I think it might be a good idea to have a conversation about realism and romance and how the inclusion of a certain amount of realism in a romance novel acts as a gatekeeper that can prevents certain stories from being told/heard. 1/?
At the heart of the fear of Black romance, I believe, is the thought of certain readers that a story featuring a Black h/h can NEVER be happy. That everyone KNOWS that the worst thing EVER must be to be Black and that there is no HEA for people with Black skin. 😣
I ran up against these presumptions when writing my series. The historical writer has to reconceptualize what the HEA, for Black people, is for a society that is not ready to accept that such a thing exists. 4/?
I see it as a world building issue. However these worlds that we build for our characters keep bumping up against that presumption about the inner lives of Black people in this country and how 'tragic' it all is. 5/?
So our romances keep bumping into the readers (no matter what race they are by the way) sense of disbelief that Black people cannot ever be happy in romance. 6/?
Add to that the "knowledge" or (as I prefer it) indoctrination of a particular historical narrative. Throw in the fact that Black people are not permitted to be experts in the own experience. 7/?
So then you are in a quagmire of presumption, assumption and indoctrination. What to do? Does your "realism" get to be counted as more important than mine?
That's the issue. These stories about about the human right to be Happy, even as the "tragedy" of otherization happens to characters. We must insist that it's not tragic. It's part of who we are and we must insist on it being allowed to play a role in a romance story.
If we can say, "love is love is love is love." Then we must have a place for romance with people who have or know or experience otherization. We must accept that their experience is real and can teach us something about THE human experience.
Even if it isn't fair or seems random, the experience of the other's life experience mist be included. Erasure of life from the story seems, to me, a terrible mistake. That's where the hope comes in.
And just as we can have a variety of cakes, for example, we need to face the fact that the HEA can look different and appears different for different people. This came up again recently when someone spoke about my story A Virtuous Ruby.
Ruby and Adam leaving Winslow is the happy ending. It was the same happy ending for 6 million Black people who formed The Great Migration. That's real. People came to know that they were valuable and could have agency and take control of their lives.
People who bemoaned that Adam couldn't protect her missed the point. He did the hero thing by taking her to a place where their humanity had a better chance of being acknowledged. Their son could walk w/ his head held high. their daughter didn't have to live in fear of rape.
That's NOT a conventional HEA. But it was happy for a Black man and woman in 1915. And that has to be enough.
Sorry for the long thread. I'm on Spring Break and I guess I have to lecture SOMEONE on a Tuesday, lol!
Sorry for the long thread. I'm on Spring Break and I guess I have to lecture SOMEONE on a Tuesday, lol!
@threadreaderapp Please unroll this lecture thread.
