For more than two weeks now, the United States, and much of the world, has seen daily protests and demonstrations following yet another slew of murders of unarmed Black people. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others, too many others, have had their lives snuffed out by the ever-present pandemic of racial and police violence. As usual, a plethora of hashtags arose from the social media seas. Among them was #AmplifyBlackVoices, meant to highlight works by Black authors and writers.
This led to a boom in follows, subscriptions, book sales, likes, and retweets across the board. Hundreds, if not thousands of people showed up to support Black authors. At least, they showed up long enough to make a few clicks. I, like my colleagues, am grateful for the boost in visibility and sales. I’m delighted by the prospect of gaining and engaging new readers, but this moment is bittersweet. I can’t truly savor what’s happening in any real capacity, because I’m plagued by a particular question:
Where was this support before?
Before the murders. Before the cruelties captured on video. Before the TL lit up like a Roman candle of anti-Black abuse and trauma.
The joy of receiving enthusiastic messages about how great my books sound, and how happy people are to find them, is tempered by the fact that Black people had to suffer for any of this to happen. And there are so many messages, though one in particular rises to the surface. Probably because it’s the one I receive the most. “Why didn’t I hear/know about the Nightmare Verse before!?”
A few potential answers come to mind, but if I’m going to be honest—and now seems to be the time—it all boils down to this: My Black books aren’t the “right” Black books.
Remember the conversations around the Oscars and Emmys, and the roles Black actors receive awards for? Gang bangers. Drug dealers. Crack heads. Maids. Parts steeped in stereotypes about the struggle, ready-made for non-Black consumption. Accolades are heaped upon films like The Help and The Green Book, while other Black movies are painted as underperformers due to a lack of support. Just like movies and television, publishing has a way of rewarding a particular type of Black story, and—for lack of a better term—punishing the rest.
So, back to the previous line of questioning; why didn’t you hear about The Nightmare-Verse, or many other stories by Black authors? Because our books don’t center on Black pain. In the industry, stories about police brutality, the struggle, poverty, etc. have been dubbed “issue” books, and it’s a not-so-secret secret that if your book doesn’t fall into this category, it won’t get any real push or marketing. These are the “right” Black books I referenced earlier. Nearly all other Black books are treated as less important. They’re denied the time and resources needed to make them successful. They’re ignored by the industry, by librarians, by awards committees, by schools, and yes, even by certain readers. Unless, of course, there’s a protest going on. Then everyone wants those ally cookies, nom nom.
Let me take a brief moment to say, I’m not mad at a single Black author who has written these incredibly important stories. Issue books provide much needed insight into what Black people, black kids and teens, are dealing with. These stories need to be told, and Black authors are the ones who should be telling them. These stories deserve every ounce of recognition they receive.
But this laser-like focus on the “right” books sends a clear message to Black authors, Black readers, and Black people as a whole: your stories aren’t worth much if you don’t bleed on the page for us. Not only does this take Black narratives hostage, and pigeonhole them into being trauma porn, it exposes the intended audience for those stories to tangible harm. Harm that has been documented and discussed extensively.
Every time another Black person has their life snatched away by police brutality or racism, social media is flooded with videos and pictures of the incident. And, every time, Black people have to remind allies how such posts subject Black communities to both old trauma and new. So many cries for justice have gone unanswered. So many bodies and lost lives have been swept under the rug. Seeing these posts not only carves a fresh wound into the collective Black psyche, it opens scars. These posts take a psychological toll that very often manifests physically, and harken unto darker days when white people would make, sell, and send each other lynching postcards as a form of entertainment.
The same thing happens when teachers, schools, librarians, and others highlight issue books over and over and over. This doesn’t serve the children these books are meant for. No one stops to consider the effects of repeatedly subjecting Black children to racism, police brutality, and anti-Blackness on the page without something to break it up. Then there’s the exploitative aspect of non-Black readers taking in this story and somehow feeling they’ve accomplished something. They’ve managed activism by bearing witness to the events of the book, but then don’t follow up with seeking change in the real world. Reading then becomes performative.
Now, Black people know the importance of all of our stories. We know that for every “issue” book, we need at least five more where we can go on adventures, fall in love, solve mysteries, be heroes, do everyday things like everyone else. Black readers need to see themselves in narratives outside of racism, slavery, Jim Crow, police brutality. As do non-Black readers. In order to create a safe world for Black people, books that don’t focus on “issues” need to be given just as much space. They provide an opportunity for Black readers to have a moment for themselves, to take a breath, readjust, and simply exist, and for non-Black readers to see us as fully human.
During moments like the one currently gripping this country, and the world, non-Black people like to talk about how much they’re listening. How they hear Black people. How they see us. But when the moment inevitably ends, when the memory of our brutalization fades into memes and TikTok videos and selfies, Black people will be left to pick up the pieces of our broken, battered selves and try to carry on, now burdened with the truth that people only pay attention to our televised and printed genocide.
The follows and subscriptions will stop. The engagement will decrease. The likes and RTs will dwindle. The hype and industry support will dry up, like it always does. Only one type of story will be worth amplifying, anymore. Back to basics. Back to only acknowledging one aspect of our humanity, which happens to be one of the most painful.
The Hate U Give is an amazing book. Dear Martin is an incredible book. Monster is church stomp worthy. These and all other stories like them are phenomenal works that highlight topics that are important to the Black community. Please, keep buying them. Keep reading them. Keep teaching them. They are needed.
But so are books like Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia, which is about a Black boy who goes on an adventure to save a fantastical realm. How about The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton, a book about a Black girl in a fantastical world where the price of beauty is a steep, dangerous one. Then there’s A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow, which is about two Black girls who are sister friends in a world peppered with the paranormal. Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds is about Black kids dealing with loss, love, and time travel! A Blade So Black is about a Black girl charged to save the world from beasts from the dark world of Wonderland. As I said, Black people recognize how vital it is to read books like these in order to avoid being besieged by Black trauma at every turn. It’s getting everyone else to realize the importance of these types of stories that’s the problem.
I can’t say all, but most Black authors I know, if you ask them which book of theirs is the most “successful” in terms of numbers, awards, engagement, it’s gonna be the one that focuses on Black pain.
And don’t get me wrong, Black authors are happy the industry is paying attention in this moment, but it has to go beyond that. It has to go beyond this hyper focus on our trauma. Publishing and the various entities within it have to see all of us, or this equality thing won’t work. Black people are worth more than our suffering.
I am happy to have new readers. I truly am. I’m thankful for the RTs and likes. I’m glad for the support, but I recognize that it’s conditional. I recognize it took Black bodies, dead and dying, for people to show up. And I recognize how, even in the midst of all this progress, publishing remains unwilling to spend big money on anything but the spectacle of Black pain.
L.L. McKinney is a writer, a poet, and an active member of the kidlit community. She’s an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing, and the creator of the hashtag #WhatWoCWritersHear. She’s spent time in the slush by serving as a reader for agents and participating as a judge in various online writing contests. She’s also a gamer girl and an adamant Hei Hei stan. Her works include the Nightmare-Verse books, starting with the A Blade So Black trilogy, and an upcoming graphic novel for DC featuring Nubia, Wonder Woman’s twin sister, and more.
Thank you for writing this. As a middle class, aging white person, I am one of those who have heard little about these stories. And I want to hear about them and read them. I realize the importance of issue stories and do read some of them, but am more than a little tired of the “if it bleeds, it leads” criteria of publishing. Sometimes I need and want relief, and why does my relief always after to be about white people? So thank you again for writing this. I promise I will track down and read f your recommendations
Thank you. As a (struggling) Black writer myself, I appreciate this. Most of my stories deal with the struggle, but I always counter that by telling them in ways that allows Black readers to still engage with them in wonder and spectacle. My novel, if I’m allowed to plug, The Naxos Academy of Psychic Studies for Colored Girls, which is available at iTunes Store, is about race, gender, and respectability politics, that takes place at a school for psychics and mediums in 1920s California. Black writers need the freedom to tell stories that deal with the condition of being Black in America but are also fun, adventurous, and even silly. We are not wounds that people can gape at and diagnose. Our experiences are as universal as they are unique and our literature should reflect that.
Thank you for writing this essay. Just like everyone else, we have mentioned the importance of reading works of fiction by Black authors that are NOT about pain, prejudice and obstacles.
However, I like to point out 2 things. First, reading non-fiction is just as important now as it was since we were in the classroom. I learned about Black Wall Street through stories and information on the Internet. It never made ANY textbook. Rosewood was taught to me from the 1997 movie, and that’s how I learned about the brutality of lynching!
The second thing is we must encourage the reading of these books. As a former ELA teacher/adjunct professor, I know what it means when someone purchases or borrows a book with the purpose of reading them. I have nothing against the authors earning for their work, but if they’re not being read, then what’s the point?
Just like you, I have made recommendations of both fiction and non-fiction books by and about Black people. Let’s hope they’re being read.
Thank you for this! While most of my research and writing are founded on my experiences as a Black woman, I can’t possibly bleed all these experiences onto the pages. If I did that, I’d have nothing else to give because I’d become mired in and choked with the overwhelming, sorrowful pain.
Thanks for writing this, it’s really made me think about the sorts of books I look to when I’m trying to diversify (? Is that even the right word) my reading.
This is something I’ve been trying to do for years, but looking back at all the books I’ve read by black authors, I’m not sure I can even think of any that weren’t issue’ books. Oyinkan’s Braithwaite’s ‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ might be the only one.
Thank you so much for this! I’m guilty of not knowing or caring who was writing the books I read or caring if characters were white, black or anything else. I just wanted to read a story that sounded interesting to me. What i know now is that the white authors and white character centric books are the ones i tend to read, not because i prefer them, but because that’s what’s marketed to me. i have to actually put in the effort to find black authors and books about black characters if I want to really support black authors and their stories. I’m very thankful to all the recommendations and compilation lists people are putting out there because it’s hard to figure out who’s writing things I want to read since the industry doesn’t promote all authors equally. I started trying to find more black authors a few years ago when after reading NK Jemisin’s Hundred Thousand Kingdom series. I was trying to specifically read black written books and all i could find was the same couple of authors promoted over and over. I knew there had to more but was stumped on how to find them. Black authors deserve better treatment from the publishing industry, book sellers, and libraries. More promotion of their work and not just the ones about pain and suffering. Readers deserve it too. We cannot continue to ignore an author’s race or their characters’ race if we want to actually support black authors.
Thank you for this perspective, and the list of books. I bought two (including A Blade so Black) and added several others to my wishlist. As a non-Black WOC, I agree that reading books about the history and impact of racism (and sexism) is important, but also very wearing and traumatizing. I have been deliberately seeking out books for my teenager and I to read with diverse authors and lead characters because I’m tired of only reading about cis/het abled white Christian men/boys. I want to read about different perspectives, different experiences, different religions and spiritual beliefs, different histories and fairy tales, and just different people. I want to know Black people as more than enslaved people or oppressed people because Black people have always been more than that. I have been enjoying NK Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor, and I’m glad to add more authors to my list.
Thank you, L.L. Good book recommendations were always welcome!
I have felt this, but didn’t have a name for it. As a Latina writer, I know that my stories are not the ones they want to publish to gain points. “Ally cookies” is a good name. There are no drug dealers, no maids, no ilegal immigrants, so how can this be a “latino” story?
This puts a lot into perspective.
Also, and this might not be the place for this, but…Nightmare-Verse Book 3? When, please?
Thanks for the generosity of this wonderful post.
I am trying to take a step outside the canon in the American Lit class I teach at a 95% white, middle class HS. We do read Du Bois, Angelou, Hughes, Baldwin, Brooks, and these powerful voices have opened my students’ hearts to the black perspective. However, does anyone have suggestions for BIPOC authors for American Lit more in the spirit of this article that might help my students see a more “fully human” experience for people of color?
Timely, as these are just the kind of books I’m seeking. Pain/Anguish books are important for all to write. Most of the the Black Author books I’ve seen these past weeks are ignoring those black stories that will entertain, engross and excite me with their themes of mystery, fantasy, adventure, romance or any other popular genre.
I will share this in a couple of place.
Thank you for articulating what I have been thinking/feeling about many of the most recent novels from Black writers. My book club is reading Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing,” which has won every prize imaginable. With some guilt, I have given myself permission to stop – I can’t read any further. Admittedly, some of my reaction can be traced to bad timing, but the dark, grisly details of the West Africa slave trade and horrific internal family violence is overkill. I am an informed reader, I have spent time in several African countries, blah, blah, blah (liberal credentials here). To borrow some of the comments above, I want to read stories that connect Blacks – and all of us of all races – to “more human experience.” I too “want to know Black people as more than enslaved people or oppressed people because Black people have always been more than that.” Sometimes I worry that the proliferation of “pain/anguish” books not only turns off readers who actually would learn something from them, but unintentionally reinforces the systemic racism that we may be finally willing to tackle.
Yes! Just… yes.
Thank you for saying what needed to be said. I’m so tired of folks assuming I write about Black people being tragic simply because I’m Black! I write crime fiction, but I love reading science fiction. Thank you for mentioning one of the best Sci-fi/fantasy books I’ve read: The Belles. That book which blew me away with its creative depictions. Hopefully this short time period when everyone appears to be open to true diversity will expose the masses to stories about everyday people and heroes whose skin happens to be chocolate.