhere in New York) then see what she has to say...
@Tayari...
Give her a break, Tayari! Afterall, she IS going to read the book "Hung"... that's a start, right!?
Um... I'm trying to rationalize all of this. Maybe there aren't any Barnes and Nobles or Border stores in New York that have all the black lit in a separate section like here in Georgia... Probably because the black folk up there are too illiterate to find a bookstore, let alone the PROMINENT black literature sections of those stores...
Yes, that is it.
But I am still floored that she is FROM Brooklyn, a writer who garners space in the New York Times, and is lamenting over not being familiar with many black authors, when there is a plethora of such in her area. Scary.
And Tayari... Maybe she hasn't heard of you before now. I think you should send her your books if you haven't done so already:)
September 19, 2006 12:35 AM
Comment #4, by Lita
Tayari,
I shared Sara's comments with the poets of Cave Canem to see what they had to say about this issue.
As a black poet (and friend to many black NY poets) I was not surprised by her comments and ignorance. But I'm tired of black writers being held responsible for white readers' ignorance. She says she's not heard of many literary fiction writers (and most likely poets of a high caliber). But whose fault is that? The black publishers she mentions? Most black writers are published by white publishers. The black bloggers? Is there room for race in the bloggersphere?
If Sara finds it difficult to list more than two black writers from Brooklyn (or anywhere), then it's a reflection of her own limited reading, not the fault of black writers, publishers, or bloggers. And let us not forget that pop fiction always eclipses literary fiction and poetry when it comes to exposure, sales, and celebrity.
September 19, 2006 08:56 AM
Comment #5, by kenfoster
I know that reading the article is beside the point for most of you who are eager to join in this hysteria, but I'd like to point out the following:
1. You can't drive to Brooklyn to drag Sara Gran from her home; she lives in New Orleans. If you had read the Times piece, or even her blog, you would know that.
2. The piece in the Times is not about being a writer IN Brooklyn, its about being a writer FROM Brooklyn. More to the point, its about how Brooklyn's literary world is perceived to be about a particular group of very mainstream "literary" writers.
3. On her own blog, Gran commented on the fact that no one pointed out the obvious: that there are relatively few African American writers among the "New Yorker" approved Brooklyn collective. She suggested that its likely because their books aren't published and promoted in the same way, etc. All of which you have more or less agreed with, while taking Gran's comments out of context. It seems it would be more productive to focus your anger somewhere where it might actually count.
"If Sara finds it difficult to list more than two black writers from Brooklyn (or anywhere else)..." someone writes here. She doesn't. She's familiar with quite a number of them. Her question, which she raised to invite conversation and debate, was why there aren't more of them in what is mysteriously considered the "elite" writers collective of Brooklyn. And yet rather than answer that question, or even suggest some who you think actually are...you go down this path.
September 19, 2006 10:42 AM
Comment #6, by Tara Betts
asha bandele, Kenji Jasper, Gregory Pardlo or even an issue of Mosaic magazine (which regularly writes about Black and Latino writers)... Other than that, there's more writers that I'm just not remembering immediately, not to mention Black writers in Brooklyn getting published in journals and anthologies. This is the kind of smug attitude that assumes that Black people are not as capable of writing, publishing, editing and teaching as writers who have had privilege (and white skin). If we substituted "woman" for "black person" in this same blog entry by Sara Gran, someone would call her a sexist caveman. Please, she is clearly speaking out of privilege that says that she does not have to know about Black literature and a lot of other things. Not knowing must include her inability to spell on her blog as well.
September 19, 2006 12:12 PM