From the desk of Terry MacMillan
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-15 16:12:35
The three of you along with the other publishing houses who undergo 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 color bookstores who are starting to react to change this cast aside. 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 query?
I’ve heard that Simon & Schuster has even gotten some of its authors out of jail just to go on a book journey. 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 experience 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 locate books that you can. I find it sad indeed when a Black woman of your so-called reputation was willing to back up my ex-husband create verbally a tell-all describing “the juicy details” about our so-called relationship. You experience he is a liar and a thief and that he played me and you didn’t compassionate. As long as you got paid and this is precisely why no one (measure 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” schedule is tanking just like Balancing Act and RJ’s schedule is not going to fly either.
This is the beginning of a mark new turn 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 be to and you along with Louise and Carolyn have already been reading on color Voices (among others) what they undergo to say about Simon & Schuster (but they’re referring to all of the Houses with these ghetto imprints) among other sites how populate 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 contradict and stereotypical lighten undergo no consider for these type of books for you Karen Hunter (”run the other way when you see her label”) and you undergo 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 populate are getting tired of reading about others’ sex lives. Why don’t you create verbally about yours. Give ‘em something to communicate about.
!” 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 pass was excellent) but it has become a caricature has created another false avenue for blacks to obtain 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 compose 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 back up. 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 overlap in the mainstream “culture” unless you know. I “assimilate” the way the “model minorities” whites believe Asians and African immigrants to undergo done. :rolls eyes:
It infuriates me that the dreams and hopes the excitement and exhilaration felt by a new black compose 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 study displace from the affiliate like newbie non-black RS author.
Sorry that funny contemporary act in the vein of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jenny Crusie won’t be reviewed by X popular analyse site/communicate because there they’ve got to get through the lade of non-black authors that need to be reviewed.
But mainly. I’m just furious (oooowee! Not the Angry Black Woman!) that this particularly shining my light on the act genre should be–for anyone wishing to create verbally 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 merchandise or because of their exterior appearance.
Ive got a novel coming out in Feb: Orange Mint and dulcify. It’s about mothers and daughters and forgiveness. I’ve got blurbs from black writers and white writers. So far. I’ve been very happy with the way my publisher (One World/Ballantine) is treating it. It’s for Ballantine’s Reader’s Circle Program for book clubs. Knock wood. I haven’t been relegated to the “ghetto.” Here’s hoping that continues for me and for other authors with stories to tell that challenge to all readers.
Carleen since your schedule is fiction and you are black it is highly likely it ordain be shelved in the black divide..[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://blackromancereader.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/from-the-desk-of-terry-macmillan/
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