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African American Literature Book Club

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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/10/2017 in all areas

  1. 1 point
    Well, social media is all a-twitter over the trending topic fueled by actress Meryl Streep's politicizing her acceptance speech at Sunday's televised Golden Globe's ceremony where she was being honored with a Life-time Achievement Award. Without mentioning his name, she called out Donald Trump for the incident where he made fun of a disabled NY Times reporter during his campaign, saying she was appalled that such a man was about to take office as president. Naturally the room, which was filled with Hollywood's liberal community, was in accord except for a few notable outsiders like Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn whose stricken faces were panned in on by the TV cameras. Of course the on-line debate about this is divided along party lines, and Trump supporters are saying Streep was out of line, as they become increasing frustrated because Dems won't concede Trump's victory and give him the respect they think he deserves. Meanwhile, Liberals are full of praise for what they considered a courageous gesture on Streep's part and are lambasting and lampooning Trump. Predictably, he took to Twitter to whine about Streep being an overrated actress and branded her as a Hillary groupie before denying her accusation about what had actually been captured on tape. All of which exposes him as the lying scoundrel that he is, and adds to his lack of credibility. I'm glad Meryl defied protocol and took advantage of her platform to take a dig at Trump who is the one that has set the tone with his disregard for tradition, and his ego has proved to be an Achilles heel that provides a target for arrows to wound. In these crazy times anything goes and thanks to the Internet, people have at their finger tips the power to use mockery as a weapon. Just like terrorists, tweeters can do great damage by plowing into the Trump Tower of pride, making him the object of the ridicule that hurts his feelings. Maybe Progressives won't make much of a dent in the Republican fortress, but they do stand a chance of getting the last laugh.
  2. …whenever someone prefaces a statement with, “This might sound racist…” you know to brace yourself for a racist statement. But I look at a LOT or books over the course of my day. Naturally, one notices trends and patterns, real and imagined, as one examines large numbers of books over time. One trend I've noticed, for example, is a surge in interest in Children's books. This is a great trend because there has been so much discussion on the lack of diversity in children's literature, that it actually crowded out discussion about the great literature that exists. Another trend I noticed is that corporate publishing seems to be veering even further way from publishing novels of interest to garden variety African American males. The classic refrain is that Black men don't read, but Black men would read if they were, at least initially, exposed to literature that spoke to their experiences. Mainstream publishers seem to be fixated on novleist that are written by formerly incarcerated, gay, biracial, non-American Black (British, Caribbean, African) writers. Name a popular novelist, with a book that was published in the last year, that does not fit into one or more of these categories. I could name some writers myself, but as you think of the make authors that win awards, that are covered by corporate media or pushed by mainstream publishers, I think you find the categories I listed are disproportionately represented. Most Black American men fall outside the categories mentioned. This is a large demographic that is largely ignored. This does not mane that a writer in these categories can not write for a broad audience. They can and they do, but if straight, American born, Black male writers are not getting published or actively promoted there are subjects, which appear to male readers that will more likely to be overlooked and marginalized. Now is that bigoted or just a valid observation?
  3. @Del, I don't understand your request. I think we are all biased on some level--it is natural; we are all human. However I do believe our bias lies on a spectrum; some are much more biased than others. Indeed some of blinded by it.

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