Booker T vs DuBois, or the struggle for the “perfect” Black Image
A few weeks ago I blogged on the images of love and our overall social conditioning to view black sexuality with uneasiness or even disgust. The comments were enlightening and informative and as I thought on them, I began to realize how much the issue with street lit, or even my opinions on the objective of fiction with black protagonists mirror the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois at the turn of the twentieth century. Having taken a number of AA history and literature classes, I have come to believe that both sides have merit and DuBois and Washington, if not Garvey, would have served African-American interests better had they met halfway. But history is what it is, and today the concepts they argued over remain, the most glaring being who and how blacks should present themselves to the mainstream.
My argument in the aforementioned post centers on my opinion that I don’t think anything with black characters should be produced with the object of showing a “positive” image. Much of the discourse I’ve read on the movie Precious within the black community can be overly concerned with how whites view us: oh no, not another film about downtrodden, impoverished, welfare-guzzling, unruly black people! The conversation ultimately spills over into the issue of Tyler Perry and his films (particularly the character of Madea) and how he’s either set blacks back (eyeroll) or made Hollywood churn out more Perryesque films to capitalize on his success, thereby pigeon-holing black cinema into one mold. DuBois spoke of “double consciousness” and of the “veil” in The Souls of Black Folks. According to wikipedia (don’t feel like breaking out the DuBois book at the moment *g*):
The concept of Du Boisian “double consciousness” has three manifestations. First, the power of white stereotypes on black life and thought (being forced into a context of misrepresentation of one’s own people while also having the knowledge of reflexive truth). Second, the racism that excluded black Americans from the mainstream of society, being American or not American. Finally, and most significantly, the internal conflict between being African and American simultaneously. Double consciousness is an awareness of one’s self as well as an awareness of how others perceive that person. The danger of double consciousness resides in conforming and/or changing one’s identity to that of how others perceive the person.
This, I feel, is something that is looped time and time again throughout black thought, that sense of always being on display, of being hyper-aware of one’s behavior and the behavior of other blacks, of second-guessing everything you like, say, or do (such as loving fried chicken but fearing to eat it in public because of the stereotype that black folks loooove them some fried yard bird) in effort to be an individual who happens to be black. I am definitely not exempt from this struggle, hence my founding this blog, nor do I pose to have all the answers. However, because I recognize the role of double-consciousness in the life of the average black American, I can’t help but feel exasperated when I see entertainment placed in the role of educator. Yes, media/entertainment studies reveal our cultural biases and brainwashing, but in case of say, black romance fiction, it can obscure the basic storytelling intent.
A brief look at the writing guidelines for Kimani Romance reveal my source of frustration. On one hand, I recognize the guidelines as standard for all H/S lines since the company is the touchstone for delivering particular books for the audience of each line. But 1) Kimani Romance is a category line based strictly on the color of the protagonists’ skin, which is a bit false, since a super sexy plot could fit just as well in Blaze, a glamorous suspense story could fit in Silhouette Romantic Suspense, etc etc. 2) the majority of the guidelines appear to emphasize the “morality” of the characters as opposed to certain standards for the line (i.e. you wouldn’t write a nice Iowan farmer for Harlequin Presents)–and the guidelines are pretty much a given for most romance writers (such as “The hero should exhibit good character and not be abusive or violent toward the heroine, misogynistic, dishonest, amoral or engage in criminal behavior”). The guidelines serve to both block the “unsavory” elements of street lit and provide a place for “good” black people who will placate the assumption that all fiction with black characters are “ghetto” and full of grievances against The Man.
I fully recognize how negative images of blacks have impacted society, yet to remain overly conscious of the black image once more places our image, essentially our self-worth, in the hands of the white mainstream. Black bucks, jezebels, mammies and Stepin Fetchits were not of our construction, and in the attempt to counteract these images, the souls of black folks have been erased.
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I can’t speak for anyone else, but my concern for the movie Precious was not about how white people see us, but about how WE see us. Particularly as black women. IMO, exposure to the pain and suffering of black women does not result in society as a whole or even the black community feeling empathy or compassion for black women. Indeed, it’s the exact opposite. There’s a desensitization and a sense of that’s what black women’s lives are supposed to be like. I don’t buy most of Oprah’s book club recommendations for this very reason. Old girl doesn’t think a book has merit unless it’s bubbling over with incest. To my mind that’s tantamount to abuse porn. I spent more than a decade working with victims of abuse, rape and incest and I have a real problem with it being trotted out as entertainment for the masses. So for me it’s not an issue about white people, it’s totally about black women’s image and why anything featuring us has to be full of angst, pain and depravity. After a while folks start believing that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
As for Kimani’s guidelines I’d suspect that guidelines for categories are fairly strict. I remember when they first came out with Nascar books, I read the guidelines and was amazed to discover that you couldn’t have any crashes in the books. Call me crazy, but I assume that crashes is one of the reasons that people go to Nascar. Categories are by nature pretty one-dimensional, which is why I don’t read them. I think Harlequin is somewhat like McDonald’s. You know exactly what you’re getting. It might not be the best burger you’ve ever had, but there’s nothing in there that might be shocking or distasteful either.
I agree with that sentiment. My mother and I discuss time and time again why the burdens of the black woman are seen as “normal” and any deviation from “holding it down” is seen as selfish. I believe a few articles mention black sentiment on Precious as “poverty porn,” but as most critics and people in the public eye are white, a lot of this concern is ignored or accused of being “too sensitive” in many discourses about the film.
Regarding the Kimani Romance guidelines I acknowledge that category romances have rigid guidelines because each line is essentially a brand that supersedes the individual author. However, Kimani Romance is not a real category romance line in that it targets a specific romance sub-genre/audience (i.e. Harlequin Presents catering to the billionaire alpha and beautiful damsel in international settings, or Silhouette Nocturne being for paranormal romance). KR is strictly about a black hero and black heroine–nothing else. Hence why I feel the guidelines for the line have more to do with presenting a proper moral tone for the characters rather than existing to cater to AA readers wanting romantic suspense, or international glamor, or paranormal romance–in a way, KR is like the AA fiction section of a bookstore in that its boundaries are based only on the color of the characters’ and authors’ skin rather than subject matter.
Guidelines make sense for Kimani Tru and Kimani New Spirit, which are a YA and Christian fiction line, respectively. Kimani Romance, Arabesque, and Sepia do not target any specific audience except readers who want romances with black leads. As I said before, the guidelines appear to exist to keep street lit writers firmly out of the imprint, thereby ensuring Kimani Romances don’t live up to the so-called stereotypes mainstream readers (i.e. white) hold concerning AA fiction. It’s a bit insulting, I feel, because it implies that AA fiction, unless policed, is inherently characterized by promiscuity, foul language,and general uncouth behavior. It smacks of the separation well-to-do or upwardly mobile blacks place between them and “rowdy and uncivilized” lower-class blacks in order to prove to whites that “we’re not all alike.”
I couldn’t find the guidelines for Kimani New Spirit and Kimani Sepia and it looks as though they aren’t selling many titles in either of those lines, so maybe they’re not acquiring for them anymore?
There does seem to be a new line, called “Kimani Press” and the guidelines for that imprint, are very short and don’t give the kind of details you mention:
As far as Arabesque Romance’s guidelines are concerned, a lot of the guidelines seem fairly standard for Harlequin as a whole, but this one seems to rule out a lot of variations on the secret baby plot: “Ideally, the heroine should not be pregnant before marriage. Some story lines do allow for premarital conception, as long as the couple eventually marries.” I can see how that would tie in with what you’re saying about the wish to present a positive image.
The guidelines for the Kimani Romance line specify that the hero “should exhibit good character and not be abusive or violent toward the heroine, misogynistic, dishonest, amoral or engage in criminal behavior” and the hero and heroine “should be educated and successful or on their way to success.” There’s also that emphasis on establishing that children were conceived in stable relationships: “Unless the story line has been approved by your editor, the heroine should not be pregnant before engagement or marriage. All children of the heroine and the hero—past and present—must be conceived within the confines of a long-term relationship, during an engagement or marriage.”
Again, I can very much see how these aspects of the guidelines can be seen as evidence of “that sense of always being on display, of being hyper-aware of one’s behavior and the behavior of other blacks, of second-guessing everything you like, say, or do.”
The books in this line are supposed to be “Sexy and supersexy” in terms of their “Level of Sensuality,” which maybe runs counter to “our overall social conditioning to view black sexuality with uneasiness or even disgust.” I wonder if they feel that with that level of sexuality, they need to counter possible “uneasiness or even disgust” by making the characters exemplary in other respects?
My guess is that Kimani is trying to counter-program against street lit, which is, of course, full of that kind of stuff. After all, other publishers who publish black romances don’t have guidelines like that. I’ve read plenty of ‘secret baby’ books from Kensington and Genesis for instance. Of course, Kensington also does street lit, so maybe there’s no comparison. The only thing I can think of comparable in the Genesis guidelines is the “don’t badmouth black men” clause. Of course, given the way the black community feels about the much storied “endangered black male” I suppose that isn’t surprising.
I can understand why Kimani would be concerned. After all, in many bookstores all black books are thrown together regardless of genre. And again, I don’t think it’s necessarily about whites, I think it’s a major issue with blacks. I doubt very seriously that Kimanis are targeted to a white audience at all. They’re targeting that middle class black market that shuns street lit and they want to make sure that their reader knows that their books aren’t street lit. I don’t think it’s insulting at all. Harlequin is famous for knowing it’s market and customizing a product for that market. Their market is not white people. I doubt most white people even know Kimani exists. In most of the stores I’ve been in the line is usually in the negro section of the bookstore and we all know that white people won’t go near it for fear of being contaminated.
Many of the Kimani guidelines, especially the Arabesque guidelines, are carried over from the early days when the line first started at Kensington, but the guidelines really took on the “positive-images” aspects when the line was with BET. The Kimani Romance guidelines changed a lot from the launch of the line in 2006 and after the purchase of BET books. I think if you take a look at the guidelines for Genesis Press you’ll see some of the same things. But many of these guidelines predate the whole street date boom, especially the Arabesque and Genesis….
But many of these guidelines predate the whole street date boom, especially the Arabesque and Genesis….
So I wonder what this means? There was neither street lit nor stories of the hood selling like hot cakes when BET/Arabesque was founded, so why the consciousness of adhering to guidelines the majority of romance writers know are “no-no’s”? The average romance novelist knows that readers expect a kind, gentle, non-misogynistic hero, for the h/h to be single, no pregnancy (unless it’s a secret baby plot), etc etc. Is this just another instance of assuming that prospective black romance writers no nothing about writing romance and must be guided through what romance readers would like to see?
Beautiful.
I do think the Kimani line tries to appeal to a segment that isn’t necessarily into street lit–traditional romance readers in other words.
I can understand why Kimani would be concerned. After all, in many bookstores all black books are thrown together regardless of genre.
Hmm…to say Kimani has these specific guidelines to show the difference between street-lit and romance is rather questionable since the average black romance reader heads directly to that AA fiction section and grabs her favorite authors. She knows what street-lit is and what is not street-lit (after all, the covers and titles are rather indicative of the book’s content) and if she’s reading romance, she most likely reads those books placed in the correct genre section of the bookstore. I still stand by my opinion that the guidelines are self-conscious of white audiences’ opinions of AA fiction. Take a look at the threads on DA or KKB on race wank and up pops one or two (possibly more) readers who assume AA romance is street-lit, since those covers stare at them from the bookshelves of B&N or Borders.
The books in this line are supposed to be “Sexy and supersexy” in terms of their “Level of Sensuality,” which maybe runs counter to “our overall social conditioning to view black sexuality with uneasiness or even disgust.” I wonder if they feel that with that level of sexuality, they need to counter possible “uneasiness or even disgust” by making the characters exemplary in other respects?
You could be on to something. After all, the common phrase heard from the mouths of rappers is that they want a woman who is “a freak in the sheets but a lady in the streets”–which I’ve always taken as a way to control/frame black women’s sexuality. Most women have hang-ups about their sexuality, but black women–women of color in general–have a more difficult road to navigate regarding their sexuality due to racist and colonial images created by white men to justify their desire for “savage” women over “pure” white women. It may be a generational thing since many AA romance writers are older women and the romance genre skews older anyways. I’ve listened to Kimani Romance editor Kelli Martin’s podcast at eHarlequin and she is adamant about the scorching level of sensuality in KR, but I wonder how a novel with the heat levels of say, Shayla Black or Kate Douglas, would go over with the average Kimani Romance reader. Even in my generation there is still a measure of shame passed down from older black women about our bodies, and charges for more modesty are quite common (black people are still outraged seven years later over Halle Berry’s sex scenes in Monster’s Ball!). Funnily enough, the popularity of Zane and other black erotica writers is a reaction against this, but I believe there should be some balance in portrayals of black female sexuality.
“She knows what street-lit is and what is not street-lit (after all, the covers and titles are rather indicative of the book’s content) and if she’s reading romance, she most likely reads those books placed in the correct genre section of the bookstore.”
That may or may not be true about the average romance reader, but what about someone is not the average romance reader? More than once I’ve seen posts on various blogs talking about how godawful black romance is, and this is by black posters. When I ask them what books they’re talking about, it’s always some street lit. Since I’ve encountered this more than once I have to assume that it is a problem, and presumably one Kimani is counter-programming against.
I’ve also encountered IRL (black) people who assume that if you’re black and writing about a relationships you must write street lit. They don’t even know black romances along the line of Harlequin even exists. So yeah, I can definitely see that Kimani would see this as a problem. Further, I again, think it must be more of a problem with blacks than with whites because whites aren’t their audience.
[...] Booker T vs DuBois, or the struggle for the “perfect” Black Image | Save Black Romance This, I feel, is something that is looped time and time again throughout black thought, that sense of always being on display, of being hyper-aware of one’s behavior and the behavior of other blacks, of second-guessing everything you like, say, or do (such as loving fried chicken but fearing to eat it in public because of the stereotype that black folks loooove them some fried yard bird) in effort to be an individual who happens to be black. I am definitely not exempt from this struggle, hence my founding this blog, nor do I pose to have all the answers. However, because I recognize the role of double-consciousness in the life of the average black American, I can’t help but feel exasperated when I see entertainment placed in the role of educator. Yes, media/entertainment studies reveal our cultural biases and brainwashing, but in case of say, black romance fiction, it can obscure the basic storytelling intent. (tags: via:thatgirl blacks imagery) Share and Enjoy: [...]
Thank you for writing this! I was wondering if anyone out there felt the same I do about the policing of black images that we do in our community.
I really love this article and will touch base on this on my blog…It is so soul-exhausting to view ourselves through this post-colonialist white lense 24-7 365…we really must free ourselves…
First of all, I had the very same reaction to the Kimani submission guidelines. They seem very much designed to produce a very particular image of blackness. But I’m not so much bothered by the image in romance novels because it’s really no different than the image of heterosexual romance we get in novels with white leads. If you’re going to read romance from Harlequin, you’re going to get nice, moral, financially stable people falling in love, no matter the color of their skin.
I agree with others, though, that these guidelines aren’t policing against images that might perpetuate unwanted steretypes in the minds of whites, because white people aren’t reading these books. Whenever I hear someone trashing “street lit,” it’s invariably a black woman and these guidelines seem to exist to create stories to please that black woman. White people seem almost irrelevant in this instance.
Here’s my question though–is it wrong for black readers to want escapist literature with black leads? I disagree that romance peddles unrealistic ideas about romance to naive women. I think the genre is in fact much more complicated than that and I think women are much more complicated than that. In fact, I think that romance (as well as the kind of erotica than Zane writes and publishes and “street lit”), because it is so often black women writing to and for each other, is one of the only places in contemporary culture where black female sexuality can be safely expressed, without censure or pathology or an unwanted white male gaze.