Yesterday I had a little time on my hand and I strolled hither and yon checking out blogs…
There seemed to me an ongoing theme…
African American literature and the responsibilities of AA authors for AA people…
One of the general themes was this…
When an AA author puts out a body of work…
It should be always be about uplifting the Race…
It should have meaning and depth…
And should never show us in a bad light…
Whew!
In my own writing I always try to write about us as I know us to be…
A sharing of my experiences and those of the many, many folks I have come in contact with…
Other than that I don’t feel a great deal of responsibility for the masses, when writing…
To show my responsibility…
I teach…
I tithe...
I mentor…
I embrace…
But when I write…
I simply want to tell stories…
Many always comment on the positive messages in my work…
So somehow I am getting that out there…
But I think that is because I live a positive life…
I would be hard pressed to come up with a deep down…
Melancholy book…
Because that isn’t in me…
On the other hand I will never be able to write a book…
That doesn’t speak truth as I know it…
If I sit down at my computer and start trying to pen a book…
That is only about uplifting and only showing what is palatable…
To some of my brothers and sisters…
I will never write again…
I probably would also become a mute…
So here is what I will do…
You have my word on this…
I will write about us as we are…from what I know…
Sometimes we will be beautiful…
Sometimes ugly…
Sometimes we will be nice…
Other times not so nice…
Some of us will live straight up lives…
Others will live more twisted lives…
We will love…
We will fight…
We will cuss…
And we will cry…
We will be straight…
Gay…
Happy and sad…
We will not be monolithic…
But diverse….
We will be all the things we are…
Unapolgetically…
It is the only way I can do it…
I love my people….
I just can’t be responsible for all of us…
All the time…
Love and Blessings…
Angelia
acVernon Menchan
