I hope this isn’t the wrong thing to say—I mean, obviously I don’t have personal experience of this kind of neighborhood—but I think this was what life in the Scottish Highlands was //really// like, you know—without all the poetaster treatment, basically. It was sexual. It was improper. It was violent. It was faintly disturbing.

(The merchant captain of “The Lilly-White Hand) (handkerchief) Oh, my!
(Scottish pirate) (grins wickedly for effect)

…. Although now that I’ve read more, I think I’ll just read this on KindleUnlimited, (ie support marginally), rather than buy a copy at the end, too. I hate to be the spoil-sport, you know. But aside from the aspect of fueling the racist imagination, just to take the thing itself, I hate to portray Black culture as being Like This, you know. I mean, I know that white groups compete and fight and kill each other in Anglo culture, right. But it just seems like the Blacks do it more—are more merciless with each other and exploit each other more viciously than would happen in inter-Anglo struggles—because of internalized contempt, basically, whereas really, I mean, it’s hard to have a society with Zero competition and it isn’t always necessary, but in a more rational world, there’d be understanding of, you know, you and your Black brother have more to lose by fighting each other, since you’re further down the totem pole, than Clan Campbell and Clan McDougall have to lose by feuding with each other, you know. But in practice, it works out as the opposite, because life often seems very unfair, so to speak. I mean, don’t obsess about it; but don’t be surprised. And I mean, I get it, in my view: being more rational and playing by the rules means going into white spaces, culturally so to speak and often physically, and you don’t wanna give up your own way, where you break the rules because you’ve had enough, you know, and ain’t nobody gonna turn you around.

But in extreme and in excess, it’s very frightening, you know. I guess I’ll just read the Scottish (ie Highlander) books on KindleUnlimited only too; I’m curious what they’re like—the English romances are pretty…. paled-out, like, no blood in the cheeks, right—but I don’t like looking at the covers of those books, and you have to offer something to the other side, if it’s a compromise, right? I mean, I can buy whatever I want, right, but…. I dunno, in my mind, I’m an institution. I’m vast. I contain multitudes. 😜

…. It is the fate of basically all Blacks to be either more or less formal/serious than white folks. Either, —You have oppressed me; I’m putting in a complaint with the lawyers; the world isn’t all fun and games when you get fucked up, dammit! ~ or, —(guy starts rapping and talking real fast and dropping the n-bomb and nobody really knows what’s going on but the church ladies don’t like it).

I mean, it is true that some Black guys are real chill, and some Black girls are church girls, and Black people often aren’t really rebels or law-breakers at all; they want to survive too much. Some Black people are even kinda Anglophilic, you know. But in general, at least in private, Black people usually have to decide between being either a little better behaved or a little less well behaved than white folks. Generally, they just don’t make ‘em quite the same size, so to speak.

…. Although the theme of people fighting/competing with their same-gender rivals for romantic success was done pretty well and made me think, I have to say that in general it’s just too fast and loose with hurting people for me to read the rest of the series. Conflict is part of most romances, and social craziness part of most backstories—English romances in the days of slavery; Scottish clans feuding and spreading anarchy—but I have to say that gangs controlling the drug trade in contemporary New York, and dealing chaos with things that should either be controlled completely or responsibly regulated…. It’s just a little too much, too obviously and immediately problematic for me to support the series, or I guess even the sub-genre. Although I’m done reading Amish romances, too. Some people think they don’t even need to take care of themselves, they just need to support the system, maybe shun some city folk to really lock it down, you know. It’s…. Well, it is what it is, and ironically it’s better avoiding people who are //that// isolationist, you know.

…. Anyway, again, urban fiction doesn’t one-to-one map onto the Black experience anymore than Scottish ballads do with white folk, but the Black cultural space is certainly a rather different spectrum from mine. I’m not someone who holds up segregation—or whatever we call it now, I guess, “the problem with no name”—as the ideal: it is certainly a malus to be limited to pretty close to your own background, especially in romance, but probably in much of the rest of it, too, but it is a difficult situation to expand, you know. Interracial romances, and even basic race mixing, with racist whites (spell check thinks this is hilarious, by the way: I can’t even begin, lol, to tell you what he thinks), can be incredibly damaging to Blacks and the Black community…. I just don’t think I have the cultural skills to do it right…. Maybe I’ll get //one// more urban romance, eventually, so it can be 2:2, Amish:Urban, you know, but…. I don’t know.

…. Although Black people do tend to believe in monogamy and marriage, even if their experience of those things can be a little, urban. People aren’t usually urbane when lady love has divided affections, you know.

…. To put aside the issues with the bright god for a moment, it would be nice if the dark god weren’t so easy about hurting people, and I guess in the new age of the world, so to speak, people will…. Although of course, even in Shakespeare, it would have been a different story if Romeo couldn’t take Tybalt, you know.