Lesson #4: Black Lit is for White People

In one of the comment sections on another piece, a librarian made the astute point that she found it difficult to get her younger readers to look past the works of "Omar Tyree, Eric Jerome Dickey, Zane etc." towards more literary fiction. The reason? This pop fiction is set primarily in the present, while African American literary fiction is usually set in slavery, or elsewhere in the historic past. That's a really interesting hypothesis, so let's test it out.

A literary novel's success is not judged by sales, but by critical praise. There is no higher praise, of course, than the literary award, which makes writers into literary stars. Therefore, a closer look at the four major American literary prizes over the last 25 years will give us a good cross-section of the most successful African American literary novels. They are as follows:

Pulitzer Prize
2003 Known World by Edward P. Jones
1988 Beloved by Toni Morrison
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker

PEN/Faulkner Award
1991 Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman
1984 Sent for You Yesterday by John Edgar Wideman
1982 The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley

National Book Award
1990 Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

National Book Critic's Circle Award
2003 Known World by Edward P. Jones
1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

Surprise. Our librarian is right: all but one of these books is set in the historical past. More specifically, Beloved, The Chaneysville Incident, Know World and Middle Passage are all set in part during the slave era. The Color Purple, Sent for You Yesterday and A Lesson Before Dying are set in the earlier 20th Century. Only Philadelphia Fire is set in the modern era. Four out of eight of these books are set in part during slavery, or 50%. Six out of seven are set in the past, or 88%.

Stunning, right? We all live in the contemporary era, and of course many a fine and brilliant novel has been written in the present. In fact, I would guess that most literary fiction is probably set in the present. So what's up with the Lords of the Niggerati? Why do we set almost everything in the past, then?

Well, we don't. While there are many great African American historical novels, there are also many fantastic African American novels set in the contemporary era as well. Books that have nothing to do with slavery, don't focus on white racism as the center of their narratives, and deal with the myriad of other ideas and experiences our people have in this country. You just never hear about them: they don't get big awards, they don't get reviewed by major papers, and their authors, people like Reginald McKnight, Percival Everett and Gayl Jones, write for decades in relative obscurity.

Why? Well, because the judges who sit on these award panels, the critics who write the reviews, the gatekeepers of the world of literary fiction, are almost entirely white. And white people have quietly decided that what black people should be writing about is racism. Or more specifically, white racism. Or even more specifically, on effects that white people have had on African American culture. That's right, they like it when we talk about them.

Part of this is historic: the black prose tradition starts with the slave narrative, which was a central tool of the abolitionist movement. It morphed into the novel with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the success of which inspired black authors to use fiction as a protest tool as well. The protest novel has a strong tradition, finding its way to Richard Wright and beyond. Native Son, of course, is written for white people, to show them the error of their racist ways. For much of the 20th century, white America looked to black writers to hold a mirror to white culture. Much like a slave master would use his house slave to hold up his mirror while that master shaves.

It's not all racist, in part it is just human nature: people like reading about themselves. White people love reading about white people, even if the text is an admonishment. In fact, literary whites love that even more. For every defiant brother thinking he's sticking it to the man with his novel about white racism, somewhere there is a white liberal reading it in masturbatory glee as he basks the masochistic nature of it all.

Black writers who write good books about the internal black world, or whatever esoteric interest attracts their attention, are usually ignored by the predominantly white literary establishment. On the other hand, black writers who write good books about slavery or white racism in general are rewarded greatly. They're often given awards, fellowships, national critical attention, and heralded.

Now, if your book sucks, focusing it on slavery or the effects of white racism ain't going to help. But if it's a really good book about white racism then the literary establishment is prepared to whisk you through the velvet ropes to the Literati's Champagne Room. And they're serving rave reviews in there, awards and fellowships too.

Case Study: Edward P. Jones. Ed Jones is a brilliant writer, the kind a generation is lucky if it gets. Now Ed's first book, Lost in the City, was a collection set in contemporary Washington D.C. It was also superb, and rightly so it won the PEN/Hemingway Award and a Lannan Foundation Grant. Based on the number of awardees and total past grant amount, it seems that the average grant for the Lannan is $68,000. These are impressive honors that anyone would be proud to receive, but they are not really star makers in themselves. For the next seven years, Ed worked as a proofreader at a tax magazine, living in obscurity. Then, in 2003, he came out with Known World, which is set in the slave era and features a black slave owner. While not (in my opinion) better than his last book, Known World was rewarded with the Pulitzer Prize, and Ed Jones was promptly (and deservedly) given the MacArthur Award. The Pulitzer is America's biggest prize. The MacArthur pays $500,000.

Now, this is certainly not to dismiss these books or their authors in any way. It's also not to say we shouldn't write about the past, white racism, or slavery (by the way, I have a slavery book coming out this February, and you really should buy it). But it does raise serious issues about the ongoing affect of white patronage on African American literature.

By contrast, the commercial fiction people are writing books for black people. That is their intended audience, that's whose needs they are trying to cater to. Most of them don't know a damn thing about writing itself, but they do know who they're writing for. The result is we have vastly different topics discussed in African American literary versus contemporary fiction. Instead of countless stories about slavery and racism, black commercial fiction is concerned with relationship issues, the pursuit of the middle-class dream, and inner city violence. In other words, what the majority of black Americans actually care about. It could be argued then, from a nationalist standpoint, that African American commercial fiction is the true African American Literature. (Although I myself wouldn't go that far.)

So what is literary fiction to do about the distorting effects of the white normative gaze? Simple. That is why the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards are so important. In contrast to the big white awards, here are the Legacy picks for the fiction prize for the past five years:

2006 My Jim by Nancy Rawles
2005 Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? by Maryse Conde
2004 Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson [editor's note: I heard this one is really good]
2003 The Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda
2002 Erasure by Percival Everett

What is the percentage of books dealing centrally with slavery and/or set primarily in our a racially charged past? One out of five, or 20%. Now, doesn't that sound more like right?

For African American Literature to realize its potential we need more black critics, black awards, and black grants. Ironically, that will ensure that we will be judged not by our race, but solely on the quality of our work. Only then will able to choose our own black literary heroes.

Sincerely,

Mat Johnson
www.niggerati.com

PS-
A note on those non-slavery books that won the Pulitzer, PEN/Faulkner, and National Book awards, so as not to exclude them from this critique. A Lesson Before Dying dealt in part with white racism as well, just not during slavery. The Color Purple was initially made a bestseller by a white feminist audience (Alice Walker wrote for Ms. Magazine at the time), finding a black audience after white folks made it famous. And only John Edgar Wideman's work neither catered to a predominantly white audience nor dealt with racism as its central topic. How then, you ask, did Wideman manage to win not only one but three major prizes by breaking the mold? Simple: he is that fucking good.