First-Person Singular.Even black celebrities don't often tell their own stories Talking honestly about the life one has lived involves a psychological process not unlike stripping naked in front of a crowd of total strangers. Many of us cringe cringe intr.v. cringed, cring·ing, cring·es 1. To shrink back, as in fear; cower. 2. To behave in a servile way; fawn. n. An act or instance of cringing. when one of the family spills a few too many details that were never meant to be shared outside the circle. As hard as it can be to truly open up and mine the meaning of one's existence, and then stake that meaning out for public display, this is what it means to write a worthwhile autobiography. Either put it all out there and tear it down piece-by-piece as Alex Haley Noun 1. Alex Haley - United States writer and Afro-American who wrote a fictionalized account of tracing his family roots back to Africa (1921-1992) Haley did so successfully in The Autobiography of Malcolm X Malcolm X, 1925–65, militant black leader in the United States, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, b. Malcolm Little in Omaha, Neb. He was introduced to the Black Muslims while serving a prison term and became a Muslim minister upon his release in 1952. or as Sammy Davis Sammy Davis may refer to:
Add to this natural discomfort with self-disclosure the burden of deciding who is most qualified to tell our stories--"us" or "them"--and you are facing the extremely complicated phenomenon of black autobiography/biography. Should white folks be allowed to enter the souls of black folk? Are they qualified to tell our stories? When Marshall Frady chronicled the life of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Noun 1. Jesse Jackson - United States civil rights leader who led a national campaign against racial discrimination and ran for presidential nomination (born in 1941) Jesse Louis Jackson, Jackson in his critically acclaimed biography, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson, did his race permit him to be more honest and open about the man's flaws and to therefore present a more balanced account, than a black writer could, or did he miss the point of Jesse's life contributions entirely due to a cultural inability to fully understand and empathize em·pa·thize v. To feel empathy in relation to another person. with his subject? Should it be considered automatic that Alex Haley better understood Malcolm X than Frady could ever have understood Jackson because Haley was black and Frady is white? Does it matter that Haley was raised in a totally different kind of family background from Malcolm X in another city in another state, whereas Frady was raised virtually right up the street--yet cultural light-years away--from Jesse Jackson in the same southern town? Or that Frady knew Jackson personally for a much longer time than Haley knew Malcolm? A reading of Angel On My Shoulder, Natalie Cole's autobiography, raises these questions about the genre of black biography. Although she dedicates far too much space to her drugged-out years, Ms. Cole does occasionally manage to reach deep within her own experience and find those precious few moments that justify reading about her life story. The remembrances she has of her father, and what it was like being the daughter of Nat King Cole a legendary king of Britain, who is said to have reigned in the third century. See also: King , are priceless. The eerily beautiful experience of recording the very controversial, yet historic, "Unforgettable" as a duet, with the ghost of her father as vocal accompaniment, offers insight into a very personal and emotional event that only Natalie Cole could know. However, so much more space could have been given to truly peeling back the layers of Natalie's various lives. In the end it still feels like we're just being given the surface level to a far deeper story. A celebrity biography should be more than simply a biography written because the celebrity is a celebrity. The problem with Angel On My Shoulder as an autobiography is not only its lack of deeply authentic self-disclosure. Ms. Coles story would have been helped considerably by better writing. For example, excessive use of the word "honey,' perhaps an attempt to make her sound more conversational and down-to-earth, is annoying and sounds forced and contrived. Although Ms. Cole had help structuring the story, being held to more rigorous standards may have led to better overall writing. This again opens the controversy surrounding black biography, raising the question, "Who is qualified to write our stories?" The only sure standard by which to judge is the quality of the final product. Is it well-written? Is it honest? Does it dig beneath the surface? Is it truthful? And above all, is it interesting? We as African Americans African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. must tell our own stories. The more of us who can assist one another in plumbing the inner depths of those stories the better. We are better equipped to deal more honestly and directly with our own subject matter. As more black biographers emerge, more stories will be told right, and in full. Some Favorite Celebrity Bios Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz Da Capo Press, 1991, $16.00, ISBN 0-306-80443-3 Don't Block the Blessings: Revelations of Lifetime (Patti LaBelle) by Laura B. Randolph Boulevard Books, 1998, $9.95, ISBN 0-425-16998-7 Dreamgirl & Supreme Faith by Mary Wilson Cooper Square Publishing, January 2000 $19.95, ISBN 0-815-41000-X Everything and Nothing: The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy Dorothy Dandridge and Earl Conrad HarperPerennial Library, April 2000, $13.00 ISBN 0-060-95675-5 His Eye Is On The Sparrow by Ethel Waters Greenwood Publishing Group, 1951, $49.50 ISBN 0-313-02021-X I, Tina: My Life Story by Tina Turner with Kurt Loder Avon Books, 1993, $6.99, ISBN 0-380-70097-2 Lady Sings the Blues by Billy Holiday with William Duffy and Vincent Pelote Penguin, 1995, $12.95, ISBN 0-140-06762-0 Miles Davis: The Autobiography by Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe Simon and Schuster, 1990, $14.00 ISBN 0-671-72582-3 Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. by Sammy Davis Jr. with Jane Boyer and Burt Boyer Noonday Press, December 1990, $35.00 ISBN 0-374-52268-5 Keith Owens is a Detroit-based freelance writer and professional musician. He has worked as a newspaper reporter for the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). , the Denver Post, the Ann Arbor News The Ann Arbor News is a newspaper serving Washtenaw and Livingston counties. Published in Ann Arbor, Michigan, under various names since 1835, The News is part of Booth Newspapers, owned by Advance Publications Inc. , and the Fort Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale (lô`dərdāl), residential, commercial, and resort city (1990 pop. 149,377), seat of Broward co., SE Fla., on the Atlantic coast; settled around a fort built (c.1837) in the Seminole War, inc. 1911. Sun-Sentinel. He has been an editorial writer and columnist for both the Sun-Sentinel and the Detroit Free Press The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep". Some still refer to it locally as "The Friendly" -- a slogan from an ad campaign in the '70s. . Owens also worked as a nationally syndicated columnist Inc.com defines a syndicated columnist as, "[A] person hired by publications or broadcast organizations to produce written or spoken commentary about specific feature subjects. for Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, is the world's largest independent syndicate and provides syndication for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comics, and various other content. . He has written extensively for The Detroit Metro Times The Metro Times (originally Detroit Metro Times) is the largest circulating weekly newspaper in the metro Detroit area. Supported entirely by advertising, it is distributed free of charge every Wednesday in newsstands in businesses and libraries around the city , and is featured biweekly in his cultural commentary column, "Free Your Mind." Keith surveys the scene of black celebrity biographies on page 33. |
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