Sister Souljah > William Shakespeare

Kevin Hart is going to totally kill as one of her characters.

 

This is great. It's almost as good as Devil declaring that no one had ever heard of Ben Carson before he ran for President.

OOP is clearly unaware that Sister Souljah has written best selling novels, and is at the forefront of a whole genre of urban fiction.

Her point is that publishers and critics don't think there are African-Americans writers worthy of attention and/or praise, or that African-Americans are consumers of books/fiction.

And, for an urban audience, who is more relevant, Sister Souljah, or Shakespeare? Who is more likely to engage the reader? Whose storytelling is going to have greater appeal?

And, what the fuck constitutes "better" when we're talking about art or literature, especially art or literature written centuries apart, and aimed at very different audiences?

It's like saying the Beatles -- or maybe Beethoven -- is better than Beyonce. I might agree with that, but it's not some undisputed fact. Better is in the eye, or ear, of the beholder.

 

Can we organize a workshop where oop is discussing literature, the Steelers, and the consciousness of young black women?

 

Cast Jaleel White as oop in the made-for-TV movie.

 

Let me know when Beethoven could pull this off -- or get 200 million reads.

 

Although Jay Z's line of "handle like Van Exel" is pretty funny years later.

Nick Van Exel. Please.

 

Yet another ridiculous comparison. First Sister Souljah was to literature what Shaquille O'Neal was to basketball. Now she is to literature what Beyonce is to music? Seriously? Man, you are desperate this time.

Again, the levels of comparison here are ridiculous. Sister Souljah is not even close to that level. There are plenty of authors who would be worthy of that level of discussion, many of them African American, but she's not one of them.

I never said no one had heard of Sister Souljah or that her work was irrelevant. I said it wasn't on the level where she is placing it. You are failing to grasp that distinction, mostly because you just want an excuse to attack somebody.

You keep trying to make it about race even after I gave you just part of a potential list of African American authors who belong in that type of discussion. Certainly, there are African American authors who belong in discussions of the greats. She just isn't one of them.

If it was a white author with her resume making that comparison, you'd laugh at them, and rightly so.

Also, it is misleading to compare the two only in engagement of an urban audience. That isn't the comparison she made. The proper comparison is her appeal to all audiences.

 

I am qualified for the first two. I'm not the one trying to claim some expertise in the last category. Please take it up with them.

 

Are you saying that, objectively, Shakespeare, can't be judged as a great writer? That even more, the literature he created, is among the greatest bodies of art in recorded human history?

Her point that people dismiss African American writers is important and true. But she's trolling and not rational using Shakespeare to make her point. Grandma Moses was great in her own right, but she's not in DaVinci's league, almost no one is. Sista and William use the English language, the similarity ends there.

 

YF is trolling. That he used the misleading tactic of trying to make this about engagement of urban audiences only demonstrates that clearly.

Souljah didn't compare the engagement of urban readers. She compared herself to Shakespeare, so the issue would be engagement of all readers. Also, engagement isn't the only measure of greatness in a writer. What about cultural impact? What about influence on other artists? Hell, what about impact on the English language itself?

 

She didn't?

All of that is activism, so when I was running summer camps and high school preparatory programs, we had a lack of content that connects to Africans and Latinos and even Asian students. So by my writing these books, I have given professors and teachers all over the world to form a relationship with millions and millions of students who had just zoned out because they were not connected to the literature.

 

What about it?

She makes no claim to have a larger cultural influence than Shakespeare. She doesn't say she's influenced more artists than he either, nor had a greater impact on the English language.

Which also has nothing to do with who is a "better" writer. (A claim she also doesn't make.) The Beatles have more of a cultural influence than most Rock and Roll acts, and have influenced more artists/musicians/songwriters than most as well. Does that make them "better" than all others?