Writing Tip of the Week
Offend Me, Please, You Racist Swine!
?? If you write, especially if you write about racism or any other ism, you will get angry letters regardless of your position on the subject. Some people will be offended. And note that I draw a clear distinction between offending a reader and a reader who is offended.
?? There is a class of people in the reading public just waiting, itching, drooling and slobbering to be offended. They come in all races, sexes, creeds, political affiliations, and national origins. Regardless of their differences, they are united in a core belief in the personal value of being offended. “I am offended, therefore I am important!” The feeling is a religious experience. They crave the salvation of offense. “Damn it. Pay attention to me!”
?? Racism can’t be eradicated by offense. Legislation can’t do it, either. Signs, marches, e-mails, memes and emogies won’t do the job. Racism can only be eliminated one person at a time deciding to no longer be an asshole.
?? Where then does this leave the writer who wants to write seriously about racism?
?? We have three choices: Avoidance, tap-dancing, or taking it head on.
?? Avoidance is okay provided the writer doesn’t want to address racism (any ism) seriously. But you can’t write honestly about something by avoiding it. A writer isn’t forced to write about racism just because it exists. But once the author steps into the arena, it’s hands-off the hands-off approach. My advice is to grab your literary baseball bat and start swinging.
?? Tap-dancing around the subject actually endorses and supports the problem. It’s racism-lite. And there’s nothing lite about racism. “Billy Dale was a bigot and that made him a bad person” describes a character, but it does nothing to engage the reader and it side-steps what a cretin Billy is in real life. In wanting to avoid offending someone, the writer ends up making racism far less evil than it is. That lite approach also forces the writer into constantly breaking a basic rule of good writing: show, don’t tell.
?? Writing seriously about racism requires the author to face the demon and smack him in the face with that Louisville Slugger. That includes using politically incorrect language wherever appropriate. For example, my novel Sparky and the King involves members of organized crime and members of the KKK in the Deep South of the 1960s. To be honest to my characters and to history, I had to write certain sections of that novel using the language those people used – words and phrases I’d never use myself.
?? For example, the first word in chapter two (shouted with an exclamation mark) is the word we aren’t allowed to use in referring to black people.? Well, Deep South bigots in the 1960s weren’t PC. The scene involves the murder of a civil rights leader who has been kidnapped and taken down the bayou. I could have been PC – and mindful of not offending – and have written, “We’re gonna hang your ass, you obsidian skinned son of Africa of undetermined parentage!” I could have, but I wrote something far more graphic and honest.
?? My goal as a writer in those sections of the book was to show (not tell) racism in its ugliest and most brutal form. That’s the honest approach and that’s the side of any issue I want to support.
?? Face facts. If you write, someone will be offended by what you write. Regardless of what you say, some will be offended simply just because you brought up the subject. You might as well write honestly. Regardless of what you do, if you write honestly the OMP is out there and will strike from the tall grass. The question is, who do you really write for – those who are going to be offended anyway or for yourself?
?? When confronted by someone from the OMP, I smile, nod politely and borrow a line from Mr. Redd Fox from back in his “party records” days. He’d closed out his profanity-filled, sexually-insensitive, racially-aggressive show with, “I know I have used some language and terms during the last hour and that may have offended some of you. I want you all to know that personally… I don’t give a S---.”
If you write honestly, neither should you.
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Quote of the Week: “No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America—there are no ‘white’ or ‘colored’ signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.” John F. Kennedy
Recommended Reading: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I’ll Be Signing Books:
Desert Foothills Book Festival – October 19, 2024
Paranormal Weekend at the Superstition Mountain Museum – October 20, 2024
Arizona Author’s Association Holiday Book Fair (Green Valley, AZ) – November 30, 2024
Shameless Self-Promotion:
YouTube/Podcast Appearances: Coast-To-Coast AM With George Noory; Tuesday Night Bri; Monster’s Lounge; Sasquatch Paranormal Podcast; Afraid of Nothing; Patricia Monna Talks with Pendulum Dowser Dan Baldwin; Journey Through the Gate: Old West Spirits with Dan Baldwin; Journey Through the Gate: Dan Baldwin Author/Psychic in the Superstition Mountains; House of Mystery Radio Show on NBC: Dan Baldwin Psychic Detective; House of Mystery Radio Show on NBC: The Psychic Detective Guidebook; Horsefly Chronicles with Julia & Phillip Siracusa: Dan Baldwin & George Sewell; Watchers Talk: Is It Possible to Communicate with the Departed?; X2RS: Speaking with Spirits of the Old West; Andy de Codes: Dan Baldwin; Vincent Zandri? from The Writer’s Life Episode 851: Dan Baldwin; Rob McConnell Show: Dan Baldwin – The Psychic Detective Guidebook; Dangerous Thoughts; Generation X Paranormal, Generation X Paranormal; Typical Skeptic; Strategies for Living; Conflict Radio, The Energy That Surrounds Us; Shifting Paradigms in Medicine;
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