I just found out that i got jacked for my copy of Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston. The book’s been missing for a good minute, but I just realized it yesterday. Because I kinda need it for something I”m working on, I decided to try to replace it yesterday. Being me, I went to the local Black-owned bookstore first.
Four, five, six shelves of “hood lit.” Books by Pookie and Ray-Ray ‘nem, about Pookie and Ray-Ray ‘nem. And here’s the thing – looking for Zora Neale Hurston necessarily means that I can’t critique Pookie and Ray-Ray as authors or subjects. Janie and Sykes and ‘Lige Moseley were, for that time, the functional equivalent of Pookie and Ray-Ray ‘nem. You could almost say that they’re Pookie and Ray-Ray’s grandparents. One of the significant aspects of Hurston’s writing was the characters she chose and the language she used to describe them. Huston deliberately chose for her characters the people who would otherwise go unseen and unnoticed. Likewise today. Only with the hood lit characters, we generally wish they would stay unseen and unnoticed.
But, and this is a sofa, while I can understand that the bookstore has scads of hood lit, which I imagine sells pretty well, it’s hard for me to conceive why they don’t have a section of actual literature. I was pretty focused on what I was looking for, so I didn’t roam around the store taking note of who I didn’t see, but suffice it to say that I was very disappointed at not seeing one of the luminaries of American literature. When ole girl pulled up Zora Neale Hurston on their computerized catalog, she was like, “The only ZNH we might have is Their Eyes Were Watching God.” I tried not to give her the side-eye, but when she asked me if I wanted to order Dust Tracks, I probably failed spectacularly.
I could probably trek around the city and find a Black bookstore that has it — there’s a good chance I will — but I might just simplify matters by sliding over to Borders and copping.
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It isn’t just black book stores that are filled with street lit, it’s the publishing industry. According to them, first black folks didn’t read, then they only read Terry MacMillan-type books, now black folks only read street-lit. I was in B&N a few weeks ago and happened across two young black females in the general lit section. Nope, they weren’t reading Hurston, or even some general fiction, but were oohing and ahing over the two floppy-covered street lit titles. They couldn’t have been no older than 15 or 16, and I had to cringe. I wasn’t reading actual literature when I was their age, but I wasn’t reading that sort of junk. It’s a valid genre much in the manner of rap, but good grief–can black people stop gravitating to the lowest common denominator? I was tempted to toss them some L.A. Banks or some Brandon Massey, but I got the stink eye from them when I looked at them too long. lol
with my background in education, i have ambivalent feelings about it. on the one hand, yeah, it’s good that they’re reading at all, but come on. i jacked one of my students’ books a while ago, and i didn’t make 10 pages before i spotted typos. that’s not leading anybody towards a bigger conception of literature. for that reason, i’m not fond of it at all.
The Trek For Tracks…
Avery Tooley discusses trying to find black literature at a black-owned bookstore. The black moderate-conservative blogger writes: “I just found out that i got jacked for my copy of Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston. The book?s been missing…
Great post! I live in the town of the “Queen of Hip-Hop Lit.” Vickie Stringer, CEO of Triple Crown Publications is hero in these parts. At the local MLK branch of our library there is an enitire (massive) wall dedicated to hood lit. Yes, people are reading, but at what cost?
I hope your experience at Border’s was better than my recent trip. I was geeked about picking up the latest Colson Whitehead and couldn’t find it anywhere! After a few minutes of aimless wandering, I asked an associate for assistance. He promptly led to me the AA section where there was one lonely copy.