/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8402778]

Is there any worthwhile black literature out there?

[Anonymous No.8402784]

Diary

[Anonymous No.8402786]

>>8402784
Who's that by?

[Anonymous No.8402789]

>>8402786
Its my diary, desu

[Anonymous No.8402790]

>he's so fucking stupid he doesn't know any good black authors

I pity you matey, better stick with YA for now

[Anonymous No.8402793]

>>8402790
There isnt any tho, blacks dont contribute to literature, or anything else really

[Anonymous No.8402794]

>>8402790
I mean worthwhile, as in the opportunity cost of otherwise reading some great works isn't too high.

[Anonymous No.8402795]

>>8402793
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.8402797]

>>8402795
Reality hurts, doesnt it?

[Anonymous No.8402802]

>>8402797
Your small, deformed, racist brain never developed pain nerves did it?

[Anonymous No.8402805]

>Oh, but that is a very, very rare exception. What else is there like Invisible Man? Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God has a kind of superior intensity and firm control. It’s a very fine book indeed. It surprised and delighted me when I first read it and it has sustained several rereadings since. But that and Invisible Man are the only full scale works of fiction I have read by American blacks in this century that have survival possibilities at all. Alice Walker is an extremely inadequate writer, and I think that is giving her the best of it. A book like The Color Purple is of no aesthetic interest or value whatsoever, yet it is exalted and taught in the academies. It clearly is a time in which social and cultural guilt has taken over.

[Anonymous No.8402807]

>>8402802
So blacks contribute to science? Tech? Finance? Charity? Noble prizes?

[Anonymous No.8402812]

>>8402807
I contributed sperm into your mom's womb last night.

[Anonymous No.8402813]

>>8402807
all meaningless social constructs. just like race.

[Anonymous No.8402814]

David Foster Wallace will come back from the dead before a nigger ever does anything of value.

[Anonymous No.8402815]

>>8402778
Cane by Jean Toomer is criminally vacant from this board.

[Anonymous No.8402817]

>>8402805
It's strange that he forgot Ishmael Reed, since Bloom praised him somewhere else.

[Anonymous No.8402818]

>>8402813
Hows highschool bud? Is reddit down?

[Anonymous No.8402819]

WE

[Anonymous No.8402822]

>>8402807

after centuries of enslavement and continued abuses by global and local forces, asking an entire race to "get their act together" is a little naive and shortsighted.

[Anonymous No.8402827]

>>8402822
You're not wrong, but if you're, e.g., Harold Bloom, and you've devoted your entire life to the aesthetic contemplation of the written word, then this matters not at all.

[Anonymous No.8402831]

>>8402822
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sgk0pxmx2o

please

[Anonymous No.8402832]

>>8402822
Right, cause blacks were the only race exploited. There was no asian, or indian slaves right? The great wall built itself?

[Anonymous No.8402833]

>>8402831
>>8402822
Thomas Sowell is black by the way.

[Anonymous No.8402839]

Haha blacks Btfo, the only thing they do for society is fill up prisons

[Anonymous No.8402845]

>>8402778
off the top of my head
>Samuel Delaney
>Derek Walcott
>James Baldwin
>Toni Morrison
>Zadie Smith
>Ralph Ellison
had a chart, don't know what happened to it

[Anonymous No.8402847]

>>8402822
Youd have intelligent subsaharan africans that had never been enslaved being smarter than american blacks but theyre actually 15 IQ points dumber in average and jews would be at the bottom of society everywhere.

[Anonymous No.8402848]

james baldwin? idk, i picked up go tell it on the mountain recently and couldn't make it halfway through. the structure of the writing was just too fucked, which is a shame because the characters seemed to have some interesting potential. weird, since i find baldwin to be very succinct and comprehensible in his essays.

between the world and me seems to have had a strong affect on academia. i'm worried about reading it since coates is supposed to be baldwin 2.0. i really want to understand the modern american cultural narrative too.

[Anonymous No.8402856]

>>8402822

What's the alternative? They are responsible for their own actions. To say that blacks are helpless and incapable due to their past oppression would be to deny their agency. It is, in fact, racist.

The problem isn't that they're not "contributing" it's that they're not even on the path to contributing. You can't win a Nobel if you never learn to read and write beyond an eighth grade level. We can't physically force black people to try harder, the change will have to come from within their own communities.

[Anonymous No.8402857]

I doubt many people here read anything other them something by a white man since its what they identify with.

[Anonymous No.8402859]

>>8402832
>The great wall built itself?
lad. the great wall was built before the US was ever even a nation.
racial segregation was so recent that my grandfather was alive during that time, and he still is.

[Anonymous No.8402861]

>>8402856
Google black authors. Argument closed. Youre all just too ignorant and blinded by racism to read any good books.

[Anonymous No.8402862]

/pol/ fuck off.

[Anonymous No.8402869]

>>8402857
nah, asian authors get a lot of love here and elsewhere like ishiguro, mishima, tao, c-r lee, etc.
>>8402859
you completely missed the point.
>>8402862
we're having a discussion.

[Anonymous No.8402894]

>>8402778
Roll of Thunder, Here My Cry

[Anonymous No.8402902]

>>8402832
You really have no license to be so snarky, you're kind of an obtuse, uninformed twat. Its not simply that they were enslaved and otherwise subjugated but rather the implementation of chattel slavery and the unique social mechanisms needed to maintain such an institution. You cant conflate this brand of slavery and the deleterious effect it has on the collective development of a class of people with other historical human atrocities. Doing that is extremelyand harmfully fucking reductionist.

[Anonymous No.8402917]

>>8402902
don't get invested in it dude, it's just a /pol/ invasion thread.
you're talking to a wall.

[Anonymous No.8402926]

>>8402856
Lol no one is insinuating that blacks are 'helpless and incapable', no one is EVER insinuating that. acknowledging the very real socioeconomic barriers (which dont stop at slavery you dunce) that deprive blacks of accessibility to the amenities they need to "try harder".

Like for fucks sake, how are you supposed to learn to read and write beyond an eighth grade level when every school in the community is horribly underfunded? Because the whites sure as fuck dont want black kids to start getting bussed in. So whats a nigga to do?

[Anonymous No.8402927]

>>8402861

I've read books by black authors before. Some of them were actually good. That doesn't change the fact blacks lag far behind white people in literacy and intellectual achievement. There are some serious problems with African American culture that you can't blame on whitey.

[Anonymous No.8402928]

>>8402859
What about blacks in the UK or anywhere else?

[Anonymous No.8402933]

>>8402926
Fuck I forgot to finish this post lol. But yeah fuck off with your stale racist 'agency' strawman

[Anonymous No.8402935]

>>8402778
no

[Anonymous No.8402940]

>>8402928
I dont understand what this is supposed to change? The US wasnt the only country to enslave africans and then establish a strict racial stratus to keep them in check?

[Anonymous No.8402942]

>>8402926

>when every school in the community is horribly underfunded

Do you have a source for that? For the record, black kids never got bussed anywhere, they took white kids from the suburbs and bussed them into inner city schools. Bussing wasn't even about funding, it was about desegregation. Liberals wrongly thought that if white kids and black kids went to school together they would magically become friends and racism would disappear.

[Anonymous No.8402947]

>>8402927
>that you can't blame on whitey

Lmao if only you knew you daft son of a bitch

[Anonymous No.8402950]

>/pol/ infesting my board

Fuck off racsits.

[Anonymous No.8402954]

Baldwin and Toni Morrison are both great. Go Tell It On the Mountain is mweh, probably because it's his first, so I recommend you start with something else. Notes of a Native Son is great. Not fiction though.

[Anonymous No.8402961]

Chester Himes.

[Anonymous No.8402964]

>>8402778
Does Dumas count?
Because if not then the answer is no.

[Anonymous No.8402967]

>>8402940
They had more time in other parts of the world, as much as Asians or whites themselves

[Anonymous No.8402968]

Is Mumbo Jumbo good?

[Anonymous No.8402972]

>>8402942
>do you have sources for that

So we're about to pretend that blacks arent disproportionately impoverished in america and dont live their lives quarantined to a few extremely disenfranchised sectors of inner cities across the US in what is commonly documented as concentrated poverty? (Look, I even gave yiu key phrases to Google since you want to play idiot. Go educate yourself)

The second part of your post is just an outright fucking lie that makes no rational sense and youre just saying shit now.

[Anonymous No.8402979]

>>8402972
You have 8 years of a black president to thank for that.

[Anonymous No.8402983]

Ben Okri
Marlon James

[Anonymous No.8402985]

>>8402979
>>8402979
Lol am I being trolled? This nations black population has been clustered in dilapidated inner city areas since during world war 2 when they all moved from the rural south seeking factory jobs.

Holy shit kid lmao

[Anonymous No.8402993]

>>8402805
damn..

[Anonymous No.8403017]

>>8402985
If you have to ask if you're being trolled you lost the argument lol

Why are you defending an entire race of people's victim hood status if race is just a social construct?

[Anonymous No.8403021]

>>8403017
This was my first post btw I wasn't whoever was arguing with you

[Anonymous No.8403036]

>>8402985
Right, everyone in the ghetto is black because they are factory workers?

You people don't even hear yourselves.

[Anonymous No.8403048]

>>8402778
>Is there any worthwhile black literature out there?

Yeah, but it's usually non-fiction, like CLR James, or Thomas Sowell.

[Anonymous No.8403078]

>>8403017
Im not the guy that said that just so you know
but social constructs typically do have social consequences accompaying them. dont be stupid.

And no it doesnt lol, it means im dealing with an unwarrantedly smug asshole that doesn't know shit about us history. At least not beyond the heavily idealized bits.

[Anonymous No.8403079]

>>8402778
The count of monte cristo is pretty good

[Anonymous No.8403084]

>>8403036
Thats... actually not what I said at all. You sure are good at twisting peoples words around.

But yeah keep pretending like this shit isnt all a google search away, I dont give a fuck lol

[Anonymous No.8403102]

>>8402778

[Anonymous No.8403103]

>>8403036
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)

Oh haha wow look at that youre a fucking retard

[Anonymous No.8403104]

>>8403084
Of course it is. You said that blacks are hemmed into ghettos because that's where all the factory jobs were.

[Anonymous No.8403105]

>>8402845
Nigger stole it

[Anonymous No.8403109]

>>8403103
How does that disprove me? Ghettos do not exist because of factory jobs.

[Anonymous No.8403120]

>>8402861
LALALALALALALA YUOURE ALL RAYSIIST REEEEEE
literally you

[Anonymous No.8403123]

>>8402795
What would we do without peanut butter?

[Anonymous No.8403125]

The only one I've read is Cardinal Sarah

[Anonymous No.8403128]

>>8403109
LMAOOO I literally never said or in any way implied that blacks are poor because of factory jobs or whatever dumb shit. you said some non sequitur bullshit about obama after I said black populations in america are largely concentrated in poor urban areas. I explained to you why blacks were poor before Obama by citing actual historical events. Then you took it and ran off with it.

Please stop

[Anonymous No.8403138]

[Anonymous No.8403141]

>>8403128
woahhhh before you dive back into your semantical horseshit, lemme correct: "why blacks lived in mostly urban areas before obama."

And now that I think about it, are you really saying obama is the reason blacks live in cities? how is that any less stupid than what you THINK I said?

Your reasoning skills are horrible

[Anonymous No.8403208]

>>8402839
We should be using prisoners for hard labor.

[Anonymous No.8403223]

There are three authors who are known for their (more or less) autobiographical works: Iceberg Slim, Malcolm X and Sanyika "Monster Kody" Shakur. Their stories take place between the 20s and 90s but you will see a lot of similarities between the problems these men had to face as blacks in the US. Their approaches, how to solve these problems is interesting to read, although they all fail in a way.

[Anonymous No.8403229]

>>8402972

Look buddy, there are schools in the ghetto, and they have teachers. They may not have an indoor swimming pool and graphic arts lab, but they will teach kids how to read, write, and do math.

Prove to me that's not the case.

[Anonymous No.8403233]

>muh slavery
>muh identity
>much oppressive males

rinse and repeat

fucking boring after two books

[Anonymous No.8403432]

>>8402807
>>8402812
black people do that too

[Anonymous No.8403450]

>>8402790
I feel slightly ashamed, but not as ashamed as the ordinary politically correct person would be. I just looked at my book shelf and my yearly reading list, and I quite literally have two books by black people. I mean come on, at least I have six book by women out of my 120.

[Anonymous No.8403460]

>>8402902
Talk about reductionism, you make it sound as if the entire Black race was subjected to chattel slavery when it was only a small number of the African continent where actually pushed into it. The colonialism Africa suffered otherwise was not unique as compared to asia and America, the genocide of indigonous populations in America's has had a much more devastating effect on their culture. The issue with this malignant form of victim complex is evident today when even upper middle class African migrants with no slave ancestery portray themselves as the most oppressed people ont he planet

[Anonymous No.8403477]

>>8402778
read the new negro, alan locke
its pretty good

[Anonymous No.8403484]

>>8403450
That's probably 8 books that you don't need in your collection, obtained for no other reason than the skin color or gender of the author.

[Anonymous No.8403487]

I refuse to read black literature on principle (especially black women), however I do try to diversify my reading to women and Non-black People of Colour. It amazing just how racist asians and arabs are to the black scourge

[Anonymous No.8403491]

>>8402822
>>8402859
>>8402902
>>8402927

>nothing exists beyond the US borders

[Anonymous No.8403495]

>>8403491
>Black achievement is exceptional outside the US

[Anonymous No.8403508]

>>8403491
American blacks are definitely the most successful blacks worldwide.

[Anonymous No.8403513]

>>8403508
>>8403495

My point was that the muh slavery excuse is not valid

[Anonymous No.8403518]

>>8403513
Of course it's not valid. The real point is that blacks generally have next to no culture, as in: culture of work, of cooperation, of being a nation and contributing to a nation, of hierarchy, of conforming to laws - all of which are important for building a successful country.

[Anonymous No.8403588]

>>8402778
Canon

[Anonymous No.8403589]

Personal responsibility

Blacks have exclusive countless scholarships available to them that aren't available to whites

What about poor whites in the inner cities?

What about poor whites in west virginia?

Where's all the outrage when a white guy gets killed by the police

Where's all the protests for the daily killing of blacks in chicago by other blacks?

What about affirmative action?

What about the +200 SAT points black bonus?

[⭐ No.8403629]

vietnam by something dean myers

[⭐ No.8403633]

walter dean myers

[Anonymous No.8403653]

>>8402815
It's alright. Don't starting emptying your nuts about it.

[Anonymous No.8403656]

>>8402822
This is such a bullshit defense. They've had plenty of time since their ancestors were enslaved. And plenty of them weren't enslaved.

[Anonymous No.8403913]

>>8403450

this isnt necessarily a personal failing. this is a symptom of specific groups being marginalized to the extent that they have.

this doesnt happen by accident. the lack of contribution to the western canon by women and minorities is directly reflected by the subjugation and marginalization by the powers that have dominated.

while im not going to jump into demonizing white men, patriarchy, etc etc, the fact that so many people here have a discontinuity to the linear progression of reasoning that has led to the present state of things is frightening.

the fact that jim crow laws existed and women's suffrage movements happened in the last century should be enough to show that these problems were not isolated and not limited to their time.

the solution doesnt lie in lowering standards and accepting subpar work merely on the grounds of the author, but nothing can be done if people continue to believe that there isnt even in fact a problem. the belief that black writers and women writers are inferior by virtue of the sex/race of the authors is plainly racist and sexist. its not that simple.

>>8402847
bullshit. you are continuing to see abuses on the global level against periphery states in africa. the world bank and their forcing of neoconservative economic policy on developing nations is another slap in the face. again, its not that simple.

>>8403656
i think your opinion is interesting but you need to give me more substance than, "no, you're wrong."

[Anonymous No.8403995]

>>8403913
>the belief that black writers and women writers are inferior by virtue of the sex/race of the authors is plainly racist and sexist.
If we believe that blacks are different than whites and women are different than men, is it so preposterous to also believe that there must be a difference in quality between these different groups? Or must we labor under the delusion that evolution and nature has an egalitarian agenda.

[Anonymous No.8404010]

>>8403995
Women and blacks could just as easily be superior to white men

>appeal to evolution
Bro we've been spinning out wheels in an evolutionary sense since at least the dawn of civilization

[Anonymous No.8404034]

>>8403141
Under Obama, black neighbourhoods have deteriorated even further.

[Anonymous No.8404041]

>>8402778
>98 responses

Nuke this board

[Anonymous No.8404051]

>>8404041
Usually these threads provide 20-30 decent authors, the best being post-colonialists, but the shitposters are strong in this one, and the more common /lit/ posters are posting "rebuttals" like this >>8402950

[Anonymous No.8404061]

>>8403995

"difference in quality" is not necessarily controversial. an evaluative judgement on an opinion depends on what the cause or source of this difference roots from.

if this resulted from imbalances of power historically, you would need to critically analyze history to see why this is.

if youre motivating a biological or inherent difference, many would be quick to call that unfair but i would be willing to hear you out.

[Anonymous No.8404063]

>ctrl+f achebe
>0
I mean I know he isn't american and he only wrote one really good book, but still

[Anonymous No.8404099]

Nigger here, I profoundly state that the ball and chains of the negro are not the whites or society, but other negroes, and of course, the negro itself.
Everyone claiming to know our situation is blatantly wrong in the simple aspect they have an outlook, a distanced perspective into the negro life.
Liberals treat us worse than /pol/, and /pol/ wants to hang us.
Now everyone shut the fuck up
Toni Morrison is good

[Anonymous No.8404112]

>>8404051
Honestly I only even visit /lit/ once a month or longer because these threads became non-stop. And it is a /pol/ infestation problem, even if every single poster guilty of it isn't from /pol/. It doesn't matter if you drop 1000 books or authors worth reading, it's pointless to go over this shit day in and day out, they'll never learn and they'll never leave.

[Anonymous No.8404139]

>>8404112
Nice virtue signalling

[Anonymous No.8404382]

>>8404010
>Women and blacks could just as easily be superior to white men

Sure. Unfortunately for you, all evidence supports them being inferior. So much so that nobody outside of WEWUZ idiots even entertains the idea.

[Anonymous No.8404383]

>>8404063
all his books are shit you high-school aged nigger

[Anonymous No.8404407]

nice thread

[Anonymous No.8404414]

>>8402778

[Anonymous No.8404418]

>>8404139
Nice virtue signaling

[Anonymous No.8404438]

newfags. shut the fuck up.
this bait could not be more obvious.
stop bumping the thread.

[Anonymous No.8404445]

>>8404438
>asking for good black lit is bait

Fuck up. Go back to your containment board >>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.8404451]

>>8404445
>>8404438
the left is eating itself

[Anonymous No.8404459]

>>8404451
>black
>left

[Anonymous No.8404558]

>>8404459
blacks hold a lot of conservative views yet they still vote democrat

[Anonymous No.8405177]

>>8403487
>I refuse to read black literature on principle
why?

>(especially black women)
(why?)

[Anonymous No.8405188]

>>8404099
>I profoundly state that the ball and chains of the negro are not the whites or society, but other negroes, and of course, the negro itself.
could you expand on this? how does it feel?

[Anonymous No.8406302]

Cane
Dhalgren

[Anonymous No.8406306]

>>8402805
Has even based Bloom not heard of Cane?

[Anonymous No.8406310]

>>8406302
>>8406306
Shill harder no-taste faggots.

[Anonymous No.8406327]

>>8402902
dont even bother dude, theres no point in engaging with these people

[Anonymous No.8406331]

>>8403123
kek

[Anonymous No.8406346]

>>8402926
Never heard of affirmative action?

[Anonymous No.8406358]

>>8402927
Look how much more advanced blacks are in America and Europe, their wages are far higher as are their IQ's than blacks in Africa. Whitey is the reason they aren't even worse off.

[Anonymous No.8406364]

>>8403913
Immanuel Wallerstein?