Incredibly Inspired

This evening I had the pleasure of listening to an amazing woman. Ms. Sister Souljah! She was very inspirational, but of course you knew that ;) She read chapter one of her newest novel, Midnight: A Gangsta Love Story. Midnight's story is not what I think most reader's expect to read. You learn all about Midnight and his background, things you never knew. I think because us readers learned about Midnight from the eyes of Winter Santiaga we think of him in a different light. As a baller, a dealer, a paid man, a sexy tall mutha fucka. But he is silent throughout most of the novel. As Sister Souljah put it tonight, "Midnight is basically a stranger to everyone and yet all these women love him." She said that women have screamed and yelled at her, because its been 10 years since her last novel. And people have been waiting and waiting. She said, "I was living my life, what were you doing?" She said that originally, right after The Coldest Winter Ever, that she started writing The Adventures of Porsche Santiaga, Winter's younger sister. But after September 11th, she stopped writing it, although she was a little more than half way done with it. She just stopped and thought, "Does America want to read about another silly girl during this time?" She thought about finishing the novel, but looked around at America and at everything going on after 9/11.


I don't know about your states, but in New York, people started attacking any and everyone who they thought was Islamic, or Muslim. New Yorkers were so angry after 9/11, I know a lot of people were angry, but many New Yorkers were killing and attacking 7-11 workers and cab drivers. So anyways, Souljah thought about all these things, and decided to pick a different character from the novel. Midnight, she said, was from Sudan and he was Islamic. So this book is about his transition from Africa to New York and how different he thought. He actually hated America and black people in America. And he hated the fact that he was automatically associated with black people just because of his dark skin color. This is all with in the first chapter. Sister Souljah said that this is her absolute favorite book. I have studied black men in college, which I know sounds strange, but from the first chapter I think that this would be a good book to be studied in those sort of courses. Everything is from Midnight's eyes and his perspective is what a black man should be like, and not how they actually are in America. Sorry, if that came out wrong, because I give much respect to all the men that take care of their business. But this novel should be read by all most definitely. Black men can learn about how they should be, and how they should treat not only women but themselves and how they should carry themselves in public and to not act so ignorant to everything.

Sister Souljah talked a little bit about how society makes men act, i.e; Hip Hop/rappers and how black men are treated in the media. Midnight looks to his father and family as his "role models" and not to the rappers and the people who use the word Nigga in an ignorant manner. She said that although these characters are made up, from her imagination only, she has received much inspiration from people that she actually knows and has met. She said after working 15 years with young people, she understands them and their struggle. She said even though the characters are not real, they actually are real because Winter Santiaga is not just one person in the ghetto, but she is every girl in the ghetto that Souljah has come in contact with. She talked about everything from these two characters, Winter and Midnight. Not too many people asked questions about the characters, but more about how they can approach writing.


She definitely taught me some things which I can take back to the book that I am writing and it will help make it that much better. But I can't give away all the secrets. I just feel privileged to be able to listen to her speak in my lifetime, and to hear her thought process. She is quite the comedian.

All I will say about the Midnight book is that, it is not what you think, but you will learn more and appreciate him that much more because he is such a different character, than most of the stereotypical black characters in Urban novels. Oh and she signed my book and my Coldest Winter Ever, which I've had for 10 years.

~ JB