Vincent wrote:
"Those factors seem to be the spur to increasing wave of
"street lit" authors. The emerging genre, which seems to gain
some respect now that white-owned publishers are picking up
some of the bestselling authors, seeks to make sense of black
ghetto life."
I've been wanting to check out some of this recent street
lit, but I wasn't sure where to start. Can you recommend some
titles and/or authors?
"The stories about drugs, prostitution, violence and prison
are an indication for a style of novel that is more authentic
to the African American mass culture, . . ."
However, I've got to quibble with this claim of authenticity
(even beyond my quibbles with the whole myth of
authenticity). While it may be "authentic" to some, even
many, African Americans, I find the idea that there is one
true African American experience very troublesome. When you
figure that at least half of African Americans are middle
class or higher, this concept starts to crumble. And you
don't have to look very hard to see the intra-race, often
inter-class, debate over African American culture, at least
as far back as the Harlem Renaissance. It recently made
headlines with Bill Cosby's remarks about poor Blacks, but
his remarks were part of a long tradition, in many ways
updating the WEB Dubois/George Washington Carver debate. For
most of its history, hip hop has been a focus of and platform
for this debate. And I wouldn't be surprised if street lit
prompts similar divides. I do know that the shortlived
Syndicate books, which planned to wrap hip hop soundtrack CDs
with the books, caused controversy, with some claiming it was
more glamorization of the street, while they countered it
would get kids interested in reading (gotta argue it's good
for you in Puritanical America -- just being entertaining
ain't good enough).
Mark
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