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Hello John, At the end of the day, it's not about the color of the writer - rather, it's about whether or not the characters (all of the characters - white, black, whatever) are presented authentically. Are they believable? Are they genuine? If they are, then it's all good. If they are not, and the writer is white, then get ready to hear about it. Here's why: If the black characters are not believable and the writer is black, well then the reader would probably want that writer to review his/her history or broaden those horizons a bit. Slap on the wrist - go to your people and get your facts straight brother/sister. Tsk. Tsk. But if the black characters are not believable and the author happens to be WHITE? Well then it just gets annoying AND to be quite honest, it does feel like a set-up. (Why would someone bother to write a book about a group of people he/she knows nothing about or has no real connection to? Is the writer viewing them as some type of special project? Is it akin to writing about lions and tigers and bears? Oh my! Or does the writer simply see that our stories are AWESOME and decides to cash in?) And if that book sells big time and hits the big screen, and those "non-believable" characters are suddenly seen by the vast majority as true representatives of who black people are (or who we were during a specific time period), then we have a HUGE problem. The problem becomes this: the only people who realize that the story is a bunch of crap are those that KNOW. Who are the ones that "know"? Well, that would be the black people who lived through it (whatever "it" is) or those who were at least very close (through face to face or passing down of stories, for example) to the ones who lived through it. The rest of the world, however, will read the book or watch the movie and think, Oh wow...I learned something today about black folk. Like I said before - ANNOYING. That's how I saw "The Help." Well, actually, I didn't see it. I didn't watch the movie. And I only read the first two pages of the book. I was done after that. But I can tell you that at least two of my friends called me raving about that damn movie..."Oh you must see it! Oh it really shows how things were back in the day...blah blah blah"...Seriously? Knock it off! p.s. I think the same rules apply no matter who is writing the book. Feel free to switch around and substiute other races for "black" and "white" and see if it still doesn't make sense.

Wellll, I did self-publish a short novel entitled "Along The Way" that dealt with 3 generations of a black family, beginning with one turn of the century to the next.(1900 - 2000) This was over 10 years ago and I never really promoted or marketed this book because it was more a labor of love than anything, - just a project to put the word processor on my new computer to use - the culmination of one of the things I planned to do once I retired.

John writes: "So, what do African-American readers think about a well-meaning white man writing a novel mainly about African-American characters?' Okay John, since you asked the question I have to say I smelled game. Well to be honest, as a black man who has felt the sting of the white man with a fork tongue, that's my first natural reaction/response. I have to question you because my history tells me that the overwhelming majority of whites could care less about the ways and means of POC, so I'd be a fool to open my arms to you, even though YOU said you're a well-meaning white man. In fact, since that was in you're opening sentence, I am more prone to question your motive and agenda. I mean, what if you would have said "I am a racist, and I'm writing a book about a black man who served in the African-American 9thand 10th Cavalry Regiments during the Spanish-American War"? I mean, what's the purpose of telling us that? We've heard the "talk". Why didn't you tell us you have a few black friends? Okay, I am not going to go on about this b/c from the jump your post didn't set well with me. For instance, they were not called the "African- American 9th Cavalry. Then, after telling us you were a "good" white man, you decided to share this: "I make no profit on the sale of Braver Deeds". Why did you think you needed to tell us those fine details? Well John, in short, I think the home team took it easy on you. They treated you like a guest, you know, with respect, but I'm gonna tell you right now, all closed eyes were not sleep.

Well, John, since you singled me out in your response, I'll make my previous remarks a little clearer. It seemed to me that because you felt the need to seek out the reaction of black readers to your book about black characters, implicit in this gesture is the idea that you, yourself, feared writing such a book was "presumptuous". Hence my comment. Where Teddy Roosevelt is concerned, may I remind you that racism is not always aggressive and inflammatory. It can be benign. White people can be so steeped in their sense of entitlement and superiority that they can condescend to be civil to Blacks in spite of the fact that they don't consider them equal. That's why racism still exists today. Teddy appreciated educator Booker T. Washington because where the races were concerned, Washington favored racial separation, while encouraging Blacks to excel in the fields of agriculture and mechanics. This was why he was such an anathema to W.E.B. Dubois. Abe Lincoln freed the slaves not because he thought they were equal, but because he hated slavery. To expose Teddy as an "aristocratic racist" would not necessarily make him a villain. It would, indeed, make him a man of his times. I read the excerpt from your book and had no problem with its use of dialect. Cynique