WHEN DID WRITERS BECOME NERDS…?
0325 by Jeff HessHonorée Fanonne Jeffers writes:
As a writer, I spend most of my time alone, and for the most part, I like it that way. But until this week, I didn’t want to admit that I’ve hungered for a nerdy community made up of folks from the African Diaspora; I love my non-Black friends, but there’s nothing like the cultural shorthand of people who “get” you, who might (or might not) have relatives named Pookie or RayRay, and who recognize the notion of Double Consciousness, and not just by reading about it in The Souls of Black Folk.
But I never thought I would discover a Black nerd community. I knew there were individuals who felt like I did, but I didn’t know we all were lonely and isolated, faking the funk, as it were. This week, I saw that we’ve been pretending. I found my community, and not a moment too soon. It was getting crowded up in that closet, with all my argyle sweaters and whatnot.
Now, I’m out in the open and unabashed. And me and my Black nerdy crew are rolling deep.
Maybe this is why Ernest Hemingway was, and continues to be, so popular among writers: he’s our anti-nerd. Then again, Hemingway has been accused of living in more than a few closets.
