Thursday 17th May 2012
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Black story month
Can white people tell our stories better than we can, asks Dotun Adebayo
STORYTELLER: Can white people tell our stories better than we can?
WHAT DO the movie The Help (nominated for four Oscars this year), Porgy and Bess (the classic musical) and the bad bwoy series The Wire all have in common? Well, they all tell stories about black people. And they're all written by white people.
No big deal. But it begs the question, can white people tell our stories better than we can? The success of all three would suggest that we have to hold up our hands and accept that anybody can tell our stories as well as we can. At least as far as movie, stage and TV buffs and Hollywood glitterati who hand out the Academy Awards are concerned.
However telling a good story is not the same as feeling it.
To my knowledge, the only white guy who has ever really felt and understood what it really means to be a black man in a white man's world is William Shakespeare.
The historians will tell us that he probably never met a black man in his life. Don't believe the hype.
You only have to read Othello to see how the Bard penetrates the christian soul of a black man only to find that no matter how long you live in Europe and become European, that hardcore no-messing-about African is always lurking in the shadows waiting for the slightest provocation to pop out.
COTCH
Now tell me that Shakespeare didn't cotch with one or two heartical bredrin back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when ‘Spot The Black Man' was a popular street game of children in London.
And I'll tell you in my best Elvis Presley voice, “Now and then there's a fool such as you."
Elvis of course is another white dude who did a good job of telling the black man's story. But I'm not sure he really felt it. I'm not convinced that he got a glimpse of the ‘old African'.
Here in Britain, the writer of the hit TV series Top Boy was berated by the self-appointed policemen and women of black political correctness for not being a bruvver.
These P.C. coppers fear that in not feeling it, white writers tend to sensationalise black crime.
But does that make them any less legitimate chroniclers of the black experience than a black writer?
More to the point, if they're not really feeling us, are we really really them?
Is a black writer as legitimate a chronicler of the white experience?
Or do we have to condemn all black writers to sticking to only that which they feel?
Posted on: 18/02/2012 11:53 AM
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Your Voice
CommentsIt's true but not really
It's true but not really something to raise to the world. This is more an issue that should be raised in house.
Long black people have wanted white people not only to accept and respect our histories and experiences but also to really care. So if you have white writers unprompted deciding to raise the profile of black experiences, then we should be happy.
I'm looking at this more as an artist and I believe art is art. I don't care who creates it. I'm not crazy about 'The Help' because yes its set in Mississipi and history tells us that Mississipi aint no joke.The film was very light in that sense and didn't portray the American state as we have come to know it, which is the realism and superficiliaty the writer above me is talking about. However, the arguement to that is, it's not meant to be that kind of film, it's meant to be a light film for a certain audience and anyone who tries to deal with racism lightly has a hard job ahead of them. So the film is great in its own right.
I'm not going to go into what I think about the Wire because I could speak forever. It's a masterpiece and it's really irrelavent who wrote it.
But yes, black writers should look at these pieces of works and see that the world is receptive to it. With this, tell our stories and be completely open for the authenticity is ours.
We also need to consider the question of money and contacts. Who do these white writers know and is it easier for them to get their works of arts supported?
There is always going to be the question of TV networks only being ready to accept pro black messages from non-black people. Remember this.
But yes, lets not put this question out there as it sounds like we are complaining when we should be rejoicing that our stories are being told. Let blacks resolve this issue in house.
Are you kidding me with this
Are you kidding me with this article, seriously. Of course Shakespare would have met a black person. There were loads of black people in the England travelling back and forth trading and living.
As a writer you should be able to write about any story you want however, for it to be authentic you need have some experience of it. I could not accurately write about the experiences of a Muslim women in Afghanistan with any authenticity but I could write a story.
The examples you gave of White writers are brilliant examples of the case in point, The Help is ridiculous and in no way truly represents the experience of maids in the south were at this point in time lynching was rife. there are documented cases of being still being held in slavery. The story was superficial and unrealistic.
Top boy, the stereotypical example of black boys again. They will never tell our story correctly because they have no understanding of our experience.
Only black writer will even attempt to show the full range and diversity of the black experience. Those who are successful, the Lawyer, doctors, 2 parent families