Read Online The World Has Changed by Alice Walker - Free Book Online Page A

black male writers, no less than black men generally, think that when they don’t get something they want, it is because of black women, and not because of the capitalist system that is destroying us all, is almost too much irony to bear. Capitalist society. Racist capitalist society. Racist, sexist, and colorist capitalist society which doesn’t give a damn about art except art that can be hoarded or sold for big bucks. It doesn’t care about art that is crucial to our community because it doesn’t care about our community—which is perhaps its only consistency.
    If the black community fails to support its own writers, it will never have the knowledge of itself that will make it great. And for foolish, frivolous, and totally misinformed reasons—going directly back to its profound laziness about the written message as opposed to one that’s sung—it will continue to blunder along, throwing away this one and that one, and never hearing or using what is being said. That is basically what happened with Zora Neale Hurston. The time has to come when the majority of black people, not just two or three, will want their own novels and poems, will want their own folktales, will want their own folk songs, will want their own whatever. There is so much that is ours that we’ve lost, and we don’t even know we’re missing it: ancient Egypt; ancient Ethiopia; Eatonville, Florida! And yet there’s no general sense that the spirit can be amputated, that a part of the soul can be cut off because of ignorance of its past development. But I know one thing: when we really respect ourselves, our own minds, our own thoughts, our own words, when we really love ourselves, we won’t have any problem whatsoever selling and buying books or anything else.
    Look what happens with Jews and books. Jews make Jewish books bestsellers. Whatever is written by and about them they cherish and keep it going. When we feel we are worth money, when we feel that we are worth time, when we feel that we are worth love, we’ll do it. But until we do, we won’t. And that’s that! This whole number about depending on white people for publicity and for this and that and so forth . . . All I can say is I hope it will soon be over. I am tired of it.
    By and large black women writers support themselves, they support each other and support a sense of community much more so than any
other group I’ve ever come in contact with, except for the civil rights era when people tended to be collective. That was true of them, and it is true of us. And I like that.
     
    C.T.: What is your responsibility to your audience?
     
    A.W.: I’m always happy to have an audience. It’s very nice because otherwise it would be very lonely and futile if I wrote and had no audience. But on the other hand, although I’m willing to think about the audience before I write, usually I don’t. I try, first of all, to know what I feel and what I think and then to write that. And if there’s an audience, well, fine, but if not, I don’t worry about it.
    Have I ever written a story with all white characters? Well, of course I have. Years ago I wrote a wonderful story which I must find, if it’s not packed in a trunk somewhere back in Brooklyn. It’s a good story, and I know I’ll publish it one day. But at the time I wrote it, nobody would buy it because it was a very chilling view of white people, of these particular white people. I had written what I saw. I had written what I thought. I had written what I felt, but this was a view that was totally unacceptable to everyone. Nobody wanted this particular view.
    So what I do generally is write, and if there’s an audience, there is one, but if there isn’t one, I just pack it up and wait.
     
    C.T.: Have people asked you whether Meridian is autobiographical?
     
    A.W.: Oh yes. I don’t think people really understand that a book like Meridian is autobiographical only in the sense of projection. Meridian is entirely better than I am,