I Need to Read More Black Authors

It's MLK Day, a holiday to honor the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It just so happens that on this particular MLK Day, the first since drumpty-the-vile-twit's inauguration, I mean usurpation of the White House, one might feel a little depressed, either when one contemplates the racism emanating from the mouth and thumbs of said vile twit or when one just looks around one's society at all the work still left to do in the attempt to secure freedom and justice for all.

But. As they say, start where you are.

Where am I? As usual, reading, thinking, and thinking about what to read.

This morning I posed the question of what would be a good Martin Luther King Day read -- something by the man himself, perhaps, or some books that increase understanding of what black people have suffered in U.S. society, what injustices have gone into creating and perpetuating the racism we still practice, what power structures are in place, and so on. A couple of days ago, I posted about the writers from "shithole countries" whose books I've read over the past year and asked my Fbriends what authors not from Norway they have been reading since the occupation began. Last night, as I thought about what book to read next, I decided to make a conscious effort this year to make sure less than half of the books I read are by white male authors.

Today, these thoughts led to curiosity about the exact numbers, of how many authors I've read are white males and how many are not. Luckily, we have Goodreads! Which means I was able to sign in to my account, where I've tracked the books I've read since joining the site in 2008, and go ahead and count 'em up. First, I did a quick tally for the 46 books I read last year, calendar year 2017, and it was: White Guys: 16, Not White Guys: 30. That's not so terrible, I thought (other than the fact that I read only 46 books last year, but that has already been addressed and my New Year's resolution to get back to higher number-of-books-read-per-year levels has already been enacted, fear not), and I was a little proud of myself that I had read more authors who were Not White Guys than I had read White Guys.

Pride, ya know, goeth before the fall.

I then checked out my 2016 numbers. First of all, I read only 42 books that calendar year, which is even lamer than 2017 but we all know how distracted I was by teaching...or drinking...or being driven to drink by teaching during 2016. Or by Quincy coming from China...or by the Cubs' World Series...or something. Anyway, that year it was White Guys: 15 and Not White Guys: 27. Still a similar ratio. Let's have a look at 2015, with 54 books read. White Guys: 32, Not White Guys: 22. Yikes! Now, to be fair (although why should you be?) you could recall that that was the year I read about ten books of Edwin Arlington Robinson poetry -- basically all of his poetry I could. *What do you mean WHY he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times people THREE and I had to read his collected poems for hundreds and hundreds of pages and ... yes, I said "had to"*  But even though that's just one White Guy taking up ten slots, it's also ten slots that didn't go to books by Not White Guys. So anyway....

Clockwise fr top left: Danticat, Colbert, Achebe, Adichie, Coates

I know -- we probably all know -- that in general I read a fair amount of books by women. But guess what -- the majority of them are white. Damn it.

After checking out these initial numbers, I decided on this particular Martin Luther King Jr. Day to continue perusing my Goodreads "Read" shelf to see how many black authors I read last year, in 2017. The answer is: five.

In case you're interested, they were Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Brandy Colbert, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Edwidge Danticat. One of them I had read before last year as well. Two I had been meaning to read for quite some time. But, well, that's not very many. Five black authors out of 46 books read.

Um...it gets worse. In 2016, I read one. (Assata Shakur)  In 2015? One. (Maya Angelou)

Yes, I've read authors from a variety of countries and of a variety of ethnicities and races, this year and last year and every year. And yes, I've read as many writers who are Not White Guys as are White Guys. But I need to do a whole lot better.

I mean, it's one thing when you sit in your canon-driven literature classes and read a lot of old/dead white guys (although to be fair -- and this time, I will be, to my teachers -- I was actually exposed to quite a lot of Not White Guys over the years, in my English major classes, I daresay at a better rate than in some of the rest of academia....) but now in my "real" life I am not beholden to a syllabus. I can read whatever I want by anyone. So. Why don't I read/haven't I read more black authors?

Now, I do love me a reading project. A lot of my reading projects are list driven, and a lot of those lists tend to get populated by some of the same Old/Dead White Guys over and over again. Just to name three of my life-reading-projects-in-progress, the Pulitzer-winning fiction, the Modern Library Top 100 Novels, and the 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die feature no shortage of White Guys. Still, there ARE other races and genders on those lists. And I don't JUST read books from those lists (obviously, or my projects wouldn't take me so long), so I do read other novels. But I pretty clearly need to start some kind of African-American novels project. Who's got a list for me?

And this is not to mention my oh-my-god-it's-been-going-on-so-long-but-is-almost-finished Prez Bios project, launched during the Dubya administration, in which I've been reading a biography of every U.S. president in order to see where we went wrong. I've made it through all the men (White Guys a-plenty!) up to Dubya himself now, and the vast majority of the biographies have been written by, you guessed it, White Guys. White Guys write a whole lot of our history. It's just, like, totally in their hands.

What are we all going to do about that?

All of your suggestions are welcome - suggestions of novels written by black authors, suggestions of non-fiction written by black authors, and suggestions for how we can all do more to speak truth to power, fight entrenched injustice, and keep working toward freedom and making Dr. King's dream a reality.

Oprah and the 2020 Vision

Well, I wasn't exactly plotting this as my Happy New Year! post, but since there are about fourteen different arguments I'm involved in on various Facebook threads regarding this topic, thought I might as well weigh in here for all and sundry...

We're here to talk about the Golden Globes, Oprah, and the trending idea of "Oprah for President."

First and foremost, it has come to my attention that a significant portion of y'all, whoever y'all may be (feel free to mis/interpret that to include yourself or not - I don't really care), missed the set-up in Golden Globes show host Seth Meyers' opening monologue. Just last night I had to explain this to someone in a bar who had no idea it had happened. I'll explain it again here, because if you're coming late to the party and claiming that the #Oprah2020 response to her lifetime achievement award acceptance speech is half-baked, you should probably know that you are the half-baked one, in that you have only been served half of this entree. To wit:

-In 2011, Seth Meyers and Barack Obama famously roasted and jabbed and mocked TheDonaldTrump at the White House Correspondents Dinner, where rich and powerful people do that to each other annually (usually including the current president, except not this past year because we don't currently have a president, just a usurping twit), and since then there has been a kind of ongoing half-joke rumor that Seth Meyers pitilessly mocking Trump to his face about wanting to be president is what cemented the decision in TrumptyDumpty's mind that he'd run. Is it true that Seth Meyers' words had that effect on Trump? Don't know/don't care. But it has been a recurring theme since then to ask Meyers about it in interviews (see, e.g., him on Fresh Air) and for him to half-jokingly/half-wistfully say maybe he accidentally is responsible for the disaster through which we're all now living. Ha.
-At the Golden Globes this past Sunday, January 7, 2018, Seth Meyers referenced his "responsibility" for #TrumptyDumpty and said that he doesn't know if it works, but just in case... and then he riffed along these lines: "Oprah, you can NEVER be president! You should not run in 2020! Tom Hanks, you can never ever be vice-president! You're too nice!"  Reaction shots of Oprah and Hanks in the crowd. Laughter all around. Then, Seth Meyers staring into the camera: "And now, we just wait and see."

Get it? It was funny, and brilliant, and spot fucking on, as comedy should be.

So if you missed that, you missed the entire planting of the night's seed, as it were.

Anyway, then later in the evening Oprah got the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. Remember when Meryl Streep got that award last year? I sure do. See, e.g., this most wonderful of Tweets. In keeping with the evening's/Hollywood's/the world's life moment theme of #TIMESUP and declaring a new day in terms of the shite women must endlessly face, especially when they dare to have power or have their voices heard (see, e.g., Hillary Rodham Clinton, you goddamn vast right-wing conspiracy that has absolutely ruined for the rest of us what could have been a perfectly nice life), Oprah gave a rousing speech that many, many, many of us found moving and inspiring. Because she is, among other things, moving, inspiring, smart, experienced, a leader, a visionary, talented, philanthropic, gutsy, bold, powerful, eloquent, life-affirming, and - not to be missed - a black woman. You're goddamn right I'd be happy to hand her whatever job she wanted.

I highly doubt she wants to be president. Neither does the unstable, decidedly non-genius, usurping twit currently pretending to do that job.

I am not starting or joining any #Oprah2020 campaign.

No, I don't think we should be plucking our presidential candidates out of the "world of entertainment" - see, e.g., Ronald Reagan and Pat Robertson, two such pluckees who should never have been presidential candidates.

But y'all (again, if you're not part of that y'all, don't take it personally, but if you are, please take it VERY personally indeed) made Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of the smartest and most qualified presidential candidates of all time, run against just such a pluckee and you acted like he had any business being there. Any of you who did that -- any of you who ever for so much as one second pretended he had a legitimate claim to being a qualified presidential candidate - goddamn you to hell.

All of the racism and misogyny that has built this nation has led us to this moment: we have an actual usurping twit unstable "button"-wielding cretin in charge of actual things, and instead of being outraged about that this week (and every week), you want to point out to me that it is ridiculous that people are hashtagging #Oprah2020.

Yes, it is ridiculous.

Your bed is made. Lie down.