Ink out...

A friend of mine aspires to run his own small publishing company. Personally I aspire to be a published author of fiction.  Just imagine sitting across from Amy Tan, Stephen King, Arthur Golden & Khaled Hosseni and discussing plot twists and character development.  Seriously , How cool would that be? My pragmatic and bluntly honest friend (who shall remain nameless) told me that he thinks I'm a damn good writer. Let me preface this by saying that this guy does not hand out compliments. He says what he thinks and I've seen him make people cry.  The fact that I'm MUCH bigger than him wouldn't factor in as knowing this guy if he thought my work was garbage he'd most certainly tell me.
       He told me that while I might get published by someone other than a glorified vanity press in my lifetime several factors assure that it most certainly won't be the easiest thing. Here's his list and the explanations as to WHY:

RACISM: The publishing industry is NOT very kind to authors of color.  I'm sure someone just saw the word racism and immediately stood up and said "How DARE you" in that exaggerated way that people only seem to do in movies, but here's what I mean.
                   Feel free to substitute the words "Latino", "Asian" or "Native American" and I'm sure they may fit just as well.  I will NOT dispute that there ARE black authors and have been for centuries, but think about the kinds of things they're allowed to publish.  While film maker Oscar Micheaux did self publish a few novels. On the whole publishers back in the old days, just as today didn't have the highest opinions of black readers or authors. Publishers want black stories from black authors, meaning our protagonist must be black and the story has to be in some way about the black experience or some struggle we must overcome as black people. If it isn't a "black struggle" it has to be seen as a way of "humanizing" blacks to a liberal white readership who wish to know of our journey pushing cars up hill with ropes because society has decided that we are destined to endure hardships.
              What if you're an author of color and your protagonist isn't? Then chances are publishers aren't the least bit interested in you. Apparently The only people who CAN write believable characters of a given ethnic group must BELONG to the aforementioned group unless of course the author is white in WHICH case he's a sensitive artist who understands the struggle of society's outcasts. Someone not familiar with me reading this will more than likely say that I'm probably either a racist, a bad writer or just someone incapable of accepting that the things he writes might not POSSIBLY be WORTH either publishing or reading.  Fair enough. Those same people will then point out that Richard Wright and James Baldwin succeeded in being published. I'd then recommend "Black Boy", "Native Son", "The Fire Next Time" and "Go Tell it on the Mountain" to illustrate my point about black writers ONLY being allowed to tell "black" stories.
              My indignant critic would then bring up masterful writers like Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, & Toni Morrison among others to prove my ignorance and those amazing crafters of fiction bring me to my next point.

SEXISM: Publishing fiction in the late 20th century if you're a person of color seems a tad easier if you were born with a uterus.  Angry, black feminists are preparing to attack me on this one but my defense is as follows: Women are far smarter and rational than men are. Society (of which the publishing industry is part) would rather deal with women than men. A male dominated society at some point decided that certain work places needed to be more female than male due to the misconception that women are far less to be disagreeable.  Look at the workplace at the end of the civil rights movement and with the rise of Affirmative action programs. MANY work places when told to diversify i.e. hire more women AND minorities simply hired female minorities leaving men of color in the dust.
          E.g. The AMC Series "Mad Men" took place in a New York ad agency during the sixties. Some rival firm posted an ad saying that the firm around which the show centered was hiring people of color. In the next scene a very timid English man walks into an office filled with professionally dressed black men and women eager to enter the monochromatic setting and the first thing he did was tell the men to go home and simply interviewed women.  Black women are some of the most intelligent people on the planet and the publishing industry seemed to buy into the narrative that the black community is run entirely by matriarchs as all black men either abandon our children, get shot & killed committing crimes or simply are incarcerated and can't be there for our children; hence, the women must tell our stories. As a black man raised by his married mother and father I can't begin to tell you how offensive that stereotype is.
       I hear a mounting chorus of "There have been and still are black male authors! You have no idea what you're talking about!" I'll go on a limb here and say that if you've read a work by a black male author he's EITHER a politician about to run for president, an athlete, an entertainer or a convicted felon.  Books by rappers, athletes and ex cons will get printed because apparently publishers think the only thing in the black male wheelhouse are those skills. The last barrier to a man of color being published?

Homophobia: This one MAY surprise you a tad, as in this case the presumptions about gay men will GET a gay black man published before his heterosexual counterpart. I could see the blood pressure of readers rise as they read that and before I get accused of generalizing, the stereotype has long been that gay men are more creative than heterosexual men. Some are, but there are heterosexual men like Ralph Lauren who would respectfully disagree.
          Let me go on record in saying I have respect for the gay community ESPECIALLY the black gay community. The black community as a whole is pretty conservative religiously and amazingly homophobic. Black gay men have to deal with issues within their own families, churches and peer groups before dealing with the racism that many try to pretend doesn't exist in the gay community.  As a heterosexual man I can't pretend I know what that's like and can only go from what friends have told me, but from what I've seen if you're a black gay man with a story to tell in fiction, you'll have a better chance at it than I will.  Publishers have just started to see the struggle that gays have endured for thousands of years and want to give gays a voice. I have no issue with this as their stories warrant being told, but are publishers and the literary community treating gay men the same way they treated black intellectuals like Langston Hughes & James Baldwin (both of whom were gay) as brilliant novelties? I'd hate to imagine them suffering that indignation.

In closing, my friend the aspiring publisher told me not to lose hope in spite of these obstacles as he pointed out that Herman Melville wrote one of the greatest novels ever written, it was barely published and wasn't appreciated until nearly before he died.  One never knows which book will be a hit and which won't. Who knows, I might wind up like Stieg Larsson and have someone publish my work to have it become an international best seller AFTER I die! One never knows. Do I write for fortune and fame? Hardly, if I did I would have given up long ago as I have neither of these things.  Someone once told me that Stephen King said that if he didn't write, he'd be in a clock tower somewhere with a rifle. Writers simply have to put words on a page, it's the essence of their being. On the off chance that this blog goes viral, and people at big publishing houses read it some would say I've shot my hopes of ever being in black and white in the foot. Well, as I'm not being currently offered any NEA grants, writing fellowships or book deals and literary agents aren't currently knocking on my door I can hardly cry over losing the notoriety which I don't have and can only hope that if any of the big publishing houses DO read this that they take that which I've said here with a grain of salt unless they're perfectly happy printing celebrity cook books and books containing celebrity selfies, purses and pets.