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Black History Month Author Roundtable
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AOTW: Do you try to make political statements with your writing? If so, what are some examples?
Olympia Vernon: Politics. The minute you opened your mouth at birth, you were political. The key to your front door is political, opening a political house that sits on a political lot that is on file in someone's political office. At some point, the sharpness of the key will cut if it is not positioned correctly in your hand. The question for the reader is: is it done on purpose? If there are political statements in my gift of writing, it has nothing to do with me. And more so the view of that character in his or her political mind. It is not for me to tame. Or retrieve.
Nalo Hopkinson: First, I try to make good stories. Nobody's going to read a word I say if it feels like I'm just using fiction as a disguise for lecturing them. On the other hand, some of the most valuable lessons of life I've learned, I've read about in fiction. So I like the kind of fiction that makes me think while giving me a ripping good story. I try to write that kind of fiction. I am also a pretty political animal, so that comes through in what I choose to write about. For instance, I'll have characters who are fat women, who are beautiful and sexy. I put black people and other people of colour in my stories. I put queer people, old people and children in my stories. I look at the gender, too. If I find myself making someone be the gender you would expect (a fisherman, for example), I will sometimes change that person's gender to see what it does to the story. I try to portray everyone in as rounded a way as I can. It's easy when you're writing fiction to paint someone as despicable and therefore disposable. I've done it myself, but ultimately, it's too easy. Very few people are uniformly good or bad. The same person who kicks her cat may give her last dollar to a homeless person. So I try to not write easy, uncomplicated heroes and villains. I've just finished a new novel, called Griffonne, where one of the protagonists is a slave on a plantation in 18th Century Saint Domingue (Haiti). She's the healer in the community, and an elder. She has seen and survived some horrible things. It would have been easy to make her a saint. But she isn't. She's a very good woman who's also cranky, impatient, prejudiced, shortsighted and depressed a lot of the time. And she changes, too. Sometimes she's happy, sometimes tender. Sometimes she recognizes that she's been wrong about someone and changes her behaviour towards them. I think she's more interesting that way; easier to identify with.
Benilde Little: No, but seeing Black characters as equal is, of course, paramount.
Marcus Major: I'm not sure if I would term them political statements, but I am able to write about issues in the A-A community that are important to me. My first novel dealt with the issues of identity, Afro/Latinos and defining African-American manhood. Second novel dealt with the need for mentors in our communities, and cooperative economics. Third novel, inner city schooling, and the need for financially successful African-Americans to reach back into the community and elevate others.
Jenoyne Adams: I am a fan of subtly, so the political or sociopolitical statements I tend to make reflect that subtly (I hope). One example of this is how I chose the mother, Elaine in Resurrecting Mingus to be of Irish decent and marry a black man during 60's. Historically, after the Great Potato Famine of 1845-1849, the Irish often competed with blacks for the lowest paying and worst jobs. I also did this because this competition and sometimes hatred was ironic to me because of all the groups that have immigrated to America, the Irish immigrants' loss of skill after the famine most closely (though still very different) parallels blacks' loss of skill in working the land after slavery and the black codes. Another example is how in the first chapter of Selah's Bed, Selah talks about sprawling, largely female, project neighborhood and how the same neighborhood would have been called condos if white yuppies lived within its walls.
Victor LaValle: Most of the politics you find in fiction is fit for elementary school students. When writers want to give me a lecture, they should just write a lecture. Fiction thrives on complexity and nuance, so the most political thing I can do with my fiction is to create rich, believable human beings. There aren't very many out there.
Stephanie Perry Moore: Yes, I tie it into social action. Once in a teen novel I've written about Driving While Black. The book was dealing with racial issues. Since I write from a Christian perspective, I try to show injustices to my readers so that they are aware, but then try and take them to a higher level. In this case the young brother learned, "Yes, in this life race matters. I got pulled over just because of my skin. But one day when I get to Heaven, the only color that will matter will be the red blood of Jesus running through my soul."
Diane McKinney-Whetstone: I try not to make political statements when I'm crafting fictional worlds. Beginning with a premise of making a point disrupts the imaginative process and shuts down the bursts of discovery that often happen when I write. I find though that my world view still falls onto the page, but in a much more natural way, knitted into the fabric of the story as opposed to banging the reader over the head with "do you get it?"
Ray Shannon: I don't consider my work particularly political, but no one can write about contemporary African-Americans with any semblance of realism without at least touching upon the political issues (governmental, societal, professional, etc.) which affect us all on a daily basis. My books have touched upon such subjects (and their impact upon the urban African-American community) as gangbanging, police brutality, spousal abuse, and gangsta rap.
Harriette Cole: I don't "try" to do anything with my writing. My intention in writing, especially in Choosing Truth, is to be true to my heart and the subject matter. I consider whatever topic I am addressing carefully to determine what the subtleties of its meaning are. When the subject requires, I write what I know to be the Truth, something that could be considered political by others. For example, in my advice column, "Sense & Sensitivity," I was recently asked about why Black people call themselves "African-American." An Irish woman wanted to know what is "Africa America" anyway? I took her question as an opportunity to educate her and the other readers about the history of Black people in this country and how labels have had many meanings. African-American emerged as we attempted to claim our ancestral land base as a link to our identity.
Y. Blak Moore: I don't make political statements when I'm creating fiction, I prefer to do that in the realm of poetry and nonfiction.
Stanice Anderson: Perhaps the only political statement that I make is to the politician. Being the virtually neglected daughter of a politician, my message is more personal than political, "Please spend time with your family. Listen to your children. Tell and show your children through your actions that you love them."
Looking back, I see the troubled, fast-budding teenaged girl that I was, writing notes and leaving them on the toilet top because I knew that if and when my Daddy came home, he had to go to the bathroom and thus see my notes. Yes, we need mayors, governors, city council members, and most other politicians; but we, the children, need Dads and Moms even more.
Nikki Giovanni: I am a political writer because I think politically. I am not, however, trying to lead anything or anyone nor am I seeking agreement. I am simply responding to the world as I see and feel it.
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