Zadie Smith disses black female writers.

Shame on you Zadie

‘Being the only black women in a bestseller list doesn’t mean that you’re the only black woman who can write well.’

Anyone who gets out and about, attends open mic or networking events knows that there are a lot of talented black people out there, working hard – even if they don’t end up famous. The few who make it into the ether – usually do because some mainstream person in power has chosen to believe in them. ie – luck. Leona Lewis was a world class, hard working singer prior to winning X-factor, but it was Simon Cowell who made her a star. Likewise, while there are many beautiful, tall black women walking the streets of London, it was being ‘discovered ‘ that transformed Naomi Campbell’s life. It doesn’t mean she was the only great looker in South London at the time. Zadie Smith wrote the excellent White Teeth – but would it have been pushed to the extent that it was if she had not been backed by Salmon Rushdie?

Zadie Smith is a great writer and has received wordwide attention for her efforts. Disturbingly, her latest literary effort has been to ‘diss’ black female writing wholesale in her forward to the re-release of ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’. This epic story published in 1937 was written by the pre-eminent African American female writer of the time and Virago Press no doubt found it fitting to commission Zadie Smith – clearly the pre-eminant ‘black’ (she doesn’t like the word but will take the commission thank you very much) female writer of today.

She then spent half the foreword rubbishing her fellow female black writers in a global attack. It wasn’t specific. It didn’t distinguish between – say – How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Beloved, or African American and Black British. It didn’t emphasise the great things about black female writing. There was no balance. She took a stick and beat the past 30 years of our contributions indiscriminately.

‘Too often unerringly strong and soulful, sexually voracious and unafraid. They take the unreal forms of earth mothers, African queens, divas, sprits of history. They process grandly through novels thick with a breeding of greeting card lyricism. They have little of the complexity, the flaws, and uncertainties depth and beauty of Janie Crawford and the novel she springs from. They are pressed into service as role models to patch over our psychic wounds. They are perfect. They over compensate.’

So Miss Smith, a chance encounter has given you a platform from which to crow over the rest. Now what? Isn’t some humility expected - some tacit acknowledgement that being the only black women in a bestseller list doesn’t mean that you’re the only black woman who can write well?

And what of this greeting card lyricism? Unlike Miss Smith (who says she feels uncomfortable reading books by black women because its somehow expected of her) – many of us do actively seek out books by black women because we’re looking for some record of our unique experiences. You can call us people of the Diaspora or you can just call us black. We want to know what happened to our great-great-great grandparents – the life they lived. We want to know about today’s black women. We want to listen to someone who understands how hard it is sometimes to face the world with our ‘nappy’ hair and our dark skin and the weight of the world’s preconceived ideas on our shoulders.

Zadie Smith clearly doesn’t feel that way and was the wrong choice for this foreword. Zora Neale Thurston understood firsthand what it meant to be a black woman. She grew up in an all-black town. She only received her high school education after lying about her age. She then got a scholarship to Howard University. After being feted during the Harlem renaissance she was tossed aside by the mainstream and died in obscurity. If Zadie Smith doesn’t get black female writing, then maybe she’s just not black enough.