Creative video. And why don’t black people write?

“What writing is for Jewish people, is making music for black people,” said my old Jewish High school classmate Ab a long long time ago.

His statement suddenly came to my mind while seeing a creative book video (see below), which I spotted on the blog De-cluttering my Mind

But is he right about black people? Of course there are lot of black writers out there. UK's Zadie Smith (picture), France's Marie NDiaye and my all time favorite, the American James Baldwin. I remember I had to defend my choice of Baldwin on my English literature list. Baldwin was not considered “literature”, at least not on my high school in Amsterdam.

Back to classmate and Jewish encyclopedia Ab. He added. “The reason why the influence of Jewish people in Hollywood is big, is also because there are many Jewish writers. We create are own heroes. That’s why black people don’t get Oscars.“

This reminds me of the global discussion about the underrepresentation of black people in the movies, and about the problems of black actors on ‘white’ stages. About these problem a black producer once said, “we need black writers who write black stories so we can create are own heroes in plays and films. “But,” he added, “ you need quantity to get quality.” I forgot to ask what he was implying.

But I refuse to believe that what writing is for Jewish people, is making music to black people. If that’s true then black people will be chained to Hip Hop videos forever, and the rest of the planet will create their own stories and transform them into block buster movies.

Chuck D once called Rap music the black CNN. I think I’ve heard enough ‘black’ news by now, I would like to read some of it on paper for the change. And the oral history thing? It’s just another way of saying that we don’t read books.

Back to the video: the video is of course what story writing is all about: creating a reader’s experience. The moment you open a book you must feel as if you were sitting in a train heading west. You see the smoke of locomotive, feel the bumpy railway and hear the train conductor saying: “ tickets please.” Yes, I tried!



And for the one who wants to be a writer, here’s the cliché tip from the writers wannabe class: Read Tsjechov! Read some of his short stories here.

And Ab? He started a Klezmer band. So he was wrong after all.

Author Chimamanda Adichie on why we need black stories

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

It's one the most compelling talks I have seen in years. It’s the talk of Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie (32) who talks about the danger of a single story. One of the single stories is the story of the one sided view of Africa. Africa as a place of war, poverty and aids. But she doesn’t only talks about the ‘West’ versus Africa, she also talks about her own single view of a boy who worked at her home. Her parents told he was poor, and she always saw him as poor boy. But it turned out she was also trapped in that single story of the poor boy.

She also explains why we need black authors.

Although she seems somewhat nervous, she tells her story like an exciting book. She held her TED talk on july 2009 in Oxford

Marie NDiaye is the first black woman to win France’s top literary prize (Prix Goncourt)

Today French-Senegalese writer Marie NDiaye (42) won France's top literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for her novel Trois femmes puissantes [Three Strong Women], a novel on family, betrayal and the hellish ordeal of illegal migration from Africa. She is the black woman to win the prize.

Marie NDiaye was born in France, she is the daughter of a French mother and a Senegalese father. NDiaye was raised by her French mother in Pithiviers, a provincial town south of Paris. After her father returned to Senegal, she did not travel to Africa until she was in her 20s. She now lives in Berlin with her three children

Marie NDiaye is the sister of historian Pap NDiaye.

Marie NDiaye: “I grew up in a world that was 100 percent French. My African roots don’t mean much, except that people know of them because of the color of my skin and my name,” she said recently.

“I don’t represent anything or anyone,” she said. “I have met many French people raised in Africa who are more African than I am.”

While she rages at the discrimination still faced by French blacks, NDiaye says she has been sheltered by her writer career.

“I have always had a quite special, marginal life, the life of a writer lucky enough not to have to ask anyone for anything,” she said.(AP)

It’s great achievement for a black woman in France, and it’s also a sign that France is changing. But there’s one thing about Marie N Diaye that leaves me puzzled. She says her African roots don’t mean much to her, but she does write about Dakar and the black migration experience. Apparently roots does matter.

Entretien Marie Ndiaye
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Trois femmes puissantes [Three Strong Women] is the book beneath the French media’s spotlight this rentrée. Three, tenuously linked narratives. At their heart, three women who say no.

Forty year-old Norah arrives at the home of her father in Africa. An egocentric tyrant, he has now become silent and bulimic, and spends his nights perched in a tree in the courtyard. Why did he ask her to come? The answer, Norah discovers, is worse than she could have ever imagined.

Fanta, who used to teach French in Dakar, had to follow her partner, Rudy, to France. Here, Rudy proves incapable of providing her with the rich and joyful life she deserves. He remains under the morbid influence of his mother, who dedicates her life to convincing her entourage of the existence of angels.

Destabilised, Rudy wanders through an angry reality, while Fanta, by his side, is a rock. Khady Demba is a young African widow. Penniless, she tries to find her distant cousin, Fanta, in France. The long journey of emigration she pursues will be punctuated with unspeakable suffering. (source: French book news)

Read: Black woman wins Prix Concourt for the first time

German street renamed after poetess May Ayim

A Berlin street is renamed after the internationally renowned Afro-German poetess, educationist and inhabitant of Kreuzberg, May Ayim (1960-1996). Ayim fought against ongoing racism in Germany and was active in the women’s movement, she continously highlighted Germany’s forgotten colonial past. “This renaming also challenges people to deal with the close connection between colonialism and racism”, says Luise Steinwachs of Tanzania Network (TNW). “The renaming of Gröbenufer into May-Ayim-Ufer will not make the topic of colonialism disappear from the map”, emphasizes Joshua Kwesi Aikins from the Black organisation ISD, “but rather it provides a change of perspective in remembrance.”

Read the full story on Der Schwarze blog: Berlin-Kreuzberg, re-naming of street in May-Ayim-Ufer

Dutch novel reinforces sexual stereotypes of black women

Photo Woman Inc
In the Netherlands an author started a row by publishing a book that is sexual stereotyping black women. The book ‘Alleen maar nette mensen’ (Only decent people) is the debut of Dutch Jewish author Robert Vuistjes.

On Wednesday May 13th theatre maker Anousha Nzume, writer Clark Accord en Professor Gender studies Gloria Wekker debated with author about his book at Woman inc.

In the book ‘Alleen maar nette mensen’ (Just fine people) main character David, who comes from a intellectual high class environment in Amsterdam, undertakes a quest to find the ‘real negro’ woman. In his search he meets various stereotype black women, who are each sexy, lusty, and can be picked up for a few euro's. David’s hunting ground is the Amsterdam Bijlmer, the part of Amsterdam where most black people live.

In a column Anousha Nzume wrote about some of the stereotype passages in the novel. "Main character David believes that there are two types of 'Black' women. The Sherida chain (Sherida was a popular Surinam name); very dark skinned, wears at least size 46. Cup size 95 F. Not taller then 1.65. At least one of her garments has tiger print. She dates any man. Breezer desirable but not essential. Available in the “negro women disco". Then there is the “bounty” (black from the outside, white from the inside), highly educated with dreadlocks. Dates only white men, in the absence of negroes of a certain level. She is boring, unsociable and mainly dressed in batik. You can find her at a slavery debate."

Under a literary flag Vuijsje sketches -intended or unintended - an archetypal image of (black) women, which some consider stereotype, stigma, caricature and even discriminatory. This book was previously awarded with the Belgian literature prize The Golden Owl with the comments of the jury; the style swings as an African tit. The book is not only praised by the literary authorities, but in many Talkshow praised for its "humorous" and "sharp" analysis of the black woman.

The opinions about the book are mixed. The black local city chairman of the Bijlmer, Elvira Sweet, finds the book a stigma for the neighborhood, and for black woman. Cultural anthropologist Irma Accord finds it racist and sexist. But Mildred Roethof documentary maker of Sex Sell’s finds the book funny. Lynn Spier, social therapist in a clinic for criminal offenders and the black girl friend of the author, doesn’t recognise herself in one of the characters.

But has the author of the controversial novel really stereotyped black women? Good literature is about calling up images without explicitly writing about it. I remember an author’s advice for author wanna-bees; if you bring in a black woman in your story, it will add something exotic and sensual! So Dutch author Vuistjes just followed boot camp guidelines for starters and used stereotypes that already exits in literature, or even worse, in society.

But there's one thing that bordered me. The image of the author's black girlfriend sitting next to him at the presentation of his book. It was the image of: look I am not racist nor a bigot, because I have black girlfriend. And that of course, doesn’t have to be true.

Update: I changed the English translation of the book into 'Only decent people', that's correct translation of the book 'Alleen maar nette mensen'. After seeing the video of the author on Black women in Europe I understood what he really meant. According to the author, this is said by people in the upper class neighbourhood Amsterdam Zuid. They mean that only decent people live there, and not so called "allochtonen" (blacks and other non-western ethnic minorities.

Anousha Nzume's translation of her opinion piece

Dutch author and Make up Artist Clarck Accord

Dutch author and Make up Artist Clarck Accord (1961) made his debut with the novel 'De Koningin van Paramaribo', ‘The queen of Paramaribo’. A novel about the live of a well-known prostitute in the capital city of Surinam. Based on the novel a theatre play was written. Accord's latest novel 'Bingo' deals with the gambling habits of Surinam people in the Netherlands.

Remembering Afro-German poet May Ayim

May Ayim (3 May 1960 in Hamburg — 9 August 1996 in Berlin) original name Sylvia Opitz was an Afro-German poet, educator, and activist. She studied Psychology and Education and wrote the book Showing Our Colors, Afro-German Women Speak Out. At this time she also co-founded the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (Initiative of Black People in Germany). After spending sometime without sleep or proper meals preparing for Black History Month in 1996, she suffered a mental and physical collapse. She was 36 when she met her death after jumping from the thirteenth floor of a Berlin building.
The documentary Hope in My Heart: The May Ayim Story

British Author Alex Wheatle

British Author Alex Wheatle was born in 1963 to Jamaican parents living in London. He spent most of his childhood in a children's home, which he left at 14 to live in a hostel in Brixton. At 18, he was involved in the Brixton uprising and went to prison for 3 months. His second novel, East of Acre Lane, won the London New Writers Award (2000). In his latest novel The Dirty South Wheatle brilliantly evokes the temptations ofthe thug life for young black men growing up in London's Dirty South.
Interview Alex Wheatle about the Brixton riots in 1981