INTERIOR. THE SWEET DIGS OF THE TRACY AMES BLOG—EARLY MORNING.
Tracy Ames sits in the plush chair behind the desk of her empire. It’s finally quiet and she has a moment to breathe before she posts the guest blog penned by Jeanie Johnson and Jayha Leigh, authors and owners of Beautiful Trouble Publishing. She’s about to publish it when an email comes through from Jeanie and Jayha’s team of apologists. Yes, team.

TEAM OF APOLOGISTS
Can you cue their music before Jeanie and Jayha enter?

TRACY AMES
Do you have it ready?

TEAM OF APOLOGISTS
We do. We’re sending it through now.

Tracy cues “Hate Me Now” by Nas and posts the guest blog.

JEANIE JOHNSON AND JAYHA LEIGH ENTER THE BLOG



JEANIE JOHNSON & JAYHA LEIGH
Thank you Ms. Ames for having us. You know we spend many hours reading your work. It’s a good thing we had the last day in February considering We’re all last minute getting this to you.

THE BLOG aka Reason 1,209,367 why People Hate Jeanie & Jayha

While Jeanie and I are two separate individuals we’re eerily similar in many ways. More than once individuals have commented that we sound alike. At first, we were both confused being Jeanie has a distinctive New Zealand accent that stuns southerners and I have a non-regional American accent that also stuns southerners. We both however liberally use the term “y’all.” It took us a minute, but over time we came to understand what they meant when they said we sound alike. It wasn’t our accents they were commenting on; it was content of our words and the ‘ummph’ behind them.

We’re picky, choosy, perfectionists, demanding. Some would say we’re f*cking bitches. And that’s their right…as long as they say it out of earshot. Note to audience: Jeanie and I are both southern. We ARE choosy. We ARE demanding. We aren’t perfectionists; we simply know what we want and conversely, what we DON’T want. We aren’t hard to please; we simply live in a world where different entities think that it’s their right to tell us what they think we should want and then get pissed off when we reject it. It’s one thing to reject what the metaphorical “they” try and give us; it’s a whole ’nother thing to not apologize for wanting something that pleases us rather than being content to accept what “they” decide we should have, want or desire.

We are women who KNOW what we want and we’re not afraid to voice it. It seems however that some individuals are reluctant to hear that, accept that, and understand that. Somewhere after Eve was created, it became unacceptable for women to voice their needs, wants and desires. Mix in race and it becomes damn near scandalous. Note to the haters of Eve: Perhaps if Adam had been laying it down all proper like Eve would’ve been laying in the wet spot on the pile of fig leaves rather than strolling about the garden not only entertaining a talking animal but letting it convince her to eat some food that wasn’t deep fried. Just saying.

WTF does this have to do with books? It has everything to do with books. Some of you know us as publishers, some of you know us as authors, but at the heart of it, we’re first and foremost readers.



It seems that the powers that be think that women of color should simply be content to be represented in a book period. They’ve reserved many roles for us: maid, dumpy best friend, comic relief, the bitch, the She-Done-the-Hero-Wrong-that’s-why-Black-Women-can’t-find-a-Good-Man type woman, the petty criminal (because we’re not smart enough to be white collar criminals or patient enough to be the type of criminal that requires cooperation between high-level law enforcement agencies).

So when we’re featured as the bonafide heroine we should shut our mouths and bow down to the publishers for recognizing that just as “Republicans buy tennis shoes too” (thank you Michael Jordan); women of color buy books too. While we appreciate being the heroine, we don’t appreciate the fact that many of the books that feature us as heroines seem to be missing a few things such as: plot, editing, and a heroine we actually like. All women of color don’t have daddy issues; we’re not all ghetto; and contrary to the excuse white male Europeans used as an excuse to rape indigenous women/women of color all over Africa, North America, South America, Oceania, and islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific, we’re not all whores or jezebels tempting men in order to satisfy our deviant sexual appetites.

Even when the stories give us a decent heroine sans baggage, can you give us a heroine who represents more than one kind of woman of color. Can she be more than an nebulous shade of tan/brown/off white that could stand in for any woman of any race? We’re tired of reading a book and either a) having to wait until almost the end to realize that she is indeed a woman of color or b) never discovering just what she is. Yes, race matters, especially when you’re using race as a factor to sell us a book.

Readers come in all colors, shapes, shades, hair lengths and textures. Give us heroines that represent that. If you’re bold enough to publish a book featuring a heroine of color, be bold enough to represent her on the cover…as she’s written in the book, not as some generic woman of color that stands in for every woman. All heroines of color cannot have a nebulous appearance: tanned skin, long silky hair and hazel eyes. That’s cheap. And don’t give us the excuse that you’re trying to please all of the readers; you’re trying to maximize profits.

As George D. Prentice (who from all accounts of what he stood for is not someone who would be in our posse but someone who our posse would roll on) said: “It is vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one-half of the world.” If you’re scared to tell your shareholders or executive board that you’re going to put an African-American/Hispanic/Asian/South Pacific Island woman on the cover, then be too scared to publish the book.

 

Give the book due diligence. That is, put the same effort into that book as you would the books that are featured on those best sellers lists. Don’t waste the readers’ time by publishing a book that didn’t receive proper editing. We might be women of color and the average American might only read on an eighth grade level but trust us, we can recognize plot holes, story inconsistencies, and bullshit effort. If the book was rejected when first submitted with a white hero and heroine; changing the race/ethnicity of the hero and heroine to ‘of color’ doesn’t magically erase those errors. Selling that to us might make you a little change but just like an iceberg most of what it does lies beneath the surface.

First, it shows your racism. Yes, we said “racism.” Don’t get it twisted: including us is not necessarily accepting us; sometimes it’s simply tolerating us and tolerance is worse than hate.

Additionally, it damages your credibility. It dishonors the communities represented. It insults the intelligence of the reader. Further, it proves you don’t really give a shit about women of color, about your business, and about any type of integrity. Yes, some readers will gladly read it but that does not equate to goodness. A certain percentage of the population will engage in activities that are illegal, immoral and deadly. You’d probably balk at putting your name/image on a product that was labeled thusly; you should balk at putting your name/image on a product that is garbage, one step above garbage, or two steps beneath garbage.

While other readers might accept those books, we won’t. We’re picky. We’re choosy. And you know, we’ve earned the right to be. So while you might be okay selling that ish, we won’t be okay reading it. And now that we’re publishers, we won’t be okay accepting it. Come correct or don’t come at all. The last thing a woman needs is more bullshit. The last thing a woman of color needs is a book about us written by someone who doesn’t know a damn thing about us, published by someone who doesn’t give a shit about us.

Jeanie and Jayha

 

Beautiful Trouble Publishing

Jeanie and Jayha Blog

“Tolerance...is the lowest form of human cooperation. It is the drab, uncomfortable, halfway house between hate and charity.”—Robert I. Gannon, Address, Boston, April 23, 1942

J&J:  Fuck. Your. Tolerance…and the Indifference It Rides in On.