The Culture Blogs: Shades of Brown (Part 2 of 3)

Sorry, I'm a day late.  This post was a little more difficult to write than I anticipated.  Earlier this week I started a series of blogs on black men (you can find part one here) and realized that no discussion of black men would really be complete without exploring the stereotypes that modern American society associates with them.  However to do this we must first define what a stereotype according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially : a standardized mental picutre that is held in common my members of a group and that represents and oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment.

Nothing about a stereotype itself is evil, or wrong by itself.  A stereotype is meant to be a means of categorizing people.  Without stereotypes we would struggle to classify the various people around us.  Jock, nerd, and diva aren’t just for high school.  They can define us as adults also, but more accurately it describes the group we have chosen to associate with, rather than who I am as an individual.

The truth of the matter is often we use stereotypes to define individuals.  This happened to me several times growing up, and with folks who don’t know me very well it continues to happen.  In my own experience I would like to share with you the stereotypes I grew up with folks applying to me

1. You’re black, this must mean you play basketball.

Can’t tell you how many folks when I was growing up used a form of this on me.  Perhaps it was because Magic Johnson and Air Jordan were changing the field of basketball at the time, but everyone assumed because I was black that not only did I play basketball, but that I was good at it too.

     Unfortunately, my poor balling skills devastated them and caused their children to not pass the ball to me when we did play.  It also left me not liking the game very much.

     This is known as the black athlete stereotype.  It assumes that because black folks seem to be predisposed to playing sports well so we must all be athletes.  Maybe if we hadn’t spent hundreds of years working the fields in poor conditions, and then forced once in the corporate world to work twice as hard as a white man, you might not see this surge of black athletes.  Just an obversation.

2. All black men want is sex.

     Let’s be honest here.  Remove black from the statement above and it becomes a lot more accurate.  Still a stereotype either way though.  Not all black men (or men in general) are so into sex that they seek conquest after conquest.  However that is exactly the image that the popular media seems to produce.

     I’ve also heard many sexual comments about black men’s penises.  Some meant in jest, and others completely serious.  Honestly, I don’t think it matters.  But the idea lends gravity to the idea that all black men want is sex.

     I like to think of this stereotype as the black sex stereotype.  If I had a guess, as to the origins of this stereotype it probably has to do with American slave owners raping black women and then thinking black men were similar to them so they wouldn’t as much as permit them to look at white women without being hurt.  Again, an observation.

3. Black men are involved in a majority of violent crime.

     If you go into a black neighborhood in the inner city, yes you should expect the gang members to all be black.  Why?  Because it is a black neighborhood.  White neighborhoods have white gangs.  Latino neighborhoods have latino gangs.  I know this because in Ogden where I live most of the gangs are latino, because our inner city areas are all latino.

     Black men are no more violent than any other, but if you utilize media to portray them as such, as is often the case you’ll more readily recognize black men in violent situations.  The stereotype feeds itself upon the idea that “Drama is the mirror of man.”  We see in our cinema black violence, we see black violence on the news, reinforcing blacks are violent.  We return to the movies for more black violence and the cycle continues.

     Remember back when we referred to stereotypes refer to groups you want to be associated with.  Gangsters want to be known as such.  Gangsters are violent and cruel, and secure limited fidelity among themselves.  Gangster culture is not black culture.  Please remember this.

4. If you are an intelligent black man, you must be acting white.

     If you have been following my blog you are aware this is the stereotype that makes me angry.  I’ve been called white by my closest friends, because they think black folks are stupid.  Oh some folks say that black are less intelligent than whites, or that asians are smarter than everyone else.  But these stereotypes are some of the most damning.

     Take a black child for example.  He has potential to be anything he wants to be.  But he has ADHD.  So he’s hard to deal with and his attention flutters all over the place.  Does this make him dumb?  Nope, but I’ll bet he hears it.  So if he’s dumb what are his options for success.  Becoming an athlete.  Of course he’s good, but not good enough to get on the team.  So he has to look for another means for success.  He’ll find it in drugs and guns.   This has nothing to do with his actual intelligence.  It has to do with someone made him feel dumb when he was younger; and he sought out ways to find success that didn’t require brains, because he never thought he had any.

     That child could have been me.  Cause I did have ADHD.  I also wasn’t good at sports.  But even when my grades were bad, my mother told me I was stupid, and everything stood against me, I knew I was smart.  And I could find success through my brains.  And here we are today.

Stereotypes are a wonderful means of grouping people.  Group the jocks together, they will enjoy being told how tough they are.  But don’t be afraid to also group one of those jocks with the nerds.  Because a jock can be a nerd too.  Recognize the fact that stereotypes are even still a flawed system for determining what group a person is enjoined with.  Recognize people as individuals.  I can promise you, the beauty of the diverse worlds around us will unveil itself as you seek to recognize people as individuals.

Speaking of individuals there are three that I would like to recognize a this time for winning a copy of N.K. Jemisin's book for last month's contest.  J. A. Bennett, MaryAnn Pope, and Audrey Tomorrow.  I'll be contacting each of you over the next week to ship your book to you.

In the meantime I'm going to run another give away for March for both followers and comments.  This month I'm giving away one bundle of books.  Karen Sandler's Tankborn (one of my reads for this month) and Samuel Delany's Dhalgren.  For each person who follows the blog (inclusive to those who joined since the beginning of March) I'll put your name into the contest three times.  And for each person who comments on each post for the month I'll put you down for one per comment.  With the success of last month's contest it only made sense to do it again.

Next time I'll be reviewing my goals for ROW80, and sharing about an award I received this past week.  This is Jayrod Garrett, the First OG, with just one question for you.  What stereotype about your culture makes you most angry?

The Culture Blogs: Shades of Brown (Part 1 of 3)

Bronze, Burnt Umber, Chamoisee, Chestnut, Mahogany, Ochre, Russet, Sepia, Sienna, and Tan are only a smattering of the various shades of brown that exist.  Some of them warm browns and other cold.  Some of them dark and others light.  But they are all brown, and they are all colors that one could use to describe the various hues of the black men below.

This week I wanted to start a short series of blogs on black men.  After hearing so many friends tell me that I'm "the whitest black guy they've ever met" I decided that it was time to educate folks as the various shades of black men there are.  Following are famous black men, with a little of their biographies, achievements and how I see them in the world we have today.

Wyclef Jean

My wife introduced me to Wyclef Jean.  Before I met her I had no idea who this intriguing man was.  Because I didn't listen to a lot of hip hop or rap I missed him.  Perhaps it is because he appears also to fulfill some of the common stereotypes concerning black men.  He looks a like a gangster with all the red he's wearing and the chain too.  But it was when I listened to a song of his that nearly brought me to tears, that I recognized him as more.  It is called Ghetto Religion.  I would share with you a small bit of the lyrics here.

The Ghetto is a part of my religion,
The only thing my eyes can see,
There ain't no man gonna stop the vision,
The Ghetto is a part of me.

It hit home not because I live in a Ghetto, but because everyone around me thinks that Ogden, my hometown, is a Ghetto.  It is a part of my soul.  Just like his homeland of Haiti is a part of his soul.  He ran a charity to make his homeland better and later ran to be President of Haiti back in 2010, all because of his love for his homeland.  He didn't make it, but he's an example of a black man who found success.

Will Smith

Okay, I'll be honest.  I want to be like Will Smith.  He's amazing.  As a young man I wanted to be able to act, sing, and dance.  Unfortunately, I was only blessed with a voice.  But he was a triple threat from the beginning.  To top that all off he's athletic, ripped even.  I couldn't ever compare to this man (in his strengths at least).   But he and I share a gripe about the world.  He's also considered by folks to just not be black enough.  In the song I wish I made that he describes the fact that even though he does great in the movies, for some reason they don't play his music in the clubs.  He hits the simple stereotypes that folks think about black people either needing to steal, do drugs, or shoot people to be black enough.  And the sad part is, he's right.  Often times we define blackness by the violence they speak with, and the violence they live by.  Personally I think this is the new relic of racism that we have given birth to in this country, because when black men started to show the kind of talent they had, our culture unfortunately labeled them as being white attributes.  And we as black folks well we let our culture be redefined by violence instead of the integrity of our families, and the love of our communities.  However I am proud to be "white" like Will Smith.  Strangely, nothing could make me happier.

Kirk Franklin

When I was growing up we listened to a lot of black gospel music.  It was part of the heritage that folks that have known me throughout my life have never been very aware of (even though I often walk around singing the songs of my youth).  One of the artists I came to know back then was Kirk Franklin.  He's cut from the same pattern of blackhood that produced Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, that of following after God.  This is the pattern that so many of my friends are unaware of, that I follow after.  For those who doubt whether or not this is a part of black culture just google "Black Gospel."
I relate with Kirk more than most of the other men you will find in this series, because his life is so much like my own.  One of my favorite songs Let it Go expresses this best, because there is not a line of that song that I can't relate with.  He is an example for black men everywhere as for what it means to rise above the poor choices one makes to become a fine human being.


Each of these men is a musician.  Each of them is a family man.  Each of them fight against the stereotypes that are thrown at black men for what some of their generation has chosen to do.  They remember their roots in Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and Malcolm X.  And every one of them is aware of the sacrifices made for them to have freedom in this country to day.  Yet one is a politician, the other an actor, and the last a holy man.  That is the reality of culture.  Every culture is the quilt of the individual patterns of its members.

And even when you look at the young people who are rebelling, it is the very fact that we have achieved our freedom and are not fighting everyday to make things better that our young people have forgotten the sacrifices of their forefathers.  And in some cases the violence of gangs has to do with providing for or taking care of your family.  As we will likely touch upon in the next segment of this blog.

Another amazing black person is Nora K. Jemisin.  I've been promoting her book about half the month on my blog and I'm really sorry that the month is coming to a close.  She's deserving of far more praise than I can share about her.  And because I want to continue this conversation with you in the comments I'm offering three lucky commenters on my blog a copy of her book, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  It is the first of a trilogy she's written (and every last book in the trilogy has been nominated for a Nebula Award).  On Thursday morning I am putting all the names of those who have commented on this blog into a hat (more than once if you commented more than once) and choosing three blessed souls to send a paperback copy of her book to.  So this is pretty much your last opportunity to comment before I have the drawing.  And I'd love to hear from you.

Aloha, my name is Jayrod Garrett, and I'm the First OG.  And how do you define black culture?

The Birth of the Diversity Blogs

This past weekend I spent at a writers symposium called, “Life, the Universe, and Everything.”  (Or LTUE for short.)  It is a wonderful program with many of the large names in Fantasy and Science Fiction who attend.  And each year that I attend I get so much out of it.  I learned about all sorts of subjects from “Plots, Subplots, and Foreshadowing,” to “Writing Humor.”  And I felt blessed for the opportunity to be there.  Only as I looked around I noticed something was missing.  I saw Tracy Hickman, L. E. Modesitt, Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dave Farland, and various other standards in the industry.  I met them and enjoyed their company and for some reason I felt like I didn’t belong.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say I shouldn’t be writing, but I felt the same way I do when I go to church.  Like a speck of pepper in a sea of cream.  All of the big name authors there were white.  Most all of the folks I saw come to the symposium were white.  No hispanics, no asians, and no blacks were in attendance from what I saw.  Recognizing such a poor mixture of diversity in the group of people I aspire to join made me realize something.  This is part of the reason we see such a lack of diversity in the science fiction and fantasy markets.  It isn’t because the people are racist, or they are focused only on the tropes of elves, dwarves, and orcs, but because there isn’t enough diversity in the community.

Between this and a conversation with a man I met at the convention by the name of David Powers King (read his blog, its pretty solid), I realized that I need to start blogging not only how I feel about various things going on in our culture, but about diversity in the various cultures that we have in our world.  Talking about Gay Marriage, Being Black Enough, and what Freedom is are important aspects of the culture we live in and themes to approach in literature, but it isn’t enough.  I want to write about how the Native Americans known as the Inuit live from the perspective of one of their own, or about hispanic culture from those trying to get a college education who are living in it, and introduce people to the rich heritage of black spirituality.  We have so many opportunities to recognize the diversity around us, not only in terms of race, but sexuality, gender, morality, and religion.  And I want to be a voice for helping writers to begin to recognize that.

I heard back in high school that drama was the mirror of man.  Well writing fiction is a form of drama, and I want to see the diversity of the world that I live in reflected better.  Now I’ve been trying to build an audience of late, and I realize that my journey here to develop better fantasy and science fiction will not happen without a community effort of some sort.  I can write about these things all I want, but without you sharing your thoughts and feelings with me, this won’t ever really get started.  And offering you my opinion probably isn’t enough.  So I’ve started an excellent book called the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin.  She is a black fantasy author who plays against the traditional methods by telling the story in first person and having a black female protagonist.  At the end of this month I plan on putting each person who comments on my blog into a hat and sending three of them a copy of this book.  Think of it as my way of saying thank you for having a conversation with me.

So my question to you is?  What do you want to hear about?  I have plans of talking about the hypocrisy in religion, sharing my own conversion story to becoming LDS, and about what it really is like to be an eskimo.  But I know there are a lot of other ideas out there for cultural diversity and thematic writing and rather than search all of them out by myself, I want to hear from you.  Lets become a team and discover the miracle of the diversity of the world we live in together.

What do I need to do to be Black Enough?

Perhaps you might think this blog comes a little late because Martin Luther King’s birthday was back on the 15^th of this month.  But unlike most folks I think about this man everyday of my life, because he is who I chose as one of my role models for blackhood and manhood.   Because I grew up without a father I wanted to find a person who represented the values that I thought were most important: Education, Spirituality, and Community.  And he has been a role model for civil rights activists the entire world over, having been inspired by the words of great men before him such as Christ, Thoreau, and Gandhi.  Through his example I learned that I couldn’t ever allow society to label me as lazy, stupid, or powerless and that I had to label myself diligent, intelligent, and powerful.  The light of his legacy lives on today in the celebrations we have today of his work, the LGBT rights movement, and even having a black president.  Though today my writing is inspired of the fear that we didn’t get one of the core aspects of his work here in our country: What it really means to be a black american.

I have heard for years the racist comment: "You are the whitest black man I’ve ever met."  I cannot tell you how much that offends me.  And I am not an easy person to offend.  I’ve been in the military for eleven years, lived in environments that care nothing for the sensitivity of their fellow man, been cussed out, abused emotionally from multiple sources, and watched as people look at my white wife and I in disgust.  And by and large none of that has offended me, except for that statement.  For you see the ones who have said it most often are also those who claim to be my closest friends.

However I know that I’m not alone in my feelings concerning how blackhood is defined.  One of my favorite actors Will Smith lyricized some of his own feelings about how black media felt about his music.

Even though the fans went out & bought enough

I guess they think Will ain't hard enough

Maybe I should just have a shoot out

Run up in the bank, bustin', grabbin' all the loot out

Whoop somebody ass, taking my boot out

Right on TV so ya'll can see me

Just ignorant, attacking, actin' rough

I mean, then will I be black enough?

Now Will Smith is a man who like me has chosen values similar to that of Martin Luther King Junior.  So what gives?  Why do people see Ice Cube or Fifty Cent as models of modern blackhood?  I love Biggie Smalls and Tupac, but they aren’t the only models of blackhood today.  Do I really need to be willing to act like a gangster or speak ebonics for people to think of me as a good model of blackhood?  Should I need to listen to rap music, instead of black gospel for folks to think I live within the bounds of my own culture?  Or perhaps this blog should be filled with F-bombs and indignant language to show how hard I am?   No.  I refuse.  I am worth more than that, and I believe my culture has more value than that.

I plan on being one of the few african american fantasy authors, which is entirely outside the realm of the ordinary for my culture, but that by no means means I am acting white.  It doesn’t mean I’m acting yellow like an asian, red like an indian, or green like a soldier either.  It means I am being myself.  A humble black man unafraid of sharing his opinion or his heart.  Recently I was asked the question of what I want my brand to be as a writer.  There was only one answer: Truth.  In what I write and  how I live I hope for that to be my guide.  I may fail that.  I’m certain that Martin Luther King failed that from time to time, because he wasn’t any more perfect than any of us.  But in the end I hope that nobody will say that I was anything less than a noble example of not only blackhood, but humanity.

Speaking of the goal of becoming an author my ROW80 goals for the upcoming week are as follows:

1. Finishing a single scene of “Crimes of the Umbramancer” each day.

     Last week I wanted to catch up, but time didn’t allow for it.  I have only managed to finish a scene each day since last Wednesday.

2. Comment on 10 different blogs in ROW80.

     This goal was modified from what I had before, because I found reading ten ROW80 blogs easy, but commenting a little more difficult.

3. Video games for only twelve hours for the week.

     I kept this goal last week, and I will this week too.  I won’t suffer a poor week due to gaming again.

I’ve failed at my goals in writing in the past because I was afraid, or I procrastinated, or I allowed addiction to run my life.  But no more.  If I am to follow in the footsteps of noble black men before me I have to let truth guide me and the values I’ve chosen to champion even my time management.  Because when I grow up I never want to hear again, “You’re the whitest black man I’ve ever met.”

Please leave your comments about my thoughts in the space below.  Tell me if there are things folks have said to you which have offended you?  What you want your brand as a writer to be?  Or if you totally disagree with what I’ve written tell me that too.  I love reading and responding to comments.  Thanks for reading!

Here are some links to other ROW80 blogs!  Enjoy!