Not "Down for Whatever"

I wanted to like this book, I really did, so that I could be supportive and tell all my friends and when I met the author, I could feel proud that he was representing me, another black gay author. After I read the book and analyzed some of the reviews, it seemed that anyone who wrote anything had something personally invested, like they didn’t read the book just the book jacket and decided in good faith to write something positive about this up and coming new black gay author. Yet, I couldn’t’ be so kind and had to ask myself, why is this writer who gradated for a state college main character hail from Ivory League? I'm so tired of the lie, the black gay fairytales, where we can't be real people but the black versions of Tori Spelling sitcoms or successful white women cable shows.

I probably would have enjoyed this book if I just graduated high school when I didn't know much about the world and one-dimensional characters could be entertaining. It's the same formulaic story of any quartet group that's used with women where you have the irresponsible one (aka “the slut”), the one keeping it real, the one questioning everything and the seriously ambitious or driven but still wholesome but sometimes dumb character. The only difference, Down for Whatever, is not nearly as clever, sexy or interesting. It was very dull, preditable, unclimatic like I didn’t know that Rafeal would eventually sleep with Keith’s Ceaser or have a HIV scare, afterall he was the titled the “slut.”

If you ever watched a Sex and the City episode, Golden Girls or even Girlfriends, you already read the boring Down for Whatever. Rafael is the irresponsible aka "the slut" or Lynn on Girlfriends, or Samantha on Sex and the City or Blanche on Golden Girls. Keith the responsible one aka “the one asking all the questions” which is Joan on Girlfriends, Carrie on Sex and the City and Dorothy on Goldengirls. Tommie is the one keeping it real which is Maya on Girlfriends, Miranda on Sex and the City and Sophie on Goldengirls. Last Marc Anthony is the ambitious and driven Toni on Girlfriends, Charlotte on Sex and the City and the wholesome but dumb Rose on Goldengirls.
None of the characters are new, just now black or Latino and gay and living in L.A. It only got interesting when Rafael betrayed his so called friend Keith, and then got with Tommie. I never understood why these people were friends, they had no real connection. No real bond. Then it got all Quaker moral on me, when the slut (Rafael) had to get what was coming to him, a HIV scare from the DL boy, so trendy. Gay men aren't straight women. Why does anybody have to learn a lesson, especially a forced lesson by the author? The book raises no new issues but capitalizes on stereotypes. And why is it with black books, now black gay books, the characters have to be so extravagant. The former R&B singer getting with a young NBA player, come on. I'm not saying it doesn’t happen or couldn't happen, but come on. It's that really the average black gay or Latino story. Why can't the FedEx guy get with the UPS guy, now that's hot! I wanted to be supportive of Mr. Smith since he is not self-published like many of us and is in many major bookstores. I picked up his book at the Union Station Barnes and Noble in D.C. I thought that was impressive.

I didn’t like Down for Whatever. Personally, I thought it insulted my intelligence and was a bunch of bullshit. Yet, I want it to do well. There are a lot of bad books out there on the New York Times bestseller list, why can’t a bad black gay book be one of them. Like Tinkerbelle in Peter Pan, if we believe as loud as we can, maybe Down for Whatever will become a bad sitcom on gay T.V. and then a terrible movie. It’s all we got, right, as black gay men?