Mat Johnson: I write literary fiction for adults. Real people aren’t 100% positive, or negative, and when you try to paint them that way they end up flat, false. What gives a character depth is seeing the weakness and motivations behind their actions. If people are looking for black role models, I suggest they look in the history books, where we’ve got plenty of real ones there.
Kayla Perrin: I absolutely feel an obligation to create characters that are positive role models. I have people writing me to tell me that they're thankful for my positive characters all that time, or they tell me this at signings. They tell me that the black community needs positive role models, and that they feel it is important to write such characters. I think it's extremely important to portray black characters in a positive light, considering how much negative there is out there about our race of people.
Monique Morris: I feel a responsibility to show the good and the bad. Young people respond to truth.
Marissa Monteilh: As a writer of character-driven fiction, once I am in tune with what makes each character tick, sometimes it is necessary for a character to exhibit negative behavior. I do not feel an obligation to create characters that are positive because I write based upon the mindset of each individual. Some characters are positive and some are definitely not role models. I must say that I do not enjoy reading male bashing novels, and I have read a few. If the circumstances and actions warrant the negative behavior and the character evolves, even negative characters can be enduring to the reader.
Francis Ray: I definitely feel a need to create positive black role models. As I said, that is one of the reasons I became a writer. However, in writing mainstream fiction it may be necessary to have bad characters. When this happens, it is extremely important that the positive characters far outweigh the bad ones so that when the reader finishes the book, he/she is not only left with a sense of satisfaction, but of the worthiness of the people in the book.
Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant: It's obligatory to make the characters people that the readers can relate too, which means that many of our characters are basically good folks, struggling to overcome the situations, both societal and self-inflicted, in which they find themselves. Despite the way we have been portrayed in the media, it's been our experience that most of us have had MANY positive role models in our lives, whether we chose to follow their example or not, but just as in life, we also include characters --- both female and male --- who exhibit negative behavior. Our aim is to make our characters, as well as the situations in which they find themselves, feel real. We steer clear of broadly drawn stereotypes, and aim to give all of our characters a kind of internal logic, so whether you agree with their behavior and decisions or not, you understand why they are the way they are. We also try to make sure that balance is weighted toward the positive.
Tonya Bolden: I feel an obligation to create characters who are true to themselves, who spring from past and present realities. I don't believe a character must be "positive" to be instructive for a reader. Also, I am more interested in how people work things out, transcend dilemmas and traumas, than I am with creating "positive role models."
When it comes to my nonfiction work, I've rarely featured an unrepentant "evildoer" because I'm not that interested in such folks. When I have, as in Strong Men Keep Coming, where I profiled a few people who betrayed noble efforts of other black people, I did so to remind people of what not to do.
Jabari Asim: My first book, The Road to Freedom, was a novel for young readers about a boy coping with the aftermath of slavery. That's probably the only project during which I entertained the notion of creating positive images. Even then, my first priority was to create credible characters and a story that was sufficiently engrossing to hold readers' attention. I think that you run the risk of hindering your creative flow if you spend too much time on those kinds of concerns; fundamentally you have to listen to your characters and allow them to determine the direction of the story.
Michael Datcher: I feel a responsibility to simply represent black characters as fully human, good and bad, not the ridiculous caricatures that often time pass as black human beings in commercial fiction.
Maryann Reid: Yes. I try to have a balance between the good black characters and the bad ones. I am careful not to make all of my characters one sided, but complex and multidimensional. At least, that is what I am doing with my second book, a novel. Sex and the Single Sister was said to be very judgmental of Black American women.
Natasha Tarpley: In some ways, I guess I do try to create role models in my work, but not in the popular definition of the term. I don't set out to write about particular characters who embody certain desirable qualities, or who are famous, or who have a lot of money. These aren't role models to me, per se. They can be, but they shouldn't automatically be assigned a level of importance just because they've achieved a high degree of visibility. What I am trying to do in my work is create an atmosphere in which the way we do things, how we speak, how we support one another as African Americans is highlighted and celebrated. I want kids, especially, to learn to value their communities, the people they see around them --- parents, teachers, neighbors, their heritage and culture, as well as their own ideas and creativity. So I try to create spaces where they can see themselves reflected and explore all of the many aspects of who they are, as well as ways they can make a difference in other people's lives themselves.
Afi Scruggs: No, I don't feel an obligation to create "positive black role models." I strive to present people in all their complexity and subtlety.
Myles Pinkney and Sandra Pinkney: Yes, positive role models are very important, especially for children to see.
Steven Barnes: Yes. I wish this wasn't necessary, but there are so few black writers that the weight of responsibility can sometimes feel onerous. Oh well…I guess it's just my turn in the barrel.
Kim McLarin: I have a friend, a writer, who says you can't write with ghosts over your shoulders. And yes, ideally, an artist's only obligation should be to her work. But I also believe black writers (and black anything else) have an obligation to their community and to their race. So what do you do when those obligations conflict? It's very painful. I think many, many black writers and artists have struggled with this dilemma. Was Richard Wright "disloyal" to the race for creating such a cold-blooded and hateful character in Bigger Thomas? Or was he expressing his artistic vision, a specific, painful truth that he saw about the dehumanizing effects of poverty and racism? Wouldn't we as a nation be the poorer if he hadn't written Native son? I feel an obligation to be honest, to be true, to give all my characters their humanity and to not lazily create stereotypes of any kind. At least that's what I feel today.
William Jelani Cobb: I feel an obligation to express life in its entirety. I don't think life is usually as simplistic as "positive" or "negative." I think the issue with media depiction of "negative" black characters has always been about the natural diversity of humanity. So much of the black experience in this country has been about laying claim to a basic humanity --- and all the complexities of character that come with it. We wouldn't have to worry about the question of "positive" or "negative" characters if we simply dealt with black people as complex human beings with virtues, flaws, talents, ideas and shortcomings like everyone else on the planet.
Michele Andrea Bowen: I feel an obligation to create characters who are real. That means that I create characters who are very uplifting and positive, folks who are crazy, wicked people, and a couple of fools thrown in, to write a good story that captures the imagination.
Phyllis Y. Harris: It is heartbreaking to acknowledge that most non-black Americans have a fairly consistent view of black people, which involves a black caricature that has nothing to do with the reality of who we are as a people. In researching my book From the Soul: Stories of Great Black Parents and The Lives They Gave Us, I found that some whites and Latinos, when questioned about their impression of the black family, cited stereotypical ideas such as: absentee fathers, mothers on welfare, children not well educated, etc.
Alexs Pate: While I'm conscious of the need for role models, they are ineffective if they aren't credible images, real people. And real people struggle. Rather than "positive" I focus on the truth of our lives. And by this I mean, that at the core, at the heart of the worst person is something beautiful. This must be present even as we explore the ugliness. No matter what a character does that might be considered positive, if the reader can see deeply enough into the soul of that character and see turmoil and weaknesses that the author doesn't acknowledge, it becomes a false construction which only serves to perpetuate the idea of hypocrisy.
Raymond A. Winbush: Absolutely. Since I write nonfiction I feel that it is obligatory on my part to present African Americans that we "don't" see on TV or the movie screen that much. I particularly feel this when I write about young Africans in America. They need to see a range of persons within our communities. I stress the reading and writing of history because I believe that when young Africans in America read about Joseph Cinque, Mary McLeod Bethune, Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner and Ida B. Wells --- Barnett they are inspired to do better with the world around them. As a black psychologist, I feel that the mental assault on young black minds can be counteracted by a heavy dose of African-centered education and an understanding of how white supremacy mediates the lives of "all" black people.
