Ishmael Reed
Ishmael Reed
Ishmael Scott Reedis an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor and publisher, who is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth22 February 1938
CityChattanooga, TN
CountryUnited States of America
new-york epidemics california
How does the [New York] Times treat White pathology? They reported an epidemic of heroin addiction in the Philadelphia suburbs. which included emergency admissions and overdoses; these White people in the suburbs were doing heroin like it was going out of style. I counted the words: the article consisted of 200 words. "Heroin Epidemic" in the back section. Out here in California, the typical drug addict is a housewife or suburban White woman.
california white issues
Another California study counted 30,000 substance abusers who are pregnant are White woman. So, The Wire paints the picture of drug addiction, drug dealing, and drug abuse as being a specifically a Black issue.
jobs hippie california
I finally had to go to the American Civil Liberties Union here in northern California to get my reply published to what I considered to be a hatchet job done by Stanley Crouch.
books heard people victimized written
Those books are still in print, all the books I've written are still in print, but I heard that other people had been victimized also.
bear cordial feelings houston ill los recently saw toward
I saw Houston Baker, Jr., recently in Los Angeles. I don't bear any ill feelings toward him. In fact, he was very cordial toward me.
thinking two people
Unfortunately, in the world today, we have dogmatic people entering into politics. I don't think the two mix.
book writing ghetto
Richard Price, who has made a fortune writing fake ghetto books, says he takes a cab into the ghetto, transcribes Black speech for a brief time and returns home. His fake ghetto books have bought him a townhouse in Gramercy Park and home on Staten Island.
writing white long
I'm not against White writers writing about Blacks as long as they are as objective as say James McPherson writing about an Irish American janitor in his brilliant short story "Gold Coast."
character writing wire
I use non-fiction work written by Whites in my research. It's indispensable. That wasn't the problem. I said that "The Wire" was a cliché! It's like my writing a series about Jewish life and casting all of the characters as inside traders.
jobs evil giving
I walked out on American Gangster: this evil piece of dreck. Defenders of this junk say that these movies give Black actors jobs. So did "Birth of a Nation."
thinking anxiety black
I think Black intellectuals see too deeply. That's the problem. It's a cause of anxiety, because we see things differently.
black generations illness-and-death
My generation of writers has been prone to premature illness and death, especially the women. When Black male writers meet it's like a session of the American Diabetic Association.
stress media propaganda
Given all of the anti-Muslim propaganda that's being disseminated by The American Nazi media, you have to be careful. It can stress you out.
book night thinking
I have Black guys who tell me they put my books on their bed stands to read at night like something for guidance or information. That really pleases me a lot. I think my work has changed some things. It's changed me.