From The Atlanta Post
April 29, 2011
“Soul, which means essence of…Jah, which means God…Bring out the essence of God in us.” For 20 years, activist and author Sister Souljah, who in a recent interview broke down the meaning of her name, has been a necessary voice in a world where too many choose to remain silent about pressing social issues.
The author of such titles as ‘No Disrespect’ and ‘The Coldest Winter Ever (which has sold over a million copies since its initial release) returns with her latest release, ‘Midnight and the Meaning of Love’, which debuted at number 15 on the New York Times Best Sellers list. The book is the sequel to the 2008 NY Times Best Seller ‘Midnight: A Gangster Love Story’. Her current work reunites readers with protagonist Midnight, a Ninjutsu trained warrior and son of a wealthy Sudanese scientist and political advisor. Set in four countries, the book explores love, culture, and manhood.
Souljah spoke candidly about her new book, redefining African manhood and African womanhood, and whether we can expect to see a film on ‘The Coldest Winter Ever’ in theaters anytime soon.
You’re the author of four national bestsellers including what many consider to be a classic, ‘The Coldest Winter Ever’. As a writer do you every worry about how your next work will be received?
Sister Souljah: No, I don’t feel any pressure whatsoever about writing. Writing is something that comes from my soul and flows very easily. It is not a stressful activity at all for me. It commands my total concentration and attention.
You lived in Japan while researching ‘Midnight and the Meaning of Love.’ How was that experience?
SS: When I was eighteen and first went to Europe, myself and a handful of other students were being addressed by a professor who said to us that you have to prepare yourself psychologically to accept that you’re going someplace else and that everything there may not necessarily reflect everything that’s familiar to you. The examples the professor gave taught me that whenever you’re traveling somewhere, don’t go with a blueprint for how you think it should be, because people are not even living their lives in reaction to your thoughts or your expectations. People are living their lives according to their history, their traditions and their culture. I wasn’t really shocked when I was in Japan. I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve always been in love with the whole process of learning, and so, I was just learning so many different things all day every day. I was just in love with that process.
What do you hope readers take away from this book?
SS: ‘Midnight and the Meaning of Love’ has so many dimensions that readers from all around the world can all take away absolutely different lessons from the book. There are so many things to be learned in the book, a whole chorus of things to be felt in the book, things to be admired, things to be considered, things to change about yourself and society, and the way you live or love. Also, there are things to be inspired by and other languages to learn.
For me, [this book] is just pure energy. It’s like if someone just gave you a glob of energy and you could do almost any amazing thing with it. When I finished writing this book that’s also how I felt. I felt like this story resonated in my soul, radiated it…way after I put my pen down. So, I think that it will be that for every reader as well. I think they’ll feel that energy and that energy will move them to different things.
Who are some of your favorite writers?
SS: I’m a big reader of non-fiction, which basically means that I might not necessarily have a favorite writer. I read works from various writers. I love to read about history and culture, and I love to read about things that I don’t already know. I have a whole big library of books that are non-fiction. When I was a college student my favorite writer was Richard Wright, and not because of Native Son as people would assume. No, I read the whole Richard Wright collection. I read all of his novels and all of his non-fiction works.
A great deal of your literary work and activism deals with nation building. What are some of the main challenges or opportunities for growth facing black/African families today?
SS: The first reality is that we as a people don’t have an agreement about what we need. It would be common in an African American home for different members of the family to believe different things. And since different members of the family believe different things, it’s very difficult to convey to the youngest members of the family what the actual faith and philosophy is for the family. To me, we don’t have an agreement between neighbors or between communities [on] what we believe in. So, you can raise your child to believe different things, but they are going to be impacted and affected by their neighbors who may believe something that is completely different.
So, the first problem is confusion about beliefs. It’s common in a Christian home, for example. There will be a mother and a father, [and] sometimes the mother goes to church but the father doesn’t. What does that say to the son and what does that say to the daughter? Or the mother doesn’t let the daughter go to parties, stay out late, or have male company in her room, but she lets the son bring girls in his room, close the door and do whatever he wants to do. So, what is the message about what the parents believe? What is the intention and what is the example we are showing to young people? Normally, I think there is not even a discussion about what is the meaning about anything. Like what the meaning of love is.
Do you feel that the condition of African people globally has improved in say the last 25 years?
SS: I think that we have more things and less love. More material possessions and less wisdom. More black faces in high places and less leadership and less ownership. I feel there is a need for examples of powerful and knowledgeable people everywhere.
Even if you get politicians in high places they have to be unafraid and unapologetically African. If you want to be the crowd pleaser, well then you’ll be doing everything for everyone else and you’ll be ignoring yourself and your own community. I know if I were president or if I were a senator, I would have the most amazing and incredible youth initiative to save, reshape and reinvent the definition of African manhood and African womanhood so that young people can move in a better direction. A more enriching direction spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, physically, intellectually…on every level.
If girls only get a choice between Rihanna…Beyonce…Nikki Minaj…or…Lil Kim it’s really not a great choice. There have to be some more options in the lineup. The fact that there aren’t more options is by design. Little girls are actually choosing between maybe those four people. Their mothers are doing the same thing, choosing between the same women. Because, once men decide that’s what’s desirable to them, then women want to do that. I’m against a society that doesn’t give young people more visual images and options than the same old thing.
As it stands, we have a very medicated population. Not just African people in America, but all people in America. A very medicated, drugged, intoxicated, depressed, and suicidal population. I think that’s because of people in leadership positions just going along with the flow and not being inventive, creative and confident enough to say, ‘this is the way we’re going to do it from this point forward.’
In the U.S. the pharmaceutical companies are so powerful; their presence on the political stage is so monumental that there is almost a vibration here that the medical community and medical professionals don’t even want to solve people’s problems. They want you to keep medicating yourself and they want you to keep having to go to the doctor, because this stimulates the capitalist infrastructure. The fact of the matter is we need a society that has more healing and more healers, instead of a society that wants to dumb down the population and then drug them.
What are your thoughts on the current military operation in Libya led by the U.S, Britain and France?
SS: I don’t have a good feeling about American international policy, and I don’t even feel like the majority of us are receiving enough information to make informed decisions about anything going on anywhere. There is a frightening uniformity in the news reporting that we’re receiving in the United States of America. It’s always refreshing when you travel to another country and you get to see their version of the news, because you see so much more than you get to see in the United States on the news. So, I don’t have a good feeling about it. But in all honesty, I must say, I also don’t have the details and information to decode what exactly is going on. But, as you know, in most instances everything involves money and oil, and anything else that’s being stated is an excuse for that.
What do you hope your legacy will be?
SS: It’s not really something that I have thought about…I just hope that I have been useful and that I have left useful things behind that people can continue to use…
A lot of people want to know if ‘The Coldest Winter Ever’ film is ever coming out.
SS: I have no idea. It’s not even currently in the making. It’s not like I can say, oh, we wrap on Tuesday [laughs]. It’s not like that. The Coldest Winter Ever film rights are still available. I entertain conversations with various people all the time about it, but my spiritual belief would be that it will click when it’s supposed to. I don’t have a date, because I don’t know about the destiny of that film. I just know that it’s a film I want to happen and I want to make happen. I want it to happen in a particular way…Pretty much the same way that I wrote it.
What’s next for you?
SS: The pusher Santiaga’s book is the next book I’m putting out.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, May 1st 2011 at 3:00PM
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