The things that come to mind at five am
I know this journal is entitled The Things that Come to Mind at Two AM but today, you get one that comes to mind at five am. Courtesy of the dogs who woke me up at 4:30 am to be let out. So I was lying here in bed trying not to think of anything and my mind began to wander, as it often does
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On Censorship:
"What are we to make of the idea that so many African-American writers confine their topic matter solely to issues concerning the black experience in the United States? We can believe that race is so exciting to these writers that they are compelled to explore it in every aspect and to limit their subjects to other African-Americans. Or we can believe that there is something very wrong with this picture. I believe that what is happening is censorship by omission.
"This has been a quiet issue among African-American writers for decades. Langston Hughes, John A. Williams, and Zora Neale Hurston all spoke of the restraints placed on them as writers.
"Limiting the ideas that will be published not only prevents the propagation of those ideas, it also corrupts the development of the writer. But censorship by omission does one other thing: It keeps the evils of censorship hidden not only from the general public but from other black writers who might be attracted to literature if they did not have to filter their thoughts solely through their racial identity."
Strangely enough (or perhaps not), another submission for this book - "Spear" by Julius Lester - involves a black teen boy realizing something very similar. (I cannot recommend Places I Never Meant to Be strongly enough; these are great thought-provoking shorts)
Perhaps the cry of 'racism' is raised so often simply because they don't get any other character spot - all the new characters are (still) too similar to the older ones. And ...yeah..., to me that would be a form of racism, the subtle and therefore harder to prove *and* remove...
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