Daniel Beaty is a performance poet and artist that talks
passionately and personally about issues of race. One of his more well known
pieces is titled Duality Duel. In it, Beaty goes back and forth in two
different personas; his ivy league educated self and his street self. The two
personas are aptly named Nerd and Nigga. The Nerd flourishes stories of success
in an attempt to tell the Nigga there is no need for him any longer, but the
Nigga fires back that the Nerd is no longer relatable to his people, that he
can't fulfill his obligations to lift them up without his Nigga side. The piece
is powerful, Beaty has a goosebump evoking delivery from his projection down to
his body language. Besides that though, the piece is also smart and accessible
all at once. Beaty, using a performance poem that anyone can listen to and
engage with, isn't overly poetic on the surface at all, but on further inspection you
start to notice rhyme schemes and meter. It's also heavy in content, duality
being an altogether difficult subject to reconcile. Artists like Beaty though, are important because, just as his poem states, they make art and complex
dialogues more accessible.
This is why Junot Diaz is an important presence in
contemporary literature. The experience he comes from is both that of a black
minority and an immigrant and he is highly critical of the kind of baggage that
comes with both. His novel; the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which
might as well be Duality Duel the book, won the Pulitzer prize for literature.
Before that, he published a book of short stories titled Drown. Each story,
most of which could very well be about Diaz himself, feature Yunior, Dominican
immigrant to New Jersey (see) and seem to dip into different moments of his
young and adult life. We get snapshots of him as a child in the DR waiting for
his father to send for him; to stories of him as a young man trying to date
young women; to stories of him dealing drugs on the corners in America. Aside
from two stories, one about Yunior's dad in America and the other about a
reoccurring allegorical character named Ysrael, all of these stories take place
in "the streets", both literal and metaphoric. This means they come
packed with violence, misogyny, bruiting masculinity, race and racism, drugs,
gangs, etc etc. This makes it an ideal read for most men who might not often
feel a connection with literature set in lofty White America. In fact, it
almost seems Drown is exclusively for men, Yunior is always gratingly fronting
his manhood (even as a child) and women are unabashedly objectified. That isn't
to say that women can't read the work in Drown and derive any sort of meaning,
but the book empathizes almost entirely with men.
This could strike a lot of readers as annoying. Fans of
Diaz's Oscar Wao who value its balance between "the street" and
literary endeavors might not appreciate the more subtle literary presence in
Drown, which is more frankly about manhood. This is valid criticism, Drown's
male characters are despicable to women, they're overly violent, their thought
processes are simplistically male (sex, food, more sex). Other readers though,
readers these characters are supposed to empathize with, might find them
relevant. Once those readers are hooked, that's when Diaz works in the more
complex and subtle elements. Every female character, though treated poorly, is
complex, generally strong (often physically), and have an in-depth,
multidimensional kindness. Yunior is often afraid to speak out about his run
ins with sexual abuse because he thinks he'd be perceived as weak, while he tries
to brush it off it is still evident these instances of molestation haunt him
(read: drown him). Yunior also seems to be constantly reconciling with the
cruelty of masculinity, implying that it is almost inherent in his brand. His
father and his brother seem cruel, irresponsible, inconsiderate, and sometimes
downright insidious. Yunior, often mirroring their behavior, feels what he is
doing is wrong, but also conforms to the pressure of his family and friends.
While the stories of Drown may be masked in manliness, beyond the surface there
is a delicate and emotional sub-narrative worked subtlety into each piece.
Of course one could argue subtlety working in complex themes
could mean they're willfully ignored or unintentionally unnoticed, thus
dampening the conversation they're supposed to provoke in readers who are
already hostile to these literary methods. But in Drown, the deep conversation
triggers are so haunting - fast escalating moments of intense violence, or
sexual molestation that happens excruciatingly slow - that they're impossible
to ignore. Diaz stays relevant to say, inner-city youth, but could potentially
have them questioning the intricacies of their masculine identities. Even
if he doesn't, his attempt at reaching a readership that doesn't usually feel
powerful prose is for them is a commendable effort. If nothing else, he is a
different voice in a sea of homogeneous voices speaking about tortured white
geniuses.
