The three of you, along with the other publishing houses who have been kind enough to add “special” urban/ghetto imprints are all about to see a major shift in your ongoing and relentless publication of exploitative, destructive, racist, egregious, sexist, base, tacky, poorly-written, unedited, degrading books. Like a number of Black bookstores who are starting to refuse to sell this trash, I, along with other Black literary organizations, supporters, book clubs as well as writers are about to make our opinions known, to aid in making clear to the public just how demeaning these books are and what it means to our community.
It is sad that it took years of selling trashy sexually-driven as well as tell-alls before so-called black writers were ever allowed in the Big Publishing Houses’s Little Rooms enough to FINALLY get our own imprints. Why hasn’t Walter Mosley or Edwidge Dandicat or Barak Obama or Terry McMillan or Jamaica Kincaid among others ever offered our very own imprints, I wonder?
I’ve heard that Simon & Schuster has even gotten some of its authors out of jail just to go on a book tour. Karen, you should be ashamed of yourself, but like Jonathan, I can tell that you (along with your sister-in-law Wendy Williams) are all cut from the same cloth. You care nothing about pride as a Black woman or you wouldn’t align yourself or even put your name on some of the ugliest words and stories possible. You are an embarrassment and for someone going around bragging about being a Pulitizer Prize winner (which I understand you are not, that you were associated with other writers at the Daily News who actually deserved it) you should be ashamed of yourself for relying on such a prestigious literary prize to co-write some of the despicable and outrageously base books that you can. I find it sad indeed when a Black woman of your so-called reputation was willing to help my ex-husband write a tell-all describing “the juicy details” about our so-called relationship. You know he is a liar and a thief and that he played me and you didn’t care. As long as you got paid, and this is precisely why no one (last week I understand according to Book Scan a whopping 600 copies had sold nationwide, and only 87 on the entire west coast) is buying it. Karinne “Superhead’s” book is tanking just like Balancing Act, and RJ’s book is not going to fly either.
This is the beginning of a brand new trend, so be prepared for it. Years ago white folks bought us and worked us as slaves. You’re doing the same exact thing. The only problem is that back then we didn’t go willingly. Malcolm X and Dr. King and Rosa Parks, among others, didn’t fight for us to get to This, and this is precisely why you are beginning to see a lack of support for these disgusting books.
So Karen Hunter, you can put your name on them if you want to, and you along with Louise and Carolyn have already been reading on Black Voices (among others) what they have to say about Simon & Schuster (but they’re referring to all of the Houses with these ghetto imprints) among other sites, how people are getting fed up with these books, even the “reluctant readers” are bored with who’s having sex with whom and degrading tell-alls that show black people in a negative and stereotypical light, have no respect for these type of books, for you Karen Hunter (”run the other way when you see her name”) and you have already seen the beginning of downward spiral in your sales department, I’m sure. It’s going to continue, because with all things exploitative, the reign always comes to a halt.
Jonathan’s reign of terror is. And the publishing industry’s exploitative role in all of this is too. And Karen, there are only so many scandals out there, and people are getting tired of reading about others’ sex lives. Why don’t you write about yours. Give ‘em something to talk about.
Sincerely,
Terry McMillan
I agree with Terry. I’m not one of those “we must be good to show everyone that blacks are just like them!”, but I’m offended that according to the publishing industry, the only “black fiction” worth promoting is street lit. When this genre first gained prominence it had many gems (The Coldest Winter was excellent), but it has become a caricature, has created another false avenue for blacks to gain fame and riches from (along with sports and rapping) and has strangled the spectrum of black-authored fiction.
It’s bad enough that being a black author writing black characters automatically forces you into a niche market with a much lower expectancy for making a living and market share, but for publishers to squeeze that market’s lifeblood by saturating bookstores with only one thing? And that one thing happens to play into the mainstream media’s gleeful promotion of a typical black American as a baby mama, a thug, a drug addict, an overweight diabetic, etc, etc?
It makes me angry that the profusion of street lit, hip-hop tell-alls and BS imprints given to rappers promoted by publishers tells me that I’m nothing but what those books promote. That I, as a black American, am not a real person, that I am not someone who shares the exact same emotions, thoughts, interests, enthusiasms, and emotions as everyone else (primarily white Americans), that I am an “Other”, that any other black person is an “Other”. An “Other” who is low-class, uneducated, nappy-headed, baby-mama-drama’d, crack-headed, no-fathered, black-as-night, foul-mouthed specimen of America who is not fit to share in the mainstream “culture” unless you know, I “assimilate” the way the “model minorities” whites consider Asians and African immigrants to have done. :rolls eyes:
It infuriates me that the dreams and hopes, the excitement and exhilaration felt by a new black author the moment they type “The End” is dashed to the winds the second they discover that sorry, that romantic suspense trilogy you wrote because you love Suzanne Brockmann and Linda Howard won’t get a major push from the company like newbie non-black RS author.
Sorry, that funny contemporary romance in the vein of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jenny Crusie won’t be reviewed by X popular review site/blog because there they’ve got to get through the stack of non-black authors that need to be reviewed.
Sorry, your sales are low because you’re delegated to the black fiction ghetto where you will neither be seen nor heard of.
Sorry, that Regency historical you wrote won’t fly unless you don’t advertise your race.
Sorry, your characters aren’t “ethnic” enough.
Makes me really covet the wonderful world of being a writer who happens to be black!
But mainly, I’m just furious (oooowee! Not the Angry Black Woman!) that this, particularly shining my light on the romance genre, should be–for anyone wishing to write characters from all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives (in a non-stereotypical way). For that person who dreams of writing a romance novel and having the door slammed in their face because it doesn’t fit the market or because of their exterior appearance.
And particularly infuriating? The echoing silence topics such as this raise.
Starring a female sports agent named JT Blake, for her fifth work of romantic suspense, Beverly Jenkins pens a tale of murder, cocaine, sports and romance played against a Frankie Beverly and Maze “soundtrack”. In anticipation of this release, Ms. Jenkins was kind enough to offer an excerpt:
