Sunday, February 20, 2005

Black Men Write About Love

It's not very often that black men are assembled on a discussion panel. Usually, when they are, it's for topics such as violence, race, or for their opinions on the state of Black America.

But yesterday, I participated in a panel at the California African American Museum, and the topic was something that I've never seen a group of black men assembled for: Black Men Write About Love.

Featuring authors, Donnell Alexander, Michael Datcher, Mel Donalson, Peter J. Harris, Jervey Tervalon, and me, we spent about an hour and a half talking about love.

About halfway through the panel, it hit me that this was kind of a profound thing. First, a group of black men writers who'd been (or about to be) published. Second, that we were talking about writing and specifically love. No statistics. No dangerous predictions about the future of the community. No arguing over who's the better leader.

It was really cool. And discussion, thanks to facilitator Jenoyne Adams, went from the profound and philosophical to the fun and frivolous. I was really honored to be asked to be on the panel.

1 comment:

TheBlacks said...

I was hoping to make the event but found myself in Mexico and unable to make it back to Los Angeles in time. In due time ... right?