In 1993, I won a $1,000 prize in Ebony's Getrude Johnson Williams Literary Contest.  Emboldened by this achievement, I took my fiction writing out of the closet and began networking with other creative writers. One organization I joined was the International Black Writers and Artists of Los Angeles (IBWA-LA). Early on I became co-editor of the IBWA anthology, River Crossings: Voices of the Diaspora (published in 1994).  Through this engagement, I learned much about publishing that I decided to put to good use through the development of Larod Publishing Co.  Larod's first publication was my book, The Chocolate Man (1999), which presents ten poignant short stories that explore the plight and promise of being a black man in America. Larod's second project was Griots Beneath the Baobab: Tales from Los Angeles, published in behalf of IBWA. 

Quotations:

“When I realized that music rather than American literature was really my language, I was no longer afraid. And then I could write.” (James Baldwin)

"We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task.The rest is the madness of art."  (Henry James)

"...if a flower blooms once, it goes on blooming somewhere forever.  It blooms on for whoever has seen it blooming."  (William Armstrong, Sounder, p. 114)

The Pygmy in the Cage

By Randy Ross

The year was 1905, and a visiting Pygmy from the Belgian Congo (that is, an African) was displayed for several weeks in the primate cage of the Bronx zoo (see Claudia Roth Pierpont, “The Measure of America,” New Yorker, March 8, 2004).  While this crass display of inhumanity was made possible by the long rope of racism that choked the times (the lynching of blacks was at its peak around this period), I wonder if a lot of the writing by African Americans — contemporary or otherwise—suffers figuratively from a kind of Pygmy-in-the-cage syndrome.

Think of an American writer who happens to be black then ask yourself, is the writing culturally and intellectually expansive or is it boxed in by particularized geographical or intellectual settings (the cage) that bound stereotypical characters (Pygmies)? Yet, inevitably we must write about what we know and since, really, we can never know enough, our writing will be circumscribed by a literary cage. 

But some writers romp about in larger literary cages than others.  Compare Walter Mosley and Percival Everett.  In my judgment Mosley--whose Easy Rawlings series Bill Clinton and I adore immensely—writes in a smaller cage, although he has struggled valiantly to break out of the cage he’s in. Compare, too, if you dare, Toni Morrison to Terry McMillan. Who’s in the larger cage? And where is the Pygmy? 

Of course, there is a rub. Pygmy-in-the-cage books often sell like hotcakes.  And how many writers -- fat check in hand -- would duck the big bucks? As a parallel, consider professional basketball, a sport thoroughly dominated by African American players (Watusis in a cage?) who earn MILLIONS of dollars running up and down varnished floors in colorful silky drawers while dribbling, palming, and dunking round orange balls before thousands of zoo goers. (Of course, I was elated to the gills when the Lakers brought home the NBA championship for 2009.)  Likewise, writing that can run around in that colorful, dramatic way can pay quite well.

As for me, my thinking about matters related to life and writing is unabashedly eclectic. If you want to get a feel for what I mean by eclectic, read Griots Beneath the Baobab, which I co-edited. Let me put it another way. The ultimate book I yearn to write will be cageless and timeless.  Yet, I know there’s a big chance that that book won’t sell well, at least not in my lifetime. (The writer Umberto Eco once reflected that he sought to write a book that sold a million copies and was so deep that no one quite understood it. It would be his luck to have it both ways.) 

Understandably, most voluntary reading is casual.  Thus, the typical reader tends to like books that, well, have clear cages and Pygmies.  So—and here I’m waxing brutally honest—if I could, I would write a best-selling Pygmy-in-the-cage book—though I suspect not nearly as blatant as the novella, My Pafology, written by the protagonist in Percival Everett’s novel, Erasure.  Having written it, I would then strive to muster the resolve to bag my hefty royalties and flee for the hills to labor in solitude (and without hunger) on my magnum opus.  At the rise of each morning I would breathe deeply and pray that my keystrokes would, in the end, free that Pygmy. 

A FAMILY AFFAIR

by Randy Ross

(while President, IBWA-LA, June 2002)

          IBWA’s newest anthology, Griots Beneath the Baobab: Tales from Los Angeles, has become a vessel for a national debate about the relationship between authors and booksellers. Specifically, a bookseller (EsoWon Books) asked that one of our writers (Wanda Coleman) not show up for a planned Griots reading/signing.  Why? Because the writer had blasted a famous writer (Maya Angelou) in a recent book review commissioned by the Los Angeles Times.  
          Given that the bookstore’s request was submitted to IBWA, I solicited the viewpoints of IBWA’s board as well as the contributors to Griots.  The vast majority of respondents stated that if any writer in Griots were asked by a bookseller not to participate in a Griots reading/signing, then none of us should participate in the reading.  As a result, IBWA’s reading/signing of Griots at EsoWon Books on May 22 was cancelled.   
          An article in Black Issues Book Review (March-April 2002) on Haki Madhubuti, founder and owner of the fabled Third World Press in Chicago, noted that during 1960s workshops headed by the great poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, she and Madhubuti (then Don Lee) would engage in such heated arguments over the use of “appropriate” language, that the exchanges almost ended their friendship.  Yet, Madhubuti, to this day, holds Brooks in the highest esteem.  Why?  According to Madhubuti, “she had great integrity, craftsmanship as a writer, love for black people, and a distinctive love for children.”  Indeed, Madhubuti’s Third World Press publishes Brooks’ work. This is as it should be – black writers and artists respectfully debating and arguing over craft and its relation to our being.  It’s a family affair, if you will.  If the EsoWon – Coleman episode were to end in the way of the Madhubuti-Brooks matter, then I would argue that that is positive and healthy.
          Yet we must not forget that the screening of writers is as pervasively American as baseball and roasted peanuts. But it generally occurs in ways less brazen than EsoWon’s ban on Wanda Coleman.  For example, a bookstore could say, “No thank you, we don’t want to do a reading/signing for Griots.  In fact, we don’t even want to sell your book in our store.  Why?  Well, because we don’t think it would do well here.” Sounds familiar doesn’t it? It happens all the time.
          Likewise, every writer knows the feeling of having a manuscript rejected.  Publishers and editors hardly ever publicly state the real reasons for their rejections.  Why take an unnecessary risk.  Too often the rejection has nothing to do with the quality of the work.  It’s just that the publisher or editor does not care for the culture or philosophy that underlies the writing.  Or they may not care for the writer as a person, period.
          This is precisely why the IBWA has begun to place much greater emphasis on publishing.  IBWA knows from nearly 30 years of working with writers and artists that the work of many talented writers of color has yet to receive proper airing because of the liver spots that blot the worlds of book editing, publishing, and selling.  From my coign of vantage, we need more Wanda Colemans writing what she thinks ought to be said without fear of economic retribution.  But we also need more independent black-owned bookstores like EsoWon that staunchly support writers of color.
          As the great African-American playwright August Wilson said in his stirring 1996 address, “The Ground on Which I Stand,” “We are Americans trying to fulfill our talents.  We are not the servants at the party.  We are not apprentices in the kitchens.  We are not the stable boys to the king’s huntsmen. We are Africans.  We are Americans.  The irreversible sweep of history has decreed that.  We are artists who seek to develop our talents and give expression to our personalities.”  If viewed in that light, the Wanda Coleman – EsoWon debate is a healthy one that promises more good than ill for our family of writers.

Strange Fruit

by

Randy Ross

(September 2009)

In his November 2000 essay in the Atlantic Monthly on the legendary jazz singer, Billie Holiday, Francis Davis strains toward the provocative suggestion that Ms. Holiday’s poignant renditions of the anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit,” could have been imbued less with sadness than with a “carefree sexuality.”  The buoyancy of this interpretation would get Davis a step closer to his apparent goal of debunking the widely held perception that Billie Holiday was a proud, solid “race” woman whose somber blue notes moaned the pain of oppressed blacks in America.

However, Davis’s probe seems to slip on a banana peel and flitter in the air precisely because he tries to decouple lynching and sexuality—two ideas which arguably are joined at the hip. 

To grasp the inexorable connection between lynching and sexuality, one has to think about why the bodies of hundreds of black men hung from Southern trees.  In a nutshell, the great symbolism behind lynching was white fear of black male sexuality. 

The fusion of lynching with sexuality has played havoc with the psyche of both black males and females.  Consider Eldridge Cleaver’s reaction to the kipnap/murder of the fifteen-year-old black youth, Emmett Till, for alleged sexual aggressiveness toward a white woman in a small town in the Mississippi Delta in 1955.  The Till murder turned the 18-year-old Cleaver inside out.  But then, Cleaver says in Souls on Ice, something else happened.  “One day I saw in a magazine a picture of the white woman with whom Emmett Till was said to have flirted.  While looking at the picture, I felt that little tension in the center of my chest I experience when a woman appeals to me.  I was disgusted and angry with myself….  I looked at the picture again and again, and in spite of everything and against my will and the hate I felt for the woman and all that she represented, she appealed to me.”  Arguably, it was this verboten inguinal sexual arousal that caused Cleaver to suffer a nervous breakdown a few days later. 

When viewed in this light, we must face the possibility that Billie Holiday remakes Meeropol’s song into her own by tethering those bloody, burning, hanging black bodies (with twisted mouths) to a prickling sexuality—one which continues to scratch at the heart of race relations in America.  As Lady Day compels us through song to feel for the meaning of lynching, our anger becomes laced with bitterness.  Such power transcends art.  It is the stuff from which legends are made.

 Why Do the Hokey Pokey?

Randy in Kenya, 2001, Maasai village.  Photo published with his fictional essay, “Why Do the Hokey Pokey,” The School Administrator, May 2002.   (Photo credit: Dr. Noma LeMoine)

Why Do the Hokey-Pokey?

Rationalizing the rhetoric of school accountability when diverse populations are involved

By Randy Ross

(Excerpt)

Although it had taken him months to get an appointment with the superintendent, reporter Scott Wells still felt that the school district’s approach to accountability suffered from a mind-boggling schizophrenia. To Wells, the approach made no more sense than simultaneously boiling and freezing a pot of water to get “hot ice.”

After obligatory introductions, Wells sat down in the closest of two chairs that rested opposite the superintendent's high-sheen oak desk and wondered how he would get to the point without offending the superintendent.

"How does it feel to be the new superintendent on the block?" Wells asked.

"Well, Scott, it feels exhilarating, challenging. I've been preparing for this moment for 25 years."

"Ms. Superintendent, during the first months of your stay at the helm, you have been spending most of your time at elementary schools and children's centers. Why?"

"A good start is the key to a good race. We must ensure that all our children have access to a great start, and I am especially eager that our children become independent readers by the time they complete 3rd grade. Reading is the superhighway to educational success."

"So that explains your focus on literacy for the lower grades?"

"Yes."

"It seems you spend most of your time in kindergarten classrooms. Why is that?"

"Well, because I didn't learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten."

"Such as?"

"Such as the hokey-pokey." ...



Literary Writing

ANNOUNCEMENT:  Randy's new novel, When Are They Coming? has been published as an Ebook on Amazon Kindle for only $2.99.  In this novel, reeling from the death of two friends in a fire, a boy (and his brother) learn to navigate the mysteries of life through the wisdom of the elders. 

Amazon Review



Reviews from Amazon.com:

"Griots Beneath the Baobab offers lessons about humanity or the lack of it with a collective embrace. Skillful writing reveals characters held in the moment, and each scenario hits the mark exposing love, turmoil and forgiveness. These tales are consuming and energizing."

ANNOUNCEMENT     (May 24, 2011):

The Chocolate Manis now available as an eBook on Amazon.com ($5.99).  This book features ten short stories that collectively probe the plight and the promise of being a Black man in America. The book received the highest possible writing score in Writer's Digest's 1999 Self Published Book Awards. The anonymous reviewer concluded that "This is an author who can flat-out write, a man who knows his way around the language. Page after page, the characters are engaging and lifelike, and the themes of what it means to be black in America are handled thoughtfully and compellingly."  The book includes stories published in the following literary journals: African American Review ("The Chocolate Man"), Maryland Review ("Grape Rain" and "Conjure Women") and Obsidian II ("Fathers and Sons"). It also features the prize-winning story "Run Low," which won a $1,000 prize in Ebony Magazine's Gertrude Johnson Williams writing contest. 

NEW!!!

Moving letter penned by James Bostick, Jr. upon reading The Chocolate Man.

 Writing for the Theater

Birdland Blue

A new play by Randy Ross, Ph.D.

(Synopsis)

While performing at New York City’s Birdland jazz club on a night in the summer of 1959, a notorious bandleader (Miles Davis) who has delicately mastered the incompatible goals of artistic excellence and “living high on a hog,” struggles to keep his fragile musical, social, economic, and psychological worlds from crumbling (or EXPLODING).

Friday, August 25, 2017, 6pm to 10pm

The Paul Robeson Theatre Festival, "Harlem to Central Avenue"             World Premiere Reading of

BIRDLAND BLUE

by

Randy Ross, Ph.D.

Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

*******

Millen Alem's summary of the Robey Theatre Company's August 25 reading of Birdland Blue can be viewed at the following link: https://quik.gopro.com/v/6mMC4UdCwX

92 GROVE STREET

A new play by Randy Ross, Ph.D.

Over 50 years ago, a fiery minister (Malcolm X) and a struggling writer (Alex Haley) began meeting late night in a small room to create what would become a touchstone book of the 20th century, The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  92 GROVE STREET probes what went on in that room.

Monday, April 13, 2015, 8 pm to 10 pm, The Word (a program of The Road Theatre Company) presented a staged reading of 92 GROVE STREET at The Road on Magnolia in North Hollywood.  The reading was directed by Michelle Gillette and featured actors J. D. Hall (as Alex Haley), James Holloway (as Malcolm X), Lina Green (as Ebony), and Lorianne Hill (as Paula).

Sunday, October 4, 2015, 3 pm - 5 pm, The Robey Theatre Company presented the second staged reading of 92 Grove Street at the Juanita Tate Marketplace (Slauson and Central).



The readings were followed by audience discussion with the playwright, director, and cast.

92 GROVE STREET’s development benefited from the author’s ongoing participation in the International Black Writers and Artists of Los Angeles (IBWA-LA) Writers’ Workshop and The Robey Theatre Company’s Playwrights Lab.

Monday, April 25, 2016 -- The Robey Theatre Company presented a reading of 92 Grove Street at CSU Los Angeles. Director: Ben Guillory.  Players: Sammie Wayne, IV (Malcolm X), Dwain Perry (Alex Haley), Alexa Hamilton (Paula), Staci Mitchell (Ebony).

Saturday, June 4, 2016,  -- The Robey Theatre Company presented a reading of 92 Grove Street at the Watts Tower and Art Center, Los Angeles.

Saturday, August 27, 2016 Vision Theater, Los Angeles, 3rd Annual Leimert Park/Los Angeles Theatre Festival of Staged Readings.  The Robey Theatre Company, Directed by Ben Guillory.  Players: James Holloway (Malcolm X), Dwain Perry (Alex Haley), Alexa Hamilton (Paul), Ashlee Olivia (Ebony)

Stay tuned for future developments regarding 92 GROVE STREET: