Lemonade from Lemons

I’m reading an article in the NY Times preview from their Magazine section. It’s a first-person detailed depiction of a long-time drug-addicted, woman-battering guy who becomes a journalist, and how he finally came to his sober senses some time after the birth of his twin daughters to his drug-addicted girlfriend. Now you may ask yourself, as I did, why a prestigious newspaper even bothered taking such a risk with this individual. They hired him and entitled him a journalist after years of his abject degradation and turpitude. Why give him a chance? Why pump him up to star attraction? Why him above other long-sobered writers of equal skills begging for this chance? I for one don’t have an answer, but I assumed one thing right off the business end of a bat: he must be over 21, male – and white.

The infamous study comes to mind that, given a choice to hire a drug-addicted, ex-felon white man or a college-educated, never-arrested black man of equal employment skills, the employer would more likely than not hire the white man.

(And people question why Affirmative Action is still needed.)

But I’m not complaining. I’m rolling with the reality. Going to make lemonade from lemons. And, in my long-about way, I’m going to tell you why and how.

The Iowa Writing Workshop at Iowa University is the premier workshop in the country. Only the best are accepted into its writing program. Each summer, however, they hold the Iowa Writing Festival for anyone willing to pay for a weekend, or week-long class of their choice from the hundreds of selection. I’ve wanted to go for years. Finally, enough of my life got out of the way for me to register last winter for a week’s class this summer. So of course the skies opened up and flooded Cedar Rapids (where I was to fly in) and Iowa City (where IU resided).

Each day the month of June witnessed me logging on to IU’s website with anxious fingers. I sympathized with their fears, frustration, and loss; and rooted their efforts and go-to spirit to hold back the floods with a million-plus sandbags. At the same time, I whined and groaned to my empathetic friends that I’d miss my class.

But the rains finally halted, and the flood receded. I got the good news that classes were to restart the very week my class began.

I enjoyed a full week of total immersion in writers’ geekdom. What bliss: readings, critiquing, moment-to-moment discussions on varying writer’s choices, dilemmas, and flights of fancies in poem and prose. I had a one-on-one interview with my professor on the merits of a segment of my book.

My professor, who happens to be black, is an acknowledged author of several books. Since I’m a black woman writing a book who has as its main character a white male, she advised that it would be a good idea to make it clear from the beginning that he is white.

My reaction -- bold, because after all, she is published -- was to ask “Why?” If a white author writes a story, it’s tacitly accepted that, unless specifically written otherwise, the characters are white. People read the story on its merits, not whether or not the ethnicity of the characters matches the author’s. I put forth, what if I sent my manuscript to agents/publishers, and never make the issue of my race or gender? What if the agents/publishers actually read the story for its literary and/or commercial value?

So I’m going with the premise that people will pick up my book, read it for its fictional and creative value, and not make assumptions about its quality or worth juxtaposed against my race or gender.

Real world lemons: a white man of questionable character can be hired before a black man of proven moral qualities and of equal skills; a blonde nitwit of a bimbo is desired over and above a/any black woman of outstanding characteristics by men (and some women) of any race; and, unless a black woman is writing a black chick-lit book, she won’t get read.

I’m dealing with that possibility, but refuse to be typed. I just want my book read and enjoyed by tons of people no matter the race, creed, religion, etc., etc. Read the damn book!

I’m signing my book with my first initial and last name – and no picture. You see: lemonade from lemons.