So, why do I write every day? I am in the groove, a daily habit has formed. It is easier to write into the darkness of hour and feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of an essay. That’s one reason.
I also write because things annoy me and I feel compelled to offer my angle on things.
I write because dogma and slogan words would be my sworn foes/smile.
Dig a little deeper and a more resonant reason comes into view. I am curious about the human condition. Not the Black condition or the Black Male condition or the Straight Black Male Condition but simply the human condition. More writers should communicate what they know free of dogma and slogan words.
This afternoon, a commentator reminded me what it was all about. It is being seen, that we are not alone:
Thank you both for this episode, it really resonates with me. I am mixed-race Italian and black, and I spent the first half of my life trying to outrun my blackness due to deep-seated confusion around my identity (having a racist Italian grandmother didn’t super help lol), and I have spent the second half of my life trying to undo my own racial biases to embrace my black heritage. I can deeply relate to the idea that there’s no way to win when it comes to race because I have never “performed it right” for either side. The good news is, that reality finally had me stop trying to perform my race altogether. I am mixed, I traverse racial lines by being my fully expressed self. At the same time, I also feel sensitive to this modern day attack on whiteness. The idea that all white people are innately racist is absolutely insane to me. Sure, we can say all white people have biases but that’s because all people have biases, people of color are not exempt from that fact. I feel very seen by your discourse and this podcast. I’m grateful I found it.
Seldom has the point of writing, and communicating, been as well written. Those words made my day.
So, why do I write? To see, and to be seen.
Why White Playwrights Must Write About Black Characters
Nicely said. I feel an urgency to express myself and want that to be through writing as much as art (where I am regaining lost ground but caught up in technique over expression). However, the topics I see as vital to address in these perilous times are fraught, and when an urge arises, I am overwhelmed with fatigue. I'd like to think that's a simple matter of post-COVID recovery. But personal distress over the last three years has lessened my resiliency. That realization is Step One, as they say. So, I focus on action in community to build resiliency on that scale and, happily, that carries me forward. The writing will come, and yours is an inspiration.