Category: Black Culture

A New Leaf for a New Year

On By thewriterfredIn Black Culture1 Comment
African American Art Calendar - Walking By Faith 2015 - Black Business Women Online
African American Art Calendar – Walking By Faith 2015 – Black Business Women Online

Beginning right away in 2015, I am going to turn over a new leaf for a new year. This newness will be manifested in the form of a New Year’s Resolution. I recognize that many of you will chuckle and think that it will last, maybe, through the month of January and like most other resolutions be forgotten. And I must admit that is usually what has happened in the past. In previous years when I pledged to lose a few pounds I never did, or when I swore off ice cream or some other tempting delicacy, that always failed. But this resolution is much different; it is a commitment to dedicate more of my time and effort to teaching young Black boys, girls, and sometimes adults, the craft for writing good stories. This might be in the form of fiction or creative non-fiction.

My commitment begins in earnest on January 30, 2015 at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, in Eatonville, Florida. I, along with New York writer Petra Lewis and Chicago author Tony Lindsay, with assistance from D. L. Grant and kYmberly Keeton, will conduct a two-day writing workshop for boys and girls in grades 8 through 11. We have young writers coming from Brooklyn, Chicago, Silver Spring, Maryland, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston and San Antonio who will participate in this first of its kind workshop. Not only will these young folks get some of the best training in creative writing from some real professionals, they will also have the opportunity to visit the Zora Neale Hurston Museum, walk down the main street of the oldest Black incorporated city in the country, and visit with the artists who will be displaying their art work along a four block corridor of booths. The stories that they write will be edited and published in an anthology by Prosperity Publications at the end of the year.

My commitment will continue in earnest in April, when I do a brief two-hour writing seminar at the Dr. Rosie Milligan’s Black Writers on Tour in Los Angeles, California. Instead of children, however, I will be working with adults who have the creative ability, but lack the skills that come from studying the craft. Obviously in two hours I cannot conduct a comprehensive study, but can only stimulate their interest to learn the craft before they publish a book.

Throughout the summer of 2015, I will conduct a number of writing workshops with the young people here in San Antonio, Texas at the Carver Public Library.  D. L. Grant, Branch Manager at the Carver, and I are dedicated to the proposition that states: “Reach One and Teach One.” However, we plan to extend that one to twenty.

With my New Year’s Resolution still intact, it is my goal to work closely with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and conduct a writing workshop for the young in the St. Louis, Missouri area, during the organizations national convention in August.

I make these commitments because I firmly believe that our youth must begin to master the art of writing, because with writing comes reading, and with reading comes a better understanding one’s heritage; and with a better understanding of one’s heritage comes a more productive person, who will ultimately become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher and numerous other professions, instead of a victim of this system, which this past year has proven it can be very dangerous and destructive to our young.

O’Reilly, Hannity and Rivera: Stay Out of Our Business

On By thewriterfredIn Black Culture2 Comments

No-Fox_4c998I enjoy writing a great deal. My passion is to write on Black literary culture, both historical and contemporary. But I felt the need to deviate because that very culture is under siege by right wing talk show hosts emanating from FOX television. It is getting totally out of control and it is now time for Black men to stand up and speak out. I say men because the attacks over there have been coming from arrogant white men like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Last week Geraldo Rivera (I’m not sure what he is, Puerto Rican, Jewish or what) decided to add his two-cents and that is why I am deviating from my favorite writing subjects and addressing this issue. For some reason these men and many others of their ilk feel that they know what is best for my culture and my people. Regardless of the fact that I have been Black for a very long time, they still feel compelled to force their un-welcomed opinions on me as well as my fellow Black Americans, by telling us what is wrong at home.

Now let me assure you, I have no intentions of making suggestions or even commenting on what is happening within the Irish community, Italian Community, or whatever community these folks belong to. It is not that I have no interest in what is happening over there. It is just that I respect them enough to allow them to take care of their problems. But for some reason these outsiders feel they have to get involved in our business. Rivera went over the top (O’Reilly has been over the top for a very long time and Hannity fell off the top) when he decided to tell the Black ballplayers what kind of warm-up shirts they should wear. He advised LeBron James to wear a warm-up shirt that reads, “Be a Better Father to Your Son,” or “Raise Your Children.” And that is why I suggested that all Black men should stand up and speak out. We do not need the likes of Rivera lecturing us on how to be fathers or telling us how to raise our sons. Here in San Antonio we have a number of organizations comprised of Black men who are working with our young, and are not seeking any help from a man who has not been a pillar of stability in his own life.

Rivera went on to suggest that, “A victimization mentality exists in our communities…it goes in keeping with everything that’s happened in the Black community and the generations preceding.” This man is delusional. I believe I can honestly say I know more Black men than he does and none of them feel they are victims. They do not teach their children they are victims and they certainly were not taught such dribble by their parents.

However, we do teach our children to understand the reality of their existence in this country. It has nothing to do with being a victim but everything to do with the fact that white policemen are gunning down young Black men because of their negative perceptions of our boys. It has to do with what MIT Linguistics Professor Noam Chomsky calls, “A very racist society.” Professor Chomsky’s observation may be extreme, but the point is that this country still suffers from the influence that racism exudes on a regular basis.

Now if white conservatives want to do some good, then they need to teach their young that slavery was abhorrent and that slave owners were not masters but oppressors; Jim Crow was legalized murder and rape, and that FOX News talk show hosts perpetuate an age old myth of Black criminalization that reached its highest pinnacle in the movie, Birth of A Nation, and these conservative spokesmen mirror the Ku Klux Klan, only now in suits and in front of a camera.