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Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
@BCMorrow
Jun 20, 2020 • 5 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Back to @JuneteenthBkFst and watching this awesome panel on Black women writing memoir and personal essays. BEEN a fan of @Karnythia and @Keah_Maria, and sooo enjoying getting to know @tnwhiskeywoman! Image
Whew, @tnwhiskeywoman sharing wisdom from @tayari: when you write fiction, people look for the truth, and when you write non-fiction, people look for the lie. Felt that in my spirit. #JuneteenthBookFest
LISSEN. People really try it. (That's the whole tweet, hahah. @Karnythia, I--. Whew.) #JuneteenthBookFest
There is nothing wrong with being inspired to follow your dreams by the success of mediocre folks.

"Well, dammit, if SHE can do it..." - @ElleOnWords on this awesome memoir panel @JuneteenthBkFst
I'm refusing to hear @Karnythia say somebody ain't heard of Eve's Bayou, and then @tnwhiskeywoman like, "You can just read Black literature because it's GOOD...the way we can bring those oral traditions to the page?!" THIS CONVERSATION. #JuneteenthBookFest

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More from @BCMorrow

Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
Sep 17, 2020
Don't point to white women pretending to be Black as proof that it is in fact "more advantageous" to be so. Blackface isn't new, isn't designed to uplift/empower Black people, is in fact whiteness continuing to dominate and profit by taking on the veneer but not the oppression.
I remember as an undergrad reading case studies of white people who "took on" poverty, homelessness, any number of marginalizations and experiences, and guess what they always had? A home to return to if it went bad. A salary, a network, a privilege. I can't lay it down.
It is easier to be a white person pretending to be Black in primarily white spaces (like academia), because you carry none of the generational traumas/stigmas, your humanity is never offended, your mental and physical health do not carry the scars. You're cosplaying.
Read 4 tweets
Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
Sep 2, 2020
This (readers not having the range) is why it's important to call it what it is: cultural incompetence and illiteracy. Readers gorged on western, white-centering storytelling will think you failed at something you were never attempting, because they can't identify YOUR story.
The only solution to this is to correct the imbalance by producing more of our stories--but in the meantime, we will face criticism from folks who've been taught that they decide what is and isn't correct storytelling. Even when they're not the target audience.
Because it's important to recognize how things connect and perpetuate inequity: that incompetence/illiteracy is ALSO why it's harmful for white authors to be paid to write BIPOC stories.

It's not as simple as swapping out skin tones. We tell stories differently.
Read 4 tweets
Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
Aug 22, 2020
All the way up to adulthood, society successfully got me to eschew or feel uncomfortable with honors specific to my racial identity.

Yes, me. I tell y'all these things to let you know how thorough socialization is and how desperate the need for deprogramming in all of us.
The jig of course is that white supremacy (the western world) is built on affirmative action. Measures that correct for intentional oppression aren't that. Which is why "free, white, and 21" was erased, and whiteness went invisible.

When we correct, it looks like an advantage.
So for the boo-hoo crowd over all dope ass lists like the one in USA Today, I get why you're so upset. You haven't done the reading, and you're used to being coddled. I used to be sensitive to your feelings, and if EYE can change....there's hope for you yet.
Read 4 tweets
Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
Jun 29, 2020
We need to have a conversation about the flimsy arguments anti-Blackness employs, and why folk keep falling for it.

I do not have to read a book with an offensive premise to know that the premise on its face is offensive and inappropriate. (See: Confeder@te and HBO.)

Sit down.
Remember this? Read it again, and tell me why as a descendant of enslaved ppl whose oppression has continued unabated, and whose heritage and identities have been stolen by the same oppressors, I should pretend I can't see an attack before it lands.

This is as asinine as saying, "Lemme stab you and we'll see if this knife is sharp." I'm good.

I know it when I see it, cuz I've seen it before.
Read 5 tweets
Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
Jun 27, 2020
I'd just like to once again bring your handiwork to your attention, PW and Kirkus. I'd like you to take note of other Black women named. Almost as if this same narrative has been weaved before. I hold you responsible. ImageImageImage
The writer of this post (who I've hopefully edited out) notes that they got my tweets from Kirkus' article, but that I haven't taken them down.

Explain why I should mute my opinion when the issue is that 2 publications chose to frame a cancellation as being down to me. Pardon?
Where are the free speech, we're not victims parties when a BW is being attacked because I told you what I will KEEP THINKING and a ww made a decision about a book you wouldn't have known existed. You're powerful but also I control your destinies?! H A L P.
Read 6 tweets
Bethany C. Morrow Profile picture
Jun 26, 2020
I wrote a whole book about the abuse and vitriol leveled at Black women for speaking, and while folk celebrate the book, it's truly something to be simultaneously experiencing that vitriol myself.
I am 100% unapologetic about resisting a culture that gives time and space to white authors to speak for the rest of us. I will speak on it. They shoulda been grateful I replied and didn't quote-tweet. Becuz my point wasn't to incite a dragging, but a reconsideration.
As usually happens, the cancellation was unnecessarily announced.

We need to talk about this, white folks. Why do you need to announce an action meant to DECREASE harm? What can we point to in our ugly shared history that blinds you to the virtue signaling occurring?
Read 10 tweets

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