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Black trauma porn, my questioner told me, is when the pain and trauma of Black people are served up for the enjoyment and entertainment of White people. She basically told me that my book, “Punch Me Up to the Gods,” was another in a long line of too-often-told stories that depict Black life in a negative light. In appearance after appearance, I was dogged by this charge.
I was shocked. My book, after all, is a memoir. And yes, there’s plenty of trauma in it. I know because I lived it. I’d like to think there’s plenty of joy in it as well. I lived that, too. And, for a time, I wondered whether that questioner was right. But in the end, I decided the question wasn’t whether I wrote Black trauma porn. The real question is: Why can’t Black writers just write what we want to?
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So, you can understand why I was perhaps a little defensive about seeing “American Fiction,” the Oscar-nominated film based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett. The film is about a Black English professor, named Thelonius “Monk” Ellison and played by Jeffrey Wright, whose books aren’t selling.
As a joke, he writes an over-the-top, stereotype-ridden novel of Black life that he titles “My Pafology,” under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. In one scene, Monk is in his well-appointed office writing a melodramatic fictional scene between a Black father and son and their hatred for each other because the father was an absentee, a drunk and a deadbeat who abandoned the boy’s mother — thus forcing the son to turn to a life of crime. A scene that plays right into the hands of a stereotype.
In the film, audiences, particularly White audiences, eat “My Pafology” up. So do the White publishers hungry for a buck. (The film makes fleeting reference to real-life Black authors such as Sapphire, who wrote the novel “Push,” about a horribly abused Black girl growing up in poverty. “Push” was the basis for the Oscar-winning 2009 movie “Precious.”) In “American Fiction,” Monk is appalled by the reaction to his satire. But the enormous sum of money he is offered for it in the face of his mounting financial concerns proves too seductive, and the book is released, albeit under a different, even more provocative name.But he still can’t fathom why anyone would want to read such drivel or why anyone would think that these melodramas were at all representative of Black life. Because, in his mind, they just aren’t.
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Thing is, when I was growing up, I knew Black girls who were devalued and abused like Precious. I also knew Black boys who turned to crime because they believed they had no other choice. My family was on welfare for a time because we were poor. And I don’t like the idea that we should sweep such stories under the rug simply because some people believe they aren’t good for the African American brand. There are still Black Americans who live under the conditions that fuel so-called Black trauma porn.
I think these stories should be told even if there are White people who seem to need to make a meal out of them or use them to pathologize all Black Americans. There are still too many people who labor under the delusion that, when Black people are poor, it’s a moral failing — but that when White people are poor, it’s because they’ve simply fallen on hard times.
I’m old enough to remember when “The Cosby Show” first aired in 1984. At the time, there was a big debate over whether the show portrayed Black families realistically. Some thought that the portrayal was sugarcoated and devoid of the “real” Black experience. Others wondered why network executives had waited until the mid-1980s to show Black people in a more positive light. Maybe both were right. But it feels strange to me that we’re still having this debate today.
Black American stories are as diverse as any other community’s. No one story is the African American story. Some involve the racism we face — and some don’t. But there’s room for all of them.
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I learned a few years back that writing a book is one thing — but selling it is quite another. To do that, you have to talk to book bloggers, appear on podcasts, attend literary fairs and conduct readings at bookstores. I did all these for the first time during the height of covid-19, and so all my initial engagements were on Zoom.
I didn’t like it at first. I’m awkward and uncomfortable in social situations, virtual or otherwise. But after awhile, I got into it. I started to enjoy talking about writing with people from different walks of life. I felt, at last, like an author.
But what I had forgotten was that I was not just an author. I was a Black author. And, during one Zoom with a group of graduate students, I was reminded of that when a young student asked me why I chose to write “Black trauma porn.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, don’t feel bad. So was I.
Black trauma porn, my questioner told me, is when the pain and trauma of Black people are served up for the enjoyment and entertainment of White people. She basically told me that my book, “Punch Me Up to the Gods,” was another in a long line of too-often-told stories that depict Black life in a negative light. In appearance after appearance, I was dogged by this charge.
I was shocked. My book, after all, is a memoir. And yes, there’s plenty of trauma in it. I know because I lived it. I’d like to think there’s plenty of joy in it as well. I lived that, too. And, for a time, I wondered whether that questioner was right. But in the end, I decided the question wasn’t whether I wrote Black trauma porn. The real question is: Why can’t Black writers just write what we want to?
So, you can understand why I was perhaps a little defensive about seeing “American Fiction,” the Oscar-nominated film based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett. The film is about a Black English professor, named Thelonius “Monk” Ellison and played by Jeffrey Wright, whose books aren’t selling.
As a joke, he writes an over-the-top, stereotype-ridden novel of Black life that he titles “My Pafology,” under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. In one scene, Monk is in his well-appointed office writing a melodramatic fictional scene between a Black father and son and their hatred for each other because the father was an absentee, a drunk and a deadbeat who abandoned the boy’s mother — thus forcing the son to turn to a life of crime. A scene that plays right into the hands of a stereotype.
In the film, audiences, particularly White audiences, eat “My Pafology” up. So do the White publishers hungry for a buck. (The film makes fleeting reference to real-life Black authors such as Sapphire, who wrote the novel “Push,” about a horribly abused Black girl growing up in poverty. “Push” was the basis for the Oscar-winning 2009 movie “Precious.”) In “American Fiction,” Monk is appalled by the reaction to his satire. But the enormous sum of money he is offered for it in the face of his mounting financial concerns proves too seductive, and the book is released, albeit under a different, even more provocative name.But he still can’t fathom why anyone would want to read such drivel or why anyone would think that these melodramas were at all representative of Black life. Because, in his mind, they just aren’t.
Thing is, when I was growing up, I knew Black girls who were devalued and abused like Precious. I also knew Black boys who turned to crime because they believed they had no other choice. My family was on welfare for a time because we were poor. And I don’t like the idea that we should sweep such stories under the rug simply because some people believe they aren’t good for the African American brand. There are still Black Americans who live under the conditions that fuel so-called Black trauma porn.
I think these stories should be told even if there are White people who seem to need to make a meal out of them or use them to pathologize all Black Americans. There are still too many people who labor under the delusion that, when Black people are poor, it’s a moral failing — but that when White people are poor, it’s because they’ve simply fallen on hard times.
I’m old enough to remember when “The Cosby Show” first aired in 1984. At the time, there was a big debate over whether the show portrayed Black families realistically. Some thought that the portrayal was sugarcoated and devoid of the “real” Black experience. Others wondered why network executives had waited until the mid-1980s to show Black people in a more positive light. Maybe both were right. But it feels strange to me that we’re still having this debate today.
Black American stories are as diverse as any other community’s. No one story is the African American story. Some involve the racism we face — and some don’t. But there’s room for all of them.
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