Gorilla Black

Title: Gorilla Black 3.5 / 5
Author: Seven
2008
Began Reading: 7/11/2009
Ended Reading: 7/21/2009

Format: CD







Bilal Cunningham became Gorilla Black by the time he was 10. After moving to the projects in Richmond, Va this impressionable little boy was thrust into a world where his mother didn’t care about him, his little brother looked up to him and his mother’s boyfriends just despised him. Sounds like the typical life of a young ghetto child.

Bilal was thrust into “hood manhood” at the age of ten. His mother taught him how to take care of himself by shoplifting and trickery. Bilal had to learn to fight in order to protect himself in the jungle. After one savage beating he bestowed upon another hood dweller, he became forever known as Gorilla Black.

This book is very much in the vein of Triple Crown Publications. It has all the requisite themes: murder, drugs, rape, abuse and sex. These books remind me of a song I really like by an upcoming young artist, Deemi. Part of her chorus goes: jus drugs and violence, sex and cryin' in the soundtrack of my life…

All of these urban fiction books have the same plots. The same flat characters and generally the same outcomes. They try to be cautionary tales, but they are to me, selling the good life a little too much. In each of these stories the man is usually the kingpin. He’s always has redeeming qualities. In GB he had a heart of gold for his drug addict girlfriend, Star. Oh, and we know how Star looks even without hearing her description. Just to humor you, here goes: She’s light skinned, with naturally curly hair and light brown eyes. That description is so played out. From what I understand the author is a woman. Go figure. I am so tired or this description being the depiction of all main character BW. The supporting characters are usually the run of the mill Black girl. Her story isn’t even worth telling. When can we ever have a heroine that is brown with typical African American features? Why is Black femininity judged by these elusive standards? Why do we as BW always support these authors? As soon as I see that description, I tend to lose a little patience with the book.

Then there’s the other stereotype. The learned gangster. He’s read everything from the dictionary to the entire Encyclopedia (though in the technological age, it may be every entry on Wikipedia). Why is he so learned, yet won’t parlay that intelligence into doing something more with his life. After Malcolm X said that he had read the dictionary and others books, which are now the gold standard learning for every gangster. The difference with Brother Malcolm and these clowns, Malcolm actually learned his lessons.

This book was also strange on a few other levels too. The incest part left me scratching my head. I thought it was weird and the way the author tried to make this a Biblical story, even weirder. Sometimes, I think as writers, they just try too hard to be different, and they end up absurd.

The only part I truly took away from this book was the end, when GB explains to his mother about her hatred of him. Why she hated him for his color. It is something Black folk do every day. The very word black can connote so many negative things to Black folk in general. You can refer to some Black People in even the seemingly, most derogatory ways and that means nothing. Use black as the identifier or adjective and a full on fight may ensue. Go figure.