Hey, another post by yours truly!
So listen, let’s knock that elephant out in the room before it tramples another idiot’s funeral.
I’m black.
*Waits for applause*
I know. That should clearly be seen before being said and treated just as such. It’s not a moniker I plan to place in front of myself and honestly wish it wasn’t an option.
Being black in the entertainment/writing world is power. It’s the simple fact that you are representing yourself and people like you whenever you release or endorse something. You may not feel like you’re the embassy of your people, but you are and you should definitely be proud of it. We have been chastised and over-criticized on our own mediums and how we should conduct them, while at the same time we’ve been over-sampled and have had our own stories stolen from us. There should be no reason why most of the “urban” books and movies should’ve been written by so many white men who haven’t been around a black body since the Freaknik they passed by in 1996.
And I’m not arguing the fact that we’ve had our culture rummaged through. If you don’t see it by now, find someone on Twitter who has time to argue with you.
However, being black also means that EVERYONE else’s actions impact you. It’s not an accurate portrayal and is insanely unfair, but that comes with the territory. If someone else in my culture only writes or creates pieces that are crude and filled with vulgar language, should you expect me to do the same? And if you think that, why even bother reading anything?
The thing about writing as a culture clerk is that I have no problem with other creatives writing how they do, pertaining to writing alongside me. If you want to have AAVE in your writings, do so. If you want “proper European English”, do so. Forget what the people place you in, just WRITE.
The headline was bait. There is no curse XD. I just want people to look at the stories we create and love the authenticity we bring with them. There is no reason we aren’t writing more horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and dramas with the amount of shit we went through growing up. And that’s on if you grew up in the bullet-riddled slums next to a crack den where your mom performed as a sex worker or if you grew up in the suburbs listening to 3 Doors Down with your white friends because you wanted to assimilate so you wouldn’t be seen as “ghetto” (until you realized once you showed any emotion or spoke about black topics, that’s when they’d change on you).