Though her family sometimes received food stamps and occasionally had their utilities cut off, Marcie Alvis Walker’s parents led her to believe that they were an average middle-class Black family. They encouraged her to pursue her dreams and told her that if she worked hard enough, she’d achieve them. The small catch was that Walker’s dream was an elusive one for any cash-strapped and undereducated Black woman: being a New York Times–bestselling author. Now, as a published non-bestselling author, she wishes she’d had a backup plan.
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” — Toni Morrison
Talking about race is not fun. Writing about it is wearying. Reading about it is a drag. Give me anything else to write about—seriously, please—and I will write you such beautiful essays about… the way the head-to-stem ratio of hydrangeas defies gravity… or how it’s strange how the most delicious things on earth, such as Taleggio cheese, are so delectable because they are technically rotten… the cosmic wonder of the space-time continuum… or the fact that otters have small pockets that serve no purpose other than carrying their favorite rocks and snacks. Honestly and truly, if there’s something other than race to talk, write, or read about, let me at it.
But I’m not a horticulturist or a master gardener. I’m not a cheesemonger or a cheesemaker. I’m sadly not an astrophysicist or marine biologist. I am a Black writer who is writing at a time when a leading presidential candidate has pondered aloud, in a room full of Black journalists, whether his biracial political opponent is Indian or Black (she’s both, by the way). And so, back to the topic of race, because if I allow others—particularly non-Black others—to do all the talking, writing, and reading about race, I’ll end up, before the day’s end, struck with a rare but severe case of color blindness that allows me to see color everywhere else except in skin pigmentation.
I wrote a memoir, and it didn’t do well. It was well-received but not a bestseller. Of course, I think it has to do with race. It’d be too painful to believe it could’ve just been the writing, the over-saturation of books about race on the market, poor publicity, or readers’ disinterest in my life and all that I think it means in the grander scheme of things. Till the day I die, I’m gonna say my book didn’t do well because systemic racism is what systemic racism does. It’s not true (though it’s not entirely untrue), but still, I’m gonna claim it anyway.
Geez, I was bored even revisiting this. Sorry if I’ve just bored you to tears. It’s true what Toni Morrison said: racism is boring. Well, what she said was:
If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, “Yes, the victim. How terrible it’s been for Black people.” I’m not a victim. I refuse to be one… if you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it.
Maybe racism is only boring when I write about it, but it’s stratospheric when Morrison has something to say about it.
There are Black writers who don’t write about race. I know some of them, and I envy them. I have a friend who wrote an entire book about wonder. It’s beautiful, and I wish I’d written it. I have another who wrote a bestselling memoir about being raised by a single father. It’s masterful. Roxane Gay wrote a memoir about her body—not just her Black body, but her whole entire body. RuPaul, a person I quote at least once a day, wrote several books about being a drag queen, a supermodel of the world, a gay kid, and a little bit about being Black. His books are not great, but they’re free to not be about being Black. On Amazon, his book GuRu is listed in both the Business Motivation and Self-Improvement sections. All of his others are listed in LGBTQ+ Studies, LGBTQ+ History, and LGBTQ+ Biographies. Out of his five books, only one is cross-listed in Black & African American Biographies—as is Roxane Gay’s book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.
My memoir is listed in Essays, African American Studies, Women’s Biographies, and African American Demographic Studies. I had to google African American Demographic Studies to find out what it was. The closest answer I got was “an interdisciplinary field that examines the experiences of African-descended people in the United States.” Who knew? I never even finished college, yet Amazon (or my publisher, or editor, or bookseller?) thinks I’ve written a book that “examines the experiences of African-descended people” as if I’m as studied as Cornel West, whose book Race Matters is listed in Discrimination and Racism, Philosophy and African American Demographic Studies. His book is not a memoir about his mother, but mine is.
But I don’t just write about racism. I worry over it as much as I worry over the craft of writing. I want to understand it like I want to (someday) understand commas or run-on sentences. And I am absolute shit at both of those. I wish I could think about something else. I wish I could be more like my Black writer friends whose books are not listed even next door to mine on Amazon. I try—really, I do try—to be a more balanced person. For the past few nights, I’ve reached for my friend’s book about wonder, and I’ve tried my best to let her words weave a magical spell of awe sprinkled with delight. I’ve tried to do as she so generously advises. I close my eyes and try to wonder about the magical cadence of the lunar cycles.
But… when I wonder about the lunar cycles, I can’t help but also wonder about Howard Thurman, the author of Jesus and the Disinherited, and how he loved painting watercolors of emperor penguins in his free time, and how he once told a friend the reason he loved emperor penguins was:
No other species of penguin can withstand such bitter cold with no nest, save the icy shelf, the eggs are laid on the bird’s fleshy feet, protected from the frigid cold by the warm skins of their bellies.
Is it just me, or is he not talking about race? In his book (which is listed in Spiritual Biography, Personal Growth and Christian Inspiration) he wrote about disinherited people with their “backs against the wall.” Isn’t the bitter cold these penguins face a kind of metaphor for the wall? Aren’t the disinherited ones Black folks? Are we like the penguins out in the bitter cold with no nest and only our flesh to keep us warm… and oh my God! Is the Civil Rights Movement’s defiance of race like the hydrangea’s defiance of gravity? Is the thriving of disinherited people as amazing as Taleggio cheese because, like the cheese, it’s amazing because we’ve turned something rotten into something good? Is the concept of race “all relative” like the space-time continuum? And what about Dr. King? Didn’t he want to do something other than talk about race all the time? Was it a bit a drag to have to preach so many sermons, give so many speeches, answer so many questions about racism? If not race, would he have painted penguins? Or would he have written stories about dragons? Would Baldwin have written more about love if he didn’t constantly have to explain race to overly educated plebeians? Might he have written magical stories about wizards or bears and piglets who lived in the woods, or night kitchens and wild things? Would Morrison have written about mermaids or fairies or little boys who refused to grow up?
And… you see what happens when I’m allowed to wonder? It’s simply not healthy to talk about, write about, or read about race all the time.
But I am a writer who is Black at a time when… hmm… I’m struggling to think of a time when I’ve been a Black writer and race hasn’t been a topic of conversation in the public arena in this country.
For the life of me, I can’t think of one. Can you?
