Lecture: Voices in African American Literature (part 1 of 2)
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Harry Jackson: Good afternoon. My name is Harry Jackson, I'm Curator of Education here at the National Portrait Gallery.
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I would like to welcome you to this afternoon's Teatime Lecture.
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We have with us today E. Ethelbert Miller who is a poet. He's also Director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University, and has been since 1974.
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He's also Vice President of the Association for Creative Writing Programs, Vice President of PEN/Faulkner Foundation, commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition.
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He's also the host of the weekly radio program "Maiden Voyage" on WDCU.
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Uh, today's lecture is titled "Voices in African American Literature" which features August Wilson, Ntozake Shange, John Wideman, and Alice Walker.
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So with no further ado, Ethelbert Miller. [[clapping]]
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[[sound of microphone being adjusted]]
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: First I'd like to thank the Smithsonian for, um, inviting me here this afternoon.
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I'm going to make a number of changes in my, um, talk and, um, hope that, um, those writers that I talk about
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you'll find as interesting as some of the ones that were advertised. I had to do that because of the length of time. I have a tendency of talking very long, and trying to document things,
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giving you examples, as well as simply giving you my opinion. I want to share with you some of my thoughts on African American literature.
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Some of which you might hear this afternoon is speculation on my part, but I enjoy looking at literature in new ways. I hope that my comments will raise questions,
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perhaps some of the authors or titles I make reference to, you will read on your own.
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Let me briefly outline what I will do this afternoon.
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One, I will-- first I will read an introductory essay that I wrote to a book that is coming out in a few weeks.
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Uh, I will follow this essay with comments on what I feel are trends in contemporary African American literature.
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My comments will include short excerpts of readings of specific texts.
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Third, I will conclude my presentation with readings of four original poems that I selected
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to show how my own work is representative of some of the new development taking place within the field of African American literature.
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And then finally, I hope that we'll have time for you to answer-- ask me questions, maybe about authors that you are currently reading or about some of the new writers. One of the jobs that I really enjoy having
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is being a commentator and reviewer of new books on National Public Radio, and there's a number of new writers, people like Connie Porter who has just written All-Bright Court.
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There's a interesting book that David Nicholson just reviewed, called Bourgeois Blues by Jake Lamar— a number of titles that have come out, and I think it's very important for us to discuss these books, to see how they fit in,
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in terms of African American literary tradition. I open with this essay that I wrote, which is in this book that's coming out entitled "Trials, Tribulations, and Celebrations: African American Perspectives on Health, Illness, Aging, and Loss".
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And this is a book that is edited by Dr. Marian Secundy. Dr. Secundy is a professor of Community Health and Family Practices at Howard University College of Medicine.
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And what she is doing is some very interesting things, looking at how we can use African American literature to help train doctors.
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This is a way that you know when you look at the literature, sometimes its references to folk medicine and things of that sort. And I think it's very important for those who are practitioners of medicine who are working within the African American community to know that tradition.
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There's an interesting book by Gladys-Marie Fry entitled "Night Riders" which contains a lot of interesting folklore about people who lived around Howard University Hospital, the fear they had of hospitals,
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and of the Howard boys snatching them up at night to take them into hospital, to conduct experiments. So you can see right there [[laughing]] that within the African American tradition in literature,
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that there's some very interesting things that, if you are a doctor, you need to know. And I know you probably have several relatives who, if you say, Okay, I'm gonna take you to the hospital, they don't wanna go.
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And so you have to respect their values and their beliefs. This short essay I think it'll serve as a good introduction to my comments.
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It's entitled "The Nature of African American Literature", and it's in the introduction to Dr. Secundy's book.
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Today, the interest in African American literature is flourishing. Across the United States, scholars are providing us with a number of critical and provocative texts.
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The appearance of books like Euston A. Baker Jr.'s "Blues, Ideology and Afro American literature" and "Black Literature and Literary History" edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.,
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points us in a new and exciting direction. These books follow the renaissance in African American literature which started in the '60s and continues to the present.
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For over 25 years, the shelves of bookstores, libraries, and homes have been filled with the writings of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, June Jordan, James Alan McPherson, Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor,
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Charles Johnson, Rita Dove, August Wilson, and others. The outpouring of novels, plays, and poetry does not necessarily address the material needs of the African American community.
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We are still confronted with the task of determining how literature can be used.
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The consideration of art as a resource and as a creative process to assist in social development is essential when taking into account the status of our people.
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In the introduction to his anthology, "Understanding the New Black Poetry", critic Stephen Henderson concludes that
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the theme of liberation is a principal one in African American literature, a quest that manifests itself in the public as well as in the private worlds of the African American.
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It is deeply woven into our search for identity and acceptance in America, as well as in our own hearts and minds. As much as American history has been shaped by the peculiar institution of slavery,
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so too must American literature confront the quality and nature of culture created by the descendants of slaves. It is the responsibility of our writers to restore history to memory.
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Today the audience of our literature is greater than ever before, despite the fact that educational levels in our communities do not support as large a literature-reading population as they should— a deficiency that needs to be remedied as rapidly as possible.
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The questions of readers and audiences are most important when we try to assess the impact or influence of our literature.
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For the African American in the new world, the printed word was a gift to be used in battle against enslavement and oppression.
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Frederick Douglass knew the power of his words as he composed the narrative of his life. His ability to write while others could not reinforced the preciousness of this gift.
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For truly, that which was given to Wheatley, Dunbar, Hughes, Cullen, Hurston, Brown, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, and Morrison was a gift, containing inspiration, power, and magic.
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If the African American writer restores history to memory then our literature must be seen as a pedagogy in process and not simply as an artistic navigation through language.
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The social function of our literature must not only be acknowledged, it must be put to use. For example, throughout our cities, our youth are trapped, addicted, and disillusioned.
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The doors of opportunity have never been open. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Or is there?
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Richard Wright's Native Son remains a masterpiece, as well as a text to be used in understanding our young people. We question the violence in our society without attempting to find its roots or causes.
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The African American writer's ability to explore the various dimensions of the African American personality can be helpful in the liberation of our people.
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What Wright understood, as would Chester Himes, John Oliver Killens and James Baldwin who followed him, was the plight of the man-child.
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What makes African American literature of clinical importance to professionals today is the desire of writers to direct their work first to the African American community.
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This decision comes after a tradition in which many writers of color first made their literary appeals to the white audience.
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Their art was not much different from some of the legal and political statements made by leaders within their community.
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The work was a moral objection and a protest against the living conditions of the African American. It was a plea for others to acknowledge our humanity. It was a rejection of stereotypes and racial inferiority.
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At times the work seemed to be more concerned with politics and sociology than aesthetics. Critics were quick to agree or disagree with what the author said without paying attention to how it was said.
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Others simply dismissed the work if they were offended by the politics.
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To be included in the main stream or to swim alongside on one's own has always been a dilemma confronting African Americans.
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The decision of writers in the late '60s to accept the need for a black aesthetic and new criteria for judging literature should not come as a surprise.
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These decision caused an evolutionary transformation within our culture.
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The significance of this is the equivalent of a developing country first deciding to feed its own people
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before sending its wealth and resources overseas.
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The literature written during the '60s was hot. It leaped from the page in much the same manner as flames shooting from the inner cities that exploded with annual riots each summer.
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When one heard-- what one heard was angry voices and cries for redemption. Maulana Ron Karenga outlined the goals of the new art. Its purpose was to be functional, collective, and committing.
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Karenga's position pushed the writer into the struggle for social change. It was a demand that the artist recognize his or her social responsibility. Although Karenga, Amiri Baraka, Addison Gill, Jr., and others called for all artists to speak truth to the people,
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there was little critical explanation of how this was to be done. Our failure is now evident in how little the current generation of African American youth know about the Black Arts Movement.
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Our failure is one of pedagogy as well as limited resources. The recent literature written by African American women illustrates how art can assist in empowerment. The power of sisterhood has been reinforced
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by the rediscovered work of Zora Neale Hurston and the contemporary work of Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. The energy presently behind Black study stems from Black Women’s studies and the groundwork laid by Gloria Hull, Barbara Smith, Paula Giddings, Claudia Tate, and Johnnetta Cole.
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What we witness happening across America is the lives of women being transformed and shaped by literature.
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African American literature has the power to teach our people values. The strength of imaginative fiction and good poetry is in its tendency to elevate a community to a higher moral ground.
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I have stood in front of young African American children, trying to encourage them to read Gwendolyn Brooks and Sterling Brown. I have been patient, knowing that the teaching and healing will be a slow process.
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The poems and stories discussed today are just a beginning, and all beginnings are difficult.
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We must teach our literature, not as an exercise or assignment, but as something essential to life itself.
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James Baldwin once described the writer's battle with society as being a lover's war. African American literature is a constant reminder, a testimony that we have always loved.
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This is the eternal message for all our new generations to learn. Our poetry, novels, plays, and essays are expressions of love.
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When our teachers teach our children about their beauty, then the beautiful ones will again see themselves. On that day, the killings will stop, and the land will no longer drink our blood.
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That is the introductory essay that I wanted to read from Dr. Secundy's book, which is entitled "Trials, Tribulations, and Celebrations."
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Let me now examine or comment on a few of the trends taking place in contemporary African American literature.
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This requires identifying specific writers who are making significant contribution. It also requires that we look for common themes and shared structures.
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We need to have places where we can monitor the literature. For example, the best two journals on African American literature are Callaloo, edited by Charles Rowell,
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and Black American Literature Forum, edited by Joe Weixelman.
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These publications are both scholarly journals and showcase new poetry, fiction, interviews, and critical essays.
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Two new younger magazines are Catalyst, edited by [[Pearl Klee?]], and Shooting Star Review, edited by Sandra Gould Ford. Catalyst comes out of Atlanta, and Sandra Ford is located in Pittsburgh.
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Both publications print the work of many new and younger writers. And I say this in terms — we sometimes talk about these trends and stuff — where's the literature? It's just important that you pick up these magazines, subscribe to them, because some of them really need your support.
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But this is a way you can stay abreast of who the new writers are. Sometimes these magazines have interviews with established writers and you can get a sense in terms of their creative process, why they're writing, what they're writing.
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And this, I think, is just very important for those of us who enjoy the literature, that we also have to support the uh, these publications.
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Finally, there is Essence magazine, published out of New York, a commercial journal which was started in the 1970s as a magazine for today's Black woman -- that's what they used to say, "today's Black woman".
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Which they have dropped, you know, it just says Essence. And Essence Magazine plays a key role in increasing the popularity of certain authors, and it gives many, especially women writers, a national audience.
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That is to say, you can pick up Essence in Dallas, Texas, as well as in, you know, Providence, Rhode Island.
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Consequently, some writers can become household names and not even be exceptional writers, just because they appear in Essence Magazine.
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I always tell people who are promoting certain writers that, if you can get your author in the, like, August or September, the back-to-school issue of Essence, you know with the hairstyle, you know, what to wear on campus--
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so you show up with your hair a certain way and you're Terry McMillan, you know what I mean? [[laughs]]. This is key, in terms of just knowing how literature is packaged and promoted,
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that these journals play a key role. Also, I think as we study literature, we would have to go into the editorial rooms
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at Essence and maybe document the struggle that has taken place within that journal. I think of friends like June Jordan,
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who used to battle with Essence Magazine in terms of trying to print more political or socially-conscious material, in between the hairstyles and healthcare stuff.
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And that has been a struggle, because some of the editors will tell you, we're concerned about our readership, we want a magazine that, you know, can be on the coffee table,
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and this is what our readers want. Consequently you get this certain type of literature that appears in the pages of Essence. But still, Essence is a key journal that has to be placed alongside the more academic scholarly publications, like Callaloo, and Black American Literature Forum.
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Now there is also a tendency of journals like Essence to avoid work that might be experimental, very political, or radical in terms of its use of language.
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Where the publication like Essence might discuss the issue of lesbianism in an article, it might be reluctant to print highly erotic lesbian poetry.
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I don't remember any erotic lesbian poetry in Essence Magazine, even though I've seen some articles that talk about the topic. And that, I'm almost certain, is an editorial decision.
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Any person who wishes to assess the trends in African-American literature should be familiar with the publications I have mentioned.
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There are others I could mention, but I think I have covered the key ones. One must look not only to the creatives of literature, but also to its shapers.
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For instance, it would be interesting to study Toni Morrison's contribution to literature as an editor.
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While working at Random House, she played a key role in helping the careers of such writers as June Jordan, Angela Davis, Lucille Clifton, Toni Cade Bambara, as well as keeping the memory and contributions of Henry Dumas alive. That's just Toni Morrison's contribution as an editor.
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I recall Toni Morrison really had a lot to do with trying to push Toni Cade Bambara to become a novelist. You know Toni Cade Bambara was one of our finest short story writers. But what I felt Toni Morrison was really saying is,
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hey, you could probably be packaged better if you give us the novel. Consequently the book that you find Toni Cade Bambara producing is The Salt Eaters, which many people say, well, "this is really hard to understand", you know,
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"I don't understand the plot", you know, "it jumps back and forth". And some people can say that, "OK, this is Toni Cade Bambara being very experimental". Or somebody could say "well, she can't write a novel". [[laughter]] You know. It goes either way and I recall the critic, um Arthur P. Davis was just out there wrestling with The Salt Eaters, he would say Ethelbert, what is this,
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what's going on in this book. And Arthur P. Davis, who was, you know, an. astounding critic, had problems with that text. And I think, you know, we have to ask ourselves, is the writer stepping outside his or her genre? But that's looking at the contribution of Toni Morrison as editor. And I say that because sometimes as we study these individuals' lives, we forget this silent contribution.
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One would also have to consider the work of Marie Brown as an editor at Double-Day almost during the same period. And Marie Brown today is considered like the Dean of African-American agents. And she has Marie Brown Associates in New York. I mention the names of Toni Morrison and Marie Brown the way one must mention the work of Jessie Fauset or Alain Locke, as midwives or godparents to literary movements.
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Individuals who promote and publish rise through contacts and what is known as literary politics. Today one would also have to view the scholar, Henry Lewis Gates Junior in much the same manner, as a shaper of our literature and even our views on literature. Gates is also a representative of a number of outstanding literary scholars that have emerged in the last ten years.
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Men and women who are quietly discovering and rediscovering our literary past, building on the work of Saunders Redding, Arthur P. Davis, George Kent, Sterling Brown, Larry Neal, and the late Addison Gayle. Now, I'm just getting started. [[laughter]] [[inaudible]]
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When I look at African American literature today, I notice a number of interesting developments, and let me mention a few of them. And this is where I really just have to shorten this.
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I want to read some excerpts so that you can hear how this literature sounds. Then I'm going to read some of my own work. But just to shorten this, there are four, I'm just, there's four things that I think ( -- )
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Actually, there's about six. [[Audience laughs]] six things that you can really talk about. I'm just going to talk about two.
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But the thing that we can look at now in terms of trends is one for us which I think is very important. The arrival of the Black male homosexual writer.
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I think that's definitely. if someone had to take the theme that's the one I would put out first.
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I sort of tell this joke with Kojo near me. I went on his show about a year ago.
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We were talking about literature and stuff and I said Kojo, next year, you know you're going to be dealing with this whole thing, Black male homosexuality,
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and you know with tongues and tide and PBS, and things of that sort, that issue has really popped up this year.
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And we have to thank Essex Hemphill and I want to talk about Essex Hemphill's work because I think it's very important
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in terms of the content and also how it affects other parts of the community.
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So the arrival of Black male homosexual writer is a theme that has to be examined.
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The second theme that has to be looked at is what I call male bonding.
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And some of this male bonding in literature seems like it comes after what we might identify as the feminist movement.
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And it's interesting to see exactly what writers are doing in terms of as they present men in the text
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and I'm going to use John Wideman's work to show you what I consider this male bonding.
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Then, third, I think we have to look at the work of August Wilson.
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If we had to pick, I think one of the major African American writers, I would say August Wilson
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is pretty much the person that has definitely reshaped the literature.
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Now, we may not be aware of that because sometimes, you know, we go to those matinees, go out, we go to theater,
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and we pretty much have a nice evening, and not realize that as a writer,
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he is just as important as Tony Morrison, or even more so.
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And I think some of the things that August Wilson is doing in his plays are very, very important, and also ties into male bonding.
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I'm going to talk a little bit about that. But there's other things in Wilson's work. I may not talk that much about Wilson because of time.
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Then the other thing which needs to be looked at is the African American woman writer, what I call this new generation of African American women writers.
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These are people who are coming after, like Alice (Walker) and Toni Morris, and they're just another generation of women writers.
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There are some interesting things happening there in terms of what they are writing about.
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Then, another issue that we could look at is the impact of Spike Lee as a writer.
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One thing that Spike Lee has done with every film is give us a text, a book usually with Lisa Jones whose the co-author.
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These books are very valuable. In turn, you get a sense of how Spike Lee conceptualizes film.
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I think also we have to look at filmmakers as writers also, and, when you look at it that way,
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then you understand why there's a struggle with Spike Lee over the Malcolm X film. Because one of the things that I have always felt is that Spike Lee has problems writing scripts, character development, and things of that sort.
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In some of the things that made Spike Lee's films entertaining and enjoyable were things were actors and actresses were just ad-libbing and playing a role and it was not really written down. So when you take his books, She's Gotta Have It and Do the Right Thing, read them as texts, and then look at the film. You can see what has been written and also what has been changed. If you go back and look at the book, Five for Five, the last book that Spike Lee gave us, which is interesting because then you really see the connection between Spike Lee and writers because he has all those writers like Johnson and Jerry Eten writing his films that he has to be placed right alongside it. But you see the tremendous change in the end of Jungle Fever.
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: You know where Flipper actually goes back, goes to Brooklyn searching [[?]] all that's been changed, you know.
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And so it's very interesting to look at the text, and then look at the, look at the film.
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But I think Spike Lee, as a writer, has to be looked at in terms of his impact on a generation.
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And then, finally, we know we have to look at the influences and significance of rap music as, not only music, but also oral literature.
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: These are things that one could do their thesis on. [[audience laughter]]
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: This is the-- this is what I do. I just sit down, tell people, "Well go study this." [[audience laughter]] You know, I mean, they got the PhDs and stuff. I just say, I just make them probe, like, this is what we need to look at.
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Let me show you how this all works. Let's look at the, what I call the arrival of the African American male homosexual writer.
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Eugene Ethelbert Miller: I tell people that this is almost predictable. People usually ask me, "Well, how can you predict stuff?"
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:37.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And back in-- Like, if I was giving a lecture back, back, like, '72, '73, what I was telling people to look at was science fiction writers.
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:42.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: People who know me say I was telling them about Samuel Delaney, and then people discovered Octavia Butler and people like that.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:48.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But you know it was just a thing; you could tell science fiction writing was a key thing to follow.
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:56.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: If you look-- If you just follow the social conditions in our society, the times almost demand that a black, gay writer step forward.
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And some of this might be due to the AIDS epidemic and crisis. Some of it also might be due to what we consider the crisis in the African American family.
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:12.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Some of it might also be a result of the fact that, today, we have a more visible and organized gay community.
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:24.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: We see that the black male homosexual, immediately on the screen, on such programs as In Living Color, which, generally everybody's like snapping [[snaps fingers]] and stuff like that, you know, all that is part of In Living Color.
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:29.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And also, there's been a number of movies that have incorporated the black male homosexual.
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:37.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But there's a stereotype that we usually see. And that is the character is usually the comic character, the hairdresser or something of that sort.
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:45.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And you have yet to see, really, the serious black, male, homosexual character on the screen.
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:54.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: One of the things I was following was how they were going to resolve the incident on In Living Color with the two men.
00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: You know, where the guy gets the bump on the back of the head, so he's no longer gay. Right? [[laughter]]
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:01.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: You know, I mean the implication of that, we just everybody just hit everybody upside the head, they'll come to your senses [[laughter]]
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:11.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: That sounds like something my mother would say. You know? [[laughter]] I mean, that says something about how a community might perceive or look at homosexuality.
00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:20.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And then you realize as it gets-- You're caught in suspense between seasons. And then it's all resolved and he's all-- and it's another bump on the head again to get him back.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:25.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: That's dangerous because it has a way of how we interpret all of this.
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:37.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But I just say that because we see that on camera. Because of In Living Color doing this, it will make it easier for some of the other networks, now, to deal with that theme.
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:44.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Also, within the African American community it would've opened a door, see, for other discussion.
00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:52.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: So, we can just monitor this, you know, the same way we know we're going to be looking at these TV shows dealing with the war in Kuwait and all of that, there'll probably be some other things.
00:27:52.000 --> 00:28:00.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: You can predict this, during the next couple of months. But this is the thing, in turn, that we look at what's happening today.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:09.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: One, we have to look at the gay rise in trends also in terms of the literature to see what type of image they are presenting,
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: in terms of is it more realistic or are they stuck within certain stereotypes? Much of the new gay writing has emerged in the late 1980s with several journals and publications.
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:26.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: A number of them are cited in Essex Hemphill, introduction to his anthology, Brother To Brother.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:31.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And what Essex does in his introduction, he summarizes the last, like, decade, and Essex writes,
00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:38.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: "Black gay men can consider the 1980s to have been a critically important decade for our literature.
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:43.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Literary journals, periodicals and self-published works were sporadically produced and voraciously consumed."
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:56.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And he goes down and he lists all these magazines and journals. And then the key person is Joseph Beam, who published a groundbreaking anthology, In The Life, in 1986.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:09.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And, actually, Brother To Brother is a continuation of Joseph Beam's work. And I think we can see the importance of Joseph Beam and Essex Hemphill.
00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:21.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: I place Essex Hemphill, in terms of importance, next to someone like Audre Lorde. Many of you are familiar with Audre Lorde, who was one of the leading black lesbian writers,
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: opened a lot of doors, especially for many African American women, to come forward and feel much more comfortable in terms of being identified within the lesbian community.
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:44.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: I would say, for example, here in Washington, one of the leading gay writers, Michelle Parkerson, I would imagine that her life is made possible because of Audre Lorde, the role model.
00:29:44.000 --> 00:30:00.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And I can see, for example, that when people look at Essex Hemphill, people will begin to associate the fact that this anthology and some of the others made it easier for them to write or to step forward.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:07.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: And in this sense, Essex Hemphill has done some very important work in terms of black gay literature.
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:28.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Now, Essex gave me a piece that I ran in Shooting Star Review a few months ago
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: in which he summarizes, in what I think is,
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: a very strong statement on behalf of black male gay writers.
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:28.000
Essex says the following, "I speak for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of men,
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:37.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: who live and die in the shadows of secrets, unable to speak of the love that helps them endure and contribute to the race.
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:48.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Their ordinary kisses, stolen or shared behind facades of heroic achievement; their kisses of sweet spit and loyalty are scrubbed away by the propaganda makers of the race;
00:30:48.000 --> 00:31:01.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: the talented tenth who would just as soon have us believe Black people can fly,
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: rather than reveal that Black men have been longing to kiss one another, and have done so, for centuries.
00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:11.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: The Black homosexual is hard-pressed to gain audience among his heterosexual brothers,
Eugene Ethelbert Miller:
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: even if he is more talented, he is inhibited by his silence or his omissions.
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:19.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: This is what the race has depended on, in being able to erase homosexuality from our recorded history; the chosen history.
00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:23.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But these sacred constitutions of silence are futile exercises in denial.
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:35.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: We will not go away with our issues of sexuality. We are coming home. It is not enough to tell us that one was a brilliant poet, scientist, educator or rebel. Who did he love?
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:43.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: It makes a difference. I can't become a whole man simply on what is fed to me; watered-down versions of Black life in America.
00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:50.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: I need the ass-splitting truth to be told, so I will have something pure to emulate, a reason to remain loyal."
00:31:50.000 --> 00:32:00.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Essex's piece is interesting. One, you get, first of all, the whole issue of numbers; how many Black male homosexuals are out there. Then, also the fact that so many, perhaps, might be quiet.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:09.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But that is the whole thing, of the fact, that many of the people that are gifted and talented sometimes have happened to be gay.
00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:16.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Our community, who has really wrestled with the whole thing of role model, is really torn, at odds, in terms of this issue.
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:25.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: A case in point is how the African American community is beginning to deal with Langston Hughes, a poet whose work is memorized by people across the country.
00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:33.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: The issue around possibly Langston Hughes being homosexual is a very [[pause]] controversial issue,
00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: for some people because, one, it sort of taints or doesn't taint, however you want to interpret it, Hughes's credibility.
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:46.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Also, I think Essex raises some interesting things here in terms-- He wants to know who's loving who.
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:54.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: I think, when we look at our days, and we just came through the Supreme Court hearing, the whole issue of privacy is one that has to be raised.
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:59.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: How important is it that we know who's loving-- What's been happening behind closed doors?
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:10.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Does that affect your life, and how important is that? Case in point, one person that really we don't define as a Black male homosexual writer in terms of Black male homosexual writers
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:18.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: is someone like James Baldwin, who simply saw himself as an individual, and he loved whoever he wanted to love. Not really part of a movement or anything of that sort.
00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:23.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: But you would see a difference between a James Baldwin and a Essex Hemphill, in a sense of politics.
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:32.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: Homosexuality and sexuality is very important to Essex Hemphill, in terms of he wants to know that.
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:37.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: He feels it makes a difference. This is something that we need to debate in terms of trends.
00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:42.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: I raise this because you can see the impact that this has on our own life; even those of us who are not in the gay community.
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:57.000
That as soon as one group begins to assert itself, it has influences on us. I think that the issue of black male homosexuality raises issues in terms of masculinity, manhood, sexuality, all these things
00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:11.000
come forth. Those of you who are, for example, women writers, how do you begin to deal with like, say, images of masculinity when there's the body of homosexual literature that is beginning to emerge. You cannot ignore
00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:32.000
this, okay? And this is a thing that raises an issue in terms of our community. And writers like Essex, have placed this work on the agenda. I just want to read one poem from his anthology. It's by the writer Lloyd Vega
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:35.000
and the poem is entitled, "Brothers loving brothers."
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:38.000
"Respect yourself, my brother, for we are so many wondrous things.
00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:43.000
Like a Black rose, you are a rarity to be found.
00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:48.000
Our leaves intertwine as I reach out to you after the release of a gentle rain.
00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:55.000
You, precious gem, black pearl that warms the heart, symbol of ageless wisdom,
00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:01.000
I derive strength from the touch of your hand. Our lives blend together like rays of light.
00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:07.000
We are men of color, adorned in shades of tan, red, beige, black and brown.
00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:12.000
Brothers born from the same earth womb. Brothers reaching for the same star.
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:21.820
Love me as your equal. Love me, brother to brother." And that's from the Brother To Brother anthology, edited by Essex Hemphill.
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:32.000
show you um one what-what this movement did I-I mentioned like to use to show you some of the problems that scholars sometimes have um dealing with this issue of homosexuality
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:38.000
this is a big book: My Soul's High Song, this is Countee Cullen's collected work
00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:44.000
and what's very interesting is that when you talk about some of the um writers um in terms of tradition
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:49.000
whom perhaps might have been homosexual Countee Cullen's name is always placed at the top
00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:55.000
now here you have uh Gerald Early putting in this big book, right
00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:57.000
uh now when it comes to the question of Countee Cullen's homosexuality
00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:07.000
it is reduced to a footnote [laughs] on page 19 um and-and-and Gerald Early, you know, is saying here um
00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:12.000
uh it is appropriate to address here the issue of homosexuality and why is it appropriate
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:19.000
because on this page he makes reference to Countee Cullen's life-long friend, Harold Jackman
00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:28.000
and people have always speculated um you know, this relationship, also its key because Countee Cullen's, you know, heritage poem is dedicated to Jackman
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:32.000
ok, and keep that in mind because I'm going to make a reference to that again
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:43.000
In this footnote, Gerald Early says that following "it is appropriate to address here the issue of homosexuality as at least three major scholars have asserted that Cullen was homosexual, 'kay
00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:54.000
David Lewis in When Harlem was in Vogue, Jean Wagner in Black Poets of the United States, and Arnold Rampersad in The Life of Langston Hughes Volume 1 1902-1941
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:03.000
There is however no evidence that Cullen and Jackman were lovers at least you identify who it might be right [[laughter]] 'kay right okay
00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:10.000
There um there is no evidence that Cullen was engaged in any homosexual relations with any other figures of the Renaissance 'kay
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Uh that that could be written another way that there were other people there that he could have engaged in [[laughter]] or with right [[laughter]]
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:23.000
Some scholars have read letters and poem that seems suggestive in this regard but have offered nothing conclusive 'kay
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:26.000
Now I read that on page 19
00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:32.000
I'm reading along and I get to page 59 nice long introduction and I come across this statement by Gerald Early
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:37.000
and he is talking about the poem Heritage which is dedicated to ah Jackman
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:49.000
He says here it is a curious observation that in Heritage considered by everyone to be Cullen's finest poem, his masterpiece, he uses the phrase "so I lie 5 times"
00:37:49.000 --> 00:38:01.000
it seems there is a great deal of lying [laughter] going on in the poem, not only lying as in the sense of opposing on less some of the narrative of poem Browning but lying in the sense of just honesty and duplicity
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:13.000
Cullen was very taken with the art of lying or why else did he have his cat tell tall tales and that laws do and then my lives and then how I lost him or why else did he translate the Medea which is also about all about the lying of 2 lovers
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:17.000
or why write a novel with the central character lies about his conversion
00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:27.000
the entire scope of Cullen's 1930s career seems a law philosophical and ascetic examination of the many created in nefarious dimensions of lying, deception, and hypocrisy
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:33.000
now anybody who just or any study of homosexual literature knows that one of the key aspect of homosexual literature is that its coded [[laughter]] you know
00:38:33.000 --> 00:38:36.000
I mean you can read like Whitman again you know what I mean
00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:42.000
and the question is if he can make this statement about how he felt that Countee Cullen so designed this and that
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:50.000
that perhaps you know what we could say is that perhaps in some of Countee Cullen's poems you know just just you mean you have to read it 2 different ways
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:55.000
and I say that because many times that's how you have to read between the lines in terms of homosexual literature
00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:04.000
case in point um what is included in this book is Countee Cullen's novel One Way to Heaven
00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:09.000
now what you find in here is the main character Lucas has one arm okay
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:12.000
that you have this like what you call like a deformity
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:21.000
it's interesting I say that because sometimes in homosexual literature a character is presented that there is something wrong with them or how they might be perceived by society
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:27.000
one writer who is a homosexual writer [[??]] who does this in many of his books is a science fiction writer Samuel Delaney
00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:35.000
who always have a character who has a certain maybe one leg is longer than the other or something like but he is an outsider okay
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:38.000
and someone could say okay in this sense this represents you know the black character Sam Delaney
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:42.000
he's a he's a black writer so this is the outcast that's him
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:53.000
or we can say he might feel himself as an outcast as a homo as a homosexual and consequently these characters are a sign um to um the character in the novel
00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:01.000
I just say this that in terms of for critics if they're going to go back and and deal with this issue then they are going to have to know how to read the text again
00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:10.000
and so I always levy cause the Heritage poem like What is the African in Me? sat in there if you if you take there on another level it could be a love poem to one individual person who just happens to be black
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:16.000
say you read it as a love poem to Harold Jackman who it is dedicated to and has a totally different meaning it's not about the [[??]]
00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:20.000
it is about the new black man lying on the bed [[laughter]] you know what I mean
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:26.000
now that can get you into a lot of trouble but that's you know [[indistinct talking]]
00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:31.000
let me uh let me just mention this uh cause now I'm looking at this time and and I want to have time for
00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:35.000
Melvin Dixon recently came out with this book called Vanishing Rooms
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:46.250
uh and this is a novel by another um major oh I don't want to say major a new African American writer who uh is writing gay novels I think Melvin Dixon is coming
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:55.000
Eugene Ethelbert Miller: —to give a reading at American University. Um, I reviewed this, um, for NPR, and I have serious problems with it.
00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:05.000
As I told Essex Hemphill, I have some problem with the poems in this book. And I told Essex, I said, you know, I read all these poems by all these men you have in here and they all have problems with their fathers.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:18.000
You know, I said, if I wanted to stereotype homosexual, it's like, well, if you gotta problem with your father, you better look out. And it was amazing, and he agreed! That a lot of the poems in here, you can see the young men wrestling with their fathers. Okay?
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:28.000
And that might be a thing in terms of, one, this book becomes interesting for discussion. Um, and I just say that, as just reading it, and as an observation.
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:36.000
You know, that this would be a thing that somebody might say, hey, let's look into this a little more closer. Either the father's not there or it's this battle with the father.
00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:39.000
Okay, so when you read these poems, you know, that's there.
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:44.000
In Vanishing Room, what Melvin Dixon does, is, he deals with the whole issue of gay bashing.
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:50.000
But what he does, which is a thing that also appears in a lot of the black male homosexual literature, is—
00:41:50.000 --> 00:42:00.000
you have black men in love affairs with white men. And, I say that because, you know, we're always hearing a lot of stuff about black men falling in love with white women, what that means.
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:03.000
So, somebody out here, tell me, what does it mean when black men fall in love with white men?
00:42:03.000 --> 00:42:07.000
You know, I wanna know what that's about, and what that mean.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:15.000
What is interesting in terms, in this book, is that I felt that the character that Melvin Dixon developed the best— it was the white character.
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:22.000
You know, who's wrestling with the sexual identity, who's involved in beating up this white homosexual.
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Uh, the story is told from a number of different angles. You know, a gay man, uh, a black woman dancer, all these four characters interacting.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:39.000
And it's interesting to see exactly how, um, Melvin Dixon, is caught in some of the same stereotypes that someone outside of literature would criticize.
00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:42.000
So, I just mention this as a title of a book you might wanna pick up.
00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:48.000
Let me move from the whole thing of homosexual literature, um, to this whole thing of male bonding.
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:58.000
Because, what happens at the same time we're talking about black male homosexuality, there's some interesting things happening, um, within the African-American community in terms of what we call bonding.
00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:04.000
Those of you who stay abreast with Robert Bly and Michael Meade, and the others know that this, quote, there's a men's movement out there, right?
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:16.000
Um, in fact, there was a meeting on, October 5th, over at Duke Ellington, which was sponsored by the Multi Cultural Foundation. These men have been meeting and stuff, and some of the people they have in the— participating,
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:24.000
one writer who one would not expect be participating in one of these, like, "men's gatherings", is the poet and writer Haki Madhubuti,
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:35.000
uh, who as you know, you follow his essays, has always been concerned about what is happening to young African-American men. The whole thing, African-American men being an endangered species.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:41.000
Uh, we know that when we look around our community, there are many, um, um, households in which the male figure is absent.
00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:53.000
Um, we hear a lot in terms of, on the media, the need for role models. Recently, we were talking about the debate with regards to the schools in terms of single sex schools, male schools.
00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:03.000
That perhaps, what is needed in our community is to take the young men aside and give them instruction which is directed to them. Um, so you can deal with that in court. [[laughter]]
00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:12.000
What you find though, is all this going, going on, and it's very interesting in terms of, it begins to appear also in terms of, of some of the literature.
00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:27.000
And the writer that I pull out, which I find fascinating is, um, the novelist John Edgar Wideman, because what Wideman does, uh, and it comes out of his background, uh, as a, as a very talented, um, not only Rhodes Scholar, but basketball player.
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:44.000
That Wideman really can capture the game, uh, which is a real skill. We often talked about, uh, the African American writer capturing the language, the sounds of the street, or capturing the blues or jazz and— but what Wideman does is he captures basketball.
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.000
But, it's not just basketball as game. It's basketball in terms of ritual.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:57.000
And, when we deal with bonding and things of that sort, I wish Bly was up here, you know, the whole thing of initiation, ritual, myth— these are the type of things, the whole thing of telling stories.
00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:04.000
So what happens is that when the young men gather at a court in a city, a ritual is taking place.
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:14.000
Okay, there's a place in which the older guys occupy. There's a place where younger guys wanna dunk, you know, and stuff like that. [[laughter]] There's, you know, there's a way that they, they perform.
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:20.000
Uh, when there's a whole thing in terms of choosing sides, who gets picked, and stuff like that. It's an initiation.
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:30.000
You know, uh, and this is a thing that you find in Philadelphia Fire. And listen to how, this is on page 34 of Philadelphia Fire. And, I'll just read these few paragraphs.
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:37.920
"What starts the action" — and keep in mind a ritual, here — "What starts the action--"
