Who Says?

Who Says Niggaz Can't Read: The Ghettorization of Black Literature
by Min. Paul Scott



I just hope that those authors that have something positive to offer to Black culture don't sell out and dumb down their messages just to sell a few paperbacks. I can see it now; a thugged-out, gold-toothed Maya Angelou goes on Oprah to promote her new book Tha Bitch in Me Luvs tha Thug in U with a special intro by Superhead, and then stage-dives into the audience.

Is this the angry rant of an unappreciated, underground writer playa hatin' on commercially successful writers?

YA DARN RIGHT!!! But that's beside the point.

There is something intrinsically wrong with a society when BoBo "tha fool" Williams, author of Hung Like a Horse, is poppin' bottles of Moet with rapper Killa Rob J in the back of tha club while Dr. Shabazz Afrika, author of Survival Skills For Black Children, is in the back of the unemployment line sharing an iron grilled cheese sandwich with rapper Knowledge Cypher Devine. Let's see, maybe if I get shot nine times by my baby's mama and write a book about it.....

Min. Paul Scott is a writer and activist based in Durham NC. For more information on the "Notes From a Hip Hop Refugee in Exile" project/lecture series visit www.hiphoprefugee.blogspot.com Phone (919) 451-8283 email: notesfromexile@yahoo.com