BIG IDEAS

In only the way he can, Undercover Blackman gets deeper into the revelation that the highly lauded new book by Margaret P. Jones, Love and Consequences - the “true” story of a white woman raised by Black foster parents and brought into adulthood as a moll to The Bloods gang in Los Angeles - is, as they say in L.A. - um, bullshit.

Not everything’s funky with Black History Month where Black authors are concerned. There are a couple of real benefits. For example:

(1) If you’re lucky enough to get hooked up into the highly lucrative college and corporate lecture circuit as the result of your book, consider yourself a lock for speaking gigs in February. Every big and small college in America has Black History Month Lecture Series, and the going rate these days can be anywhere from $3,000 - $10,000 a pop for an author who is well known. Exponentially more if you’re a superstar. If  you plan it right and have a good agent, a full schedule of February speaking gigs can earn you a full year’s salary after taxes. That leaves the rest of the year to do what you love - write.

(2) Everyone knows that sales of books are very heavily influenced by the major Bestseller Lists - New York Times, Washington Post.  What you might not know is that those lists have very little to do with overall sales. Most of these lists track only a select list of major chain retailers - Wal-Mart, Borders, Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble…

That dozen books you bought at the Afrocentric Negro Book, Yohimbe & Hair Care Center, your church social and Joe, the dreadlocked incense vendor at the flea market? Don’t count.

That doesn’t mean you should stop buying from those places. By all means, support them. The author gets the money no matter how it’s bought (though bulk sales sold outside of a retailer get the author a lower percentage of royalty).

What makes Black History Month good is this regard is that, by guaranteeing the shelf and window space at places like Borders, it increases the likelihood that Black authors will make those bestseller lists. That’s key. Publishers give a book about a month to catch fire before their attention flows to the next project, and the lists are a heavy part of their consideration for future promotion. Don’t make that list and forget the long book tour you dreamed about.

Ain’t the book business grand?

In theory, there’s a No Nepotism policy at EbonyJet.com when it comes to editorial. But us being Black folk and all, is that really possible? Everybody else might have six degrees of separation but Black folk have what, 2 degrees? 1.5? So allow me this one shout to extended family.

Last week, artistic luminati and glitterati gathered in Nueva York to celebrate the 50th birthday of music critic, musician and general guru and leading light Greg Tate. Like so many other creative/searching/curious/lost young folk (more than one can even mention) I got swept into the welcoming vortex that was the Tate family back in 1980. His brother, Brian and I were broke, playing in an art punk band (along with then nerd, now geek editor of Wired, Chris Anderson) eating all his Mama’s homemade ice cream and stealing Greg’s old comic books. Greg had already moved to New York to write for the Village Voice and our band’s number one mission was to be good enough for Greg to write about us so we’d get booked at Danceteria or CBGBs. Or, you know, get girls.

Debatable whether the good enough happened, and he certainly never wrote about us, but the close association led me down a Greg-influenced path to hardcore rock, performance poetry, horror fiction and whole bunch of things I was into but scared to love. His writing helped me give myself permission to be Black and dig everything that came my way — and to feel even Blacker for doing so.

He challenged my thinking and opened my mind to a new way of putting thoughts to the page. So much so that I flunked Wallace Terry’s Journalism class at Howard for trying too hard to be interesting instead of doing that inverted pyramid thing. He’s been an inspiration ever since.

In a really brilliant blog piece, critic Michael Gonzales runs down the list of the Tate-inspired. It’s not even close to accurate - that list is way too long for a web article.

So hail and best wishes to an man who opened up a whole generation of writers to a new way of thinking and expressing.

But, Yo Greg! where that article at? I kid. I kid. No, but seriously…

Jelani Cobb sent us an e-mail reminder that today is James Baldwin’s birthday. An excerpt:

I wanted to take a moment to point out that today marks what would have been James Baldwin’s 83rd birthday. I’ve often repeated the story of not really knowing who he was until he passed away my freshman year at Howard and my English professor spent the class trying to impress upon us his monumental significance. Earlier this year I published The Devil & Dave Chappelle, my first collection of essays. As an essayist Baldwin’s work has been indispensable to me. I read Notes of a Native Son and Evidence of Things Not Seen in my early twenties and then devoured his collected non-fiction The Price of The Ticket. I remember being stunned at how eloquently he stated our claim on America and the weight of history in the present. I have pointed more than a few aspiring writers at Spelman in Baldwin’s direction.

I included below some of Baldwin’s notable quotes below. I hope you enjoy them and remember a brother whose contributions to our tradition is inestimable.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others.
Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they’re better than other human beings.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.