THREAD: On this weekend of #fathersday and #JUNETEENTH2020 I have thoughts about George Floyd's horrific lynching and #blackromance (something that people have also been discussing, that is a romance between 2 Black people) 1/?
Many of you know that I have been engaged in research regarding the African American hero in romance in these past few years. One of the things that doesn't get discussed enough how much economics has to do with romance and that I believe that the decline of the AA hero 2/?
has everything to do with economics. It's no small thing that George Floyd lost his life over a so called counterfeit $20 bill. Statistics for Black male unemployment, incarceration and opportunity all converge to create a difficulty for fans of romance to be able to see 3/?
Black men as heroic. One of my experiments for my research was the writing of the "Migrations of the Heart" series that I am rereleasing over the summer this year. The novella that is in the #Juneteenth book, The Brightest Day is technically part of the series bc it 4/?
features the love story of Ruby's uncle, Arlo. Each hero in the series was my way of trying to craft a Black man who had the necessary economic power that romance fans seem to crave, while creating realistic Black men. In the first three books of the series, I was relatively 5/?
successful in this. I didn't even get the complaints that I imagined I would get about Jay, the hero of A Treasure of Gold, who is techincally a criminal in operating his numbers ring. I think it was because I made it clear that white supremacy wouldn't allow him to have a 6/?
respectable outlet for his mathematical genius. When it came time to write Arlo's story for the #juneteenth novella, I was compelled to create my most realistic hero yet. Arlo, who had a problem with alcohol and a little family that he had left behind in search of 7/?
econonomic opportunity. In "A Sweet Way to Freedom" he has gotten his current girlfriend, Missouri pregnant and is being slow to marry. Not because the mother of his other children is still in his life (she died) but because he is afraid he is cursed and does not want harm to 8/?
come to Missouri. Well, as I expected, I took many stripes for writing a Black hero that was too realistic. One review called Arlo "pathetic." No one mentioned his concerns. No one mentioned the grand gesture that he performs to accomodate Missouri's wishes for marriage. 9/?
No one mentioned his limited economic opportunity to support his family. I realized that in these multiple critiques about Arlo I may have hit wounds. That Arlo, in this way, resembled the fathers of some who weren't perfect Dads. Some of these comments may have come 10/?
from long buried hurt at paternal abandonment or neglect. I was sorry about that, but Arlo in his pain, did end up being heroic in the end. It made me realize that bc of economics, #blackromance almost has to have a different language for the hero and it is all 11/?
very complex and difficult to balance. It's interesting to note that if Arlo were white, rich and situated in say, Regency England, he would be a rake and everyone would love his rascally behavior. But being poor, Black and in early 20th century south, he was scorned. 12/?
So for George Floyd, I noticed that one thing that people celebrated was his capacity to be a good father, uncle and son. He didn't receive the economic oppoturnity via sports that a few Black men get, but he was celebrated for his big heart and compassion. 13/?
Maybe more people will understand now what I was trying to say via Arlo as a different kind of hero than the rich white dukes that Romancelandia craves. George Floyd was a hero and, like Arlo, lost his life in the end. Maybe romance prefers Black male heroes to be martyrs. 14/?
Because with the loss of the Kimani line, we have far fewer Black men to see in this romance hero light. Kimani's demise has meant a certain kind of martyrdom for the Black male hero. Maybe now, people will be more ready to see Black men as heroes, without holding 15/?
them accountable to the rigid confines of capitalistic white male supremacy patricachy of what makes a man a hero. Fin.
@threadreaderapp Please unroll this #JUNETEENTH2020 and #FathersDay thread.
