SOURCE: "Positive Black Male Images in Alice Walker's Fiction," in Obsidian II, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring, 1988, pp. 23-48.

In the following essay, Washington asserts that Walker does present some positive black male images in her work, and that her criticism of black men and women is in the spirit of helping them to grow and improve.

Now that the controversy over Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prizewinning novel The Color Purple has subsided, it might be worthwhile to re-examine her fiction, specifically, the short stories, in an attempt to resolve the issue of her purported attack on Black males. In particular, her critics charged her with presenting a grossly negative image of Black men, who were portrayed as mean, cruel, or violent, entirely without redeeming qualities. In a review of the film of the novel, the Washington Post of February 5, 1986, stated: "But what is being heatedly discussed is the characterization of...