Author Archives: Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

Unknown's avatar

About Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

Leslye Joy Allen is a fourth generation native of Atlanta. A historian, oral historian, dramaturge, consultant, and environmentalist (better known by her middle name "Joy"), she holds degrees in History from Agnes Scott College and Georgia State University. She is a charter member of Agnes Scott College’s Alpha-Theta-Psi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society and is a former Coca-Cola Foundation Museum Fellow at The Atlanta History Center. She was a 2015-2016 Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Dissertation Fellow and Scholar. She specializes in twentieth century Georgia History, Atlanta History, and Performance Arts History with a specific emphasis on Theatre.

An Aging, Weary Black Woman’s Directives

Posted on by
Reply

©️ by Leslye Joy Allen

1. Do not waste what is left of your life on sexists, misogynists, practitioners of misogynoir, racists, homomisics, transmisics, xenomisics, and on people too lazy to look inside a dictionary to discover what these words, with their prefixes and suffixes, mean.

2. Never render CPR nor succor to those who are not kind, who cannot be kind, and who think it is a waste of their time to be kind.

3. Follow Malcolm X’s request to never call any man “brother” until he demonstrates that he is one.

4. When confronted by sworn enemies, do not, as my late Mama would say, “bother to piss down their throats even if their guts are on fire.”

5. If some illiterate soul wants to learn how to read, point them to the nearest literacy class. If some soul doesn’t read much, but wants to read more, give them books. The ones who refuse to read, leave them alone.

6. Per the instructions of my second grade teacher Sister Mary Gemma, always remember that, “you only have two cheeks. Therefore, you only turn the other cheek once.”

7. Rest on purpose. My late Daddy used to say, “Let the men do some of the work because they owe you the same things they already believe you owe them, on demand.”

8. Stop fighting every battle. My late cousin Billie used to say, “You can’t fight in every skirmish if you plan to win the war.”

9. Stop adding caveats like, “I don’t want anybody to take this the wrong way, but…” or “I don’t want anybody to get upset, but…”to your opinions. These kinds of caveats and prefaces, as Dr. Jacqueline Howard Matthews would say, is an apology for your opinion before you even render your opinion.

10. As Black women en masse we have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

#MakeAmericaLiterateAgain

Blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a reference to this hyperlink: https:/leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers.  All Rights Reserved.

Bookstores & Librarians & Libraries Rock: Writers & Readers, Pay Attention

Posted on by
Reply

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

I love bookstores & libraries and librarians, but particularly librarians. They are natural allies to historians or anyone doing research. When you tell them what you are looking for they can point you right to it. I love archivists for the same reason, but archivists deal with materials that are older, and rarer than the books you see on the shelves in bookstores and in public, school and university libraries. This blog, however, is more than a shout out to the folks who handle books, it is for anyone who has written or who plans to write a book.

Here’s a tip. Do your best to get your book reviewed by a librarian. Here’s why.

While most scholarly articles and many scholarly books are peer-reviewed (which means exactly what it says: reviewed by one’s academic peers), the majority of novels, memoirs, some scholarly works, and popular authors’ books are not reviewed by their peers or by librarians.

There is one advantage that a librarian-reviewed book has: If the librarians responsible for purchasing books like the book and recommend the book, they will buy it and other libraries will buy it too! Library sales are not like other purchases. Let me explain.

Let’s say you are a new author. You and/or your publisher (if you have one) get a local bookstore to buy 100 copies of your book for 50 percent off of the retail price of each book. The typical timeline to return copies of books that did not sell is around 6 months. Let’s say, all but 20 copies of your book sold, so the bookstore returns the unsold books for a refund. Now, you certainly sold more books to the local bookstore than to a public or university library, BUT libraries’ sales are final and books are never returned unless there’s some physical damage to the actual book.

So, here’s a suggestion. Scholars and Librarians rarely review books that do not appear to have some scholarly value. Yet, you can always send your manuscript—whether it is a Science Fiction Thriller, a Memoir, or a Book of Poetry—along with a Cover Letter, requesting a review of your book.

Library Journals like Kirkus Reviews (librarians read this one all the time), Library Journal, Booklist, School Library Journal are some of the journals that librarians read and publish in. If you get a positive review in any one of these, you are bound to sell a few books and potentially earn another audience of readers because Bookstores and Libraries and Librarians Rock!

“If libraries order your book, you’re golden, because those sales are non-returnable—an author and publisher’s dream.” — from Returns 101: What New Authors Need to Know

©️Leslye Joy Allen

Vice-President Kamala Harris at Bold Fork Books, on Small Business Saturday, November 30, 2024. Bold Fork Books is a Culinary Bookstore located in Washington, D. C.

#MakeAmericaLiterateAgain

Blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a reference to this hyperlink: https:/leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers.  All Rights Reserved.

Sister Survival

Posted on by
Reply

©️by Leslye Joy Allen

In the aftermath of Kamala Harris’ defeat in the US 2024 presidential election on November 5th, no one took her loss as hard as Black women. Our work for her and our votes for her created that long blue line at 92 percent—the single largest and most consistent voting bloc in the United States.

My sister friends did what sisters always do. We called each other to vent at 10 PM or 3 AM. We called to see how we all were doing. We worried about Kamala. The sentence that came up the most in these conversations was: I’m done.

Baltimore’s Mayor Brandon M. Scott stated that Black women shouldn’t have to shoulder the bulk of everything with little to no help from others. And we won’t.

Sisters are worn out from over work, over strategizing, navigating inter- and intra-racial sexism, misogynoir, racism, the constant double standards, the defensiveness that rears its head whenever we dare to acknowledge double standards, the expectation that we must show up to work in everyone’s behalf, but that we must not make a mistake, and we must always be accessible.

A few days after the election and shortly after I reviewed a NAACP report that concluded that one-in-four Black men under the age of 50 voted for Trump, the poem below popped in my head. It’s reposted here at the request of a friend. I wrote it in 4 minutes to the delight of every one of my former English professors. Every sister that read it, got it. And their responses were all along the same lines:

“Girl, I’m done killing myself for people that never support us.”

“So many men and so many other people only pay attention to Black women when we are fighting for them instead of fighting for ourselves.”

We sisters are not the same people we were the day before the election; and whatever is left of us that still resembles us is on hiatus.

Blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a reference to this hyperlink: https:/leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers.  All Rights Reserved.

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

A Holiday Thought: What Educators Cannot Do Alone

Posted on by
4

©️ by Leslye Joy Allen

In my previous blog about the USA’s Literacy Crisis, I mentioned the tragic fact that only 25 percent of American adults read above the 6th grade level; and the consequences of not reading is a poorly informed population that voted against their own interests in this previous presidential election.

But this blog is not just about reading, it is also about developing a wider sense of civic responsibility in the aftermath of this presidential election because not all reading serves equitable and fair purposes. The literature so many members of the Right Wing want to ban are books that often tell inconvenient truths; truths that make some people uncomfortable. But here is another uncomfortable truth.

I can never forget that when the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany was one of the most literate nations on this earth. Nazi Germany effectively used written propaganda to foster public support for a corrupt and merciless regime that ended the lives of over 6.0 million Jews, along with Afro-Germans, Gays and Lesbians, Gypsies, and the disabled. The Nazis also burned well over 25,000 books that are lost forever.

Therefore, a literate and book-loving population alone will not save the USA. (God knows the folks who purchase a Trump Bible are living proof that literacy isn’t a perfect cure.) Nevertheless, many US Teachers, Instructors, and Professors will inevitably choose books that the Far Right will dislike. In the coming months and years, I anticipate battles between Republican officials and school boards, and challenges to college curricula. Yet…

Educators cannot fight alone. So, from Black Friday to Christmas Eve, if you know any children—your own and other kids—forego the video games and high-priced sneakers, and other useless items for Christmas. Go to your local bookstore and buy them books.

If you know kids that do not have a Library Card, take them to your Public Library and get them a Library Card. While there, ask them if they are interested in any particular thing and let the librarian introduce them to a new subject or area of interest. This is not a miracle cure for what we all may be facing in the next four years, but a better informed population beats one that is not informed at all.

The recent presidential election proved two things: people who don’t read often lack critical thinking skills and can be led to vote against their own interests; and many more can be led to not vote. I just had a heated discussion with someone who did not vote; and I don’t have the strength to write the details of the 45-minute lecture I gave to this individual.

©️ Leslye Joy Allen

All blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https:/leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers.  All Rights Reserved.

The USA Literacy Crisis & This Election

Posted on by
9

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

One factor that no one is talking about is the USA’s #LiteracyCrisis! I taught college history for 7 years and belong to 5 generations of educators in my family. Yet, this country NEVER bothers to consult educators or librarians about anything. Let me share this observation.

I met a MAGA supporter a few months ago who believed that a person could graduate from college without completing a set number of classroom hours if they chose a less demanding occupation or discipline. He thought an English major could graduate with fewer hours than say, a scientist because (his words) the scientist’s job was more difficult than teaching English. Therefore the English major should not have to take as many classes. I kid you not.

Former Georgia Gubernatorial candidate and activist Stacy Abrams, Esq. stated about two weeks ago that the Republican Party has deliberately operated a targeted propaganda campaign to politically disaffected Black men under age 50 over the last 3 major election cycles. They post propaganda and misinformation all over social media targeting these younger men and it worked.

While the majority of Black men voted for Kamala Harris, one in four Black men under 50 supported ‘45.’ Why did this Republican strategy work?

Because the men who are targeted do not read. If you do not read, you do not do any research. And individuals who don’t do any of the above are reliant on what people tell them. They follow what titillates them. They follow whatever propaganda sates their sense that the world is unfair to them. They are easy to fool and to lead and mislead.

This is what we are up against. TWENTY-ONE percent of ALL US adults are completely illiterate. FIFTY-FOUR percent of US adults read below the 6th grade level.

So, now we have a majority of American adults (75% to be exact) who either can’t read or don’t read. When you factor in sexism and misogyny and racism and an over dependence on the internet instead of an over dependence on going to the library, you have a recipe for disaster. So, put on your thinking caps but please talk to some educators and insist that your media outlets do the same.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

All blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author.  Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers.  All Rights Reserved.