Sister Souljah Books

Midnight and the Meaning of Love

2011-04-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

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Sister Souljah, the New York Times bestselling author of The Coldest Winter Ever and Midnight, delivers her most compelling and enlightening story yet. With Midnight and The Meaning of Love, Souljah brings to her millions of fans an adventure about young, deep love, the ways in which people across the world express their love, and the lengths that they will go to have it.
Powerful and sensual, Midnight is an intelligent, fierce fighter and Ninjutsu-trained ninja warrior. He attracts attention wherever he goes but remains unmoved by it and focuses on protecting his mother and sister and regaining his familyâ€™s fortunes. When Midnight, a devout Muslim, takes sixteen-year-old Akemi from Japan as his wife, they look forward to building a life together, but their tumultuous teenage marriage is interrupted when Akemi is kidnapped and taken back to Japan by her own father, even though the marriage was consummated and well underway.
There is not one drop of inferiority in my blood,â€ Midnight says as he first secures his mother, Umma, and sister, Naja, before setting off on a global journey to reclaim his wife. Midnight must travel across three countries and numerous cultures in his attempt to defeat his opponent. Along this magnificent journey he meets people who change him forever, even as he changes them. He encounters temptations he never would have imagined and takes risks that many a lesser man would say no to, all for the women he loves and is sworn to protect.

Title: Midnight and the Meaning of Love
ISBN: 1439165351
Author: Sister Souljah
Published: 2011-04-12

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The Coldest Winter Ever

2010-11-28T07:00:00.000-08:00

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The stunning national bestseller now features an illuminating discussion with Sister Souljah -- her secret thoughts on creating the story that has sold more than one million copies worldwide and introduced readers everywhere to the real ghetto experience. Here are answers to the questions fans everywhere have been asking; the meanings and inspirations behind such memorable characters as Winter, Midnight, and Santiaga; and insights into why and how Souljah conceived of one of the most powerful novels of our time.

Title: The Coldest Winter Ever
ISBN:
Author: Sister Souljah
Published: 2010-11-29

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Midnight

2010-11-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

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Souljah brings urban literature, and herself, to a whole new level in this raw, unapologetic, charismatic love story. “Midnight, A Gangster Love Story,” is a PREQUEL to “The Coldest Winter Ever”. It is a teenage love story, and a close up on Midnight, the mysterious and strong character from “ The Coldest Winter Ever.” It is a powerful tale of a foreigner arriving in Brooklyn at a young age and fighting, thinking, working, his way to new riches and new love, while maintaining his family, faith and culture.

Title: Midnight
ISBN:
Author: Sister Souljah
Published: 2010-11-22

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Sister Souljah

2008-08-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

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Born in Bronx, New York, raised in the projects, Souljah is a fighter who came up from the bottom. A graduate of Rutgers University, she earned a degree in American History and African Studies. She also attended the Cornell University Advanced Placement Studies, and studied abroad in Europe at the University of Salamanca.

A global student, Sister Souljah traveled throughout her college years to England, France, Spain, Portugal, Finland, and Russia. Her academic accomplishments were reinforced with first hand experiences. She worked to build a medical center for families in Bindura, Zimbabwe. She worked with refugee children from Mozambique. A major participant in the international student anti-aparthied movement, she helped to create a momentum, movement and fervor which liberated Nelson Mandela and brought about the divestment of millions of dollars from corporations doing business with apartheid South Africa. Her travels in Africa also included Zambia and South Africa. She believes it is essential that African professionals help one another to save our continent , resources, families, and children.

As a student activist in America, Souljah created, financed, and implemented the African Youth Survival Camp, a six week summer sleep away academic/cultural camp for 200 children of homeless families. With a skillful curriculum, which she designed, this camp ran for over 3 consecutive years and inspired major celebrities to start their own camps and schools, and to build charities and institutions to give back.

As a community activist, Souljah organized against racially motivated crimes, police brutality, and the miseducation of urban youth. She produced and promoted several outdoor rallies and concerts, in Harlem NY, which drew nearly 30, 000 youth each time, as well as the participation of top Hip-Hop and R&B celebrities.

In the field of entertainment, Souljah has been on many platforms including radio and television. Before the political shutdown and attack on American 1st amendment rights, she was the young voice in NY radio that spoke to the hip-hop audience about politics, culture, business, and social organization. This includes being a featured speaker at the Million Woman March, appearances on Oprah Winfrey, Larry King Live, and the cover of Newsweek Magazine. As a Hip-Hop artist, Souljah's CD entitled "360 degrees of Power," sparked international debate over issues of race, culture, sexism, and politics. Additionally, the entire world awaits the release of her first film, The Coldest Winter Ever.

Today, Souljah is a 21st Century multidimensional woman. From 1995-2007 she was the Executive Director of Daddy's House Social Programs, the charitable wing of Bad Boy Entertainment. She is the author of 2 national best sellers, The Coldest Winter Ever, and No Disrespect. Her new novel will be published in 2008, a Coldest Winter Ever sequel. She has also been happily married for over 15 years and has one child.

Many people attempt to silence Sister Souljah?s powerful voice. A young influential woman who has achieved so much yet remains down to earth, can be quite intimidating. Still she has been blessed to reach and touch those who are interested in adding to the good in the world, and not the evil.

Ann Coulter, You're No Sister Souljah

2008-08-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter is not African-American, does not sing and never said “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” However, she is the closest the Republicans will get to Sister Souljah.

Coulter has made a career of interspersing insightful and cutting political criticism with outrageous and morally repugnant remarks. She attracted considerable attention with her crack about the group of 9/11 widows dubbed the “Jersey girls,” with a line in one of her books, “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. ... I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.”

Then, there was her crack about Muslims at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC): “I think our motto should be post-9-11, ‘rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences.’” At CPAC on Thursday, in endorsing Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney, who needs more bad press like a hole in the head, she piped up with this one: “I was going to say something about John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’”

It's about time for a presidential contender, perhaps all of them in the spirit of Newt Gingrich’s crusade for improving public discourse, to say “enough.” Coulter’s never-ending stream of venom is not amusing, unhelpful to Republicans, and not in keeping with the ideals of a party that fancies itself as the proponent of a colorblind society and heir to Lincoln.

It is not “caving” into political correctness to distance and indeed condemn such remarks as unworthy of a political event like CPAC. To the contrary, it is altogether fitting that a group that ostensibly searches for the best in conservative ideas, rewards political courage and encourages intellectual debate, should be able to differentiate the amusing from the offensive, and the clever from the vile.

Conservatives take great glee in condemning ideological opponents who share stages with Al Sharpton or give a convention seat to Michael Moore. It would certainly boost their credibility to toss their own baggage out.

Would it be a stunt to call out Coulter, who obviously revels in the attention of provocative pronouncements? No. Excommunication is not being suggested, just a public rebuke. By clearly stating her comments are beyond the bounds of civil discourse and her presence not a welcome addition to a mature political party, the Republicans could do themselves a world of good. How often does a party have the opportunity to display some measure of dignity, restraint and self-reflection.?

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Hillary's Reverse "Sister Souljah" Strikeout

2008-08-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

In 1992, Bill Clinton hit a political home run with his "Sister Souljah" moment. In 2007, Hillary Clinton suffered a reverse "Sister Souljah" strikeout. If it isn't the end of her presidential aspirations, it should be.

Allow me to explain. Fifteen years ago, Mr. Clinton was looking to solidify his centrist credentials. An obscure quote by an obscure black radical rapper provided the perfect exploitable opportunity. In the wake of the Los Angeles riots, Souljah was interviewed by The Washington Post. "If Black people kill Black people every day," Souljah wondered aloud, "why not have a week and kill white people?"

Mr. Clinton took to the bully pulpit at the Rainbow Coalition and denounced Sister Souljah. "If you took the words 'white' and 'black' and you reversed them," Mr. Clinton lectured sternly, "you might think David Duke was giving that speech." Political cheerleaders framed this as an act of political bravery -- publicly repudiating an extremist racial separatist's rhetoric to demonstrate independence from minority grievance-mongers in the Democrat Party.

Mrs. Clinton, whom conventional wisdom mistakenly casts as the smarter, more disciplined politician of the household, didn't learn from her hubby's Sister Souljah triumph. She turned it on its head. Instead of dissociation with racial extremists, she has chosen ingratiation. And the results are comedy bordering on political suicide.

Strike One came last January, standing at the pulpit at the Canaan Baptist Church with racial racketeer Al Sharpton in Harlem. Affecting a strange Southern-spiced-with-street twang during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, Mrs. Clinton sassed:

"For the last five years, we've had no. Power. At All. And that makes a big difference, because when you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation. And you know what I'm talkin' about."

"We"? "Plantation"? Whatchu talkin' 'bout, H-dawg? All that was missing was an "Oh, snap!" and a talk-to-the-hand motion for pandering punctuation.

Strike Two came earlier this year in Selma, Ala. Commemorating the bloody 1965 civil rights march that helped roll back segregation in the South, Hillary painfully recited from an old gospel hymn: "Aww don't feel noways tired. I've come too faarrr from where I started frum. . . . Aww could have listened all day luung." The speech was met with universal derision.

Yet, last week, with Al Sharpton at her side at his annual National Action Network demagogue-a-thon in New York, Hillary pulled out the black-cent again: "We have ta reform our government. The abuses that have gone on in the last six years -- I don' think we know the half of it yet. You know, when I walk into the Oval Office in January of 2009, I'm afraid I'm gonna lift up the rug and I'm goin' to see so much stuff uh-nder thar. . . . You know, what is it about us always havin' to clean up after people? . . . But this is not just going to be pickin' up socks off the floor. This is going to be cleanin' up the government."

"Us always havin' to clean up after people"?

Strike three.

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Goodbye to "Sister Souljah"

2008-08-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing that Nutsgate is a “Sister Souljah moment” for Obama. Frankly, it’s annoying me. First – it’s not a Sister Souljah moment at all. Second – I’m sick of that term. It’s time to retire the Sister Souljah label altogether. It’s inaccurate, and even borderline racist.

There are two interpretations of the “Sister Souljah Moment” – one benign, one less so. To be more precise, there are two distinct concepts that get conflated under the name Sister Souljah. They share a common linguistic label, but they’re substantively different.

The more benign interpretation is that a Sister Souljah moment occurs when a candidate criticizes some group or idea nominally aligned with that candidate. In short, it’s criticizing your own coalition – or some idea valued by your coalition – to show independence and courage, etc.

The less benign interpretation is that “Sister Souljah” means distancing oneself from black people. When used in this sense, the Sister Souljah label masks an uglier, racial dimension lurking below the conceptual surface.

Let’s have a little straight talk – Clinton’s original Sister Souljah moment falls squarely within the latter sense. His statement got publicity not because he was speaking out against some interest group or idea, but because he spoke out against a black rapper.

In this sense, the original 1992 Sister Souljah speech wasn’t even technically a true “Sister Souljah moment.” After all, what serious idea or interest group was represented by her or her speech? It’s not like advocating killing white people was a sacred cow of black political groups or the Democratic Party more generally. And it’s not like she was some important leader.

A better example of a Sister Souljah moment would be, say, criticizing teachers’ unions’ opposition to merit pay. Clinton, by contrast, was criticizing a marginal figure expressing a marginal sensationalized view – but got a lot of press for it.

Sadly, though, it was probably good politics at the time. Many Reagan Democrats were (and are) under the ridiculous assumption that black people were running the Democratic Party, stealing white people’s wages for welfare and robbing their children of spots at prestigious universities. So let’s not kid ourselves. Clinton wasn’t showing courage by questioning Democratic orthodoxy. He was signaling to Reagan Democrats that he wasn’t controlled by black people, thus distinguishing himself from the imaginary boogeymen liberals in Reagan Democrats’ paranoid fantasy worlds.

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Sister Souljah Moments

2008-08-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

BILL CLINTON invented the Sister Souljah moment. Is having one still a political requirement or more a political cliche?

Back in 1992, Clinton made headlines when he chastised rap artist and community activist Sister Souljah for saying, "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" His rebuke came in an appearance before Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition: "If you took the words, 'white' and 'black' and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech," the then-presidential candidate said.

This so-called "Sister Souljah moment" - a calculated denunciation of an extremist position or special interest group - wrapped Clinton in a warm centrist glow just in time for the general election.

Now, Republicans are pushing Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, to repudiate the "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" ad unveiled by MoveOn.org, which represents the antiwar left.

In a scathing statement about Clinton's failure to reject the ad, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said, "If you're not tough enough to repudiate a scurrilous, outrageous attack such as that, then I don't know how you're tough enough to be president of the United States." Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani took out his own New York Times ad to denounce Clinton for refusing to denounce the ad. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney piled on, telling an MSNBC interviewer that MoveOn.org "has purchased the Democratic Party."

The MoveOn.org ad was nasty and juvenile, putting Democrats at a disadvantage as Petraeus made his case for a continued American presence in Iraq. But Democrats did not see a Sister Souljah moment. They fear the power of the anti-war left and they also understand the political limitations of such formulaic outrage. A Sister Souljah moment must come at the right time. And a candidate can only have so many of them.

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Sister Souljah Biography

2008-08-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Sister Soujah (Lisa Williamson) was born in 1964 in the Bronx, New York. Her mother, who lived on and off the welfare system for approximately 15 years, raised her. She lived in government subsidized housing below the poverty line, a cycle of poverty from which she later broke out. She supplemented the education she received in what she calls the white American School system by reading African history, which she felt was purposely left out of the school curriculum. By doing so, she feels she was able to become the well balanced, reassured woman that she is. While in high school, she was Legislative intern in the House of Representatives for the Republican Party. A winner of the American Legion's Constitutional Oratory Contest, she attended Cornell University's advanced placement summer program and the University of Salamanca's study-abroad program in Spain. She later majored in American History and African studies at Rutgers University, where she was a well-known writer and political commentator for the university's newspaper.

In the mid 1980s, while attending Rutgers University, she was offered a job by Reverend Benjamin Chavis of The United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, which is a church-sponsored civil rights group. She developed, organized, and financed, through hip-hop music, a sleep-away summer camp called the African Survival Camp, located in Enfield, North Carolina, for homeless families. The program lasted 3 years.

As a political activist, Sister Souljah is angered by the condition of African American people throughout the entire world. Culturally, she claims the so-called public education system has systematically denied people the right to study and enjoy their culture and history. Politically, she contends African Americans are not included in any substantive, comprehensive agenda around economic development, foreign policy, budget containment or social policy. She believes that African Americans do not hold the capital to gain equitable economic power to break the vicious cycle of discrimination and racism that goes on in our country. She reflects these feelings in her writing and in her songs. She feels it is her responsibility to help correct those wrongs.

Sister Souljah is a strong, educated, opinionated black woman who is at times seen as a threat to those that deny but are fully aware of the conditions oppressing people of color. In fact, she was the target of that when, in an interview with the Washington Post, she made remarks that some believe advocate violence against whites. Sister Souljah's response was, "The context in which my statements were made in the Washington Post was this, and I paraphrase speaking in the mind-set and in the mind of a gang member: Were you surprised at what happened in L.A.? No. I was not. White people should not have been surprised either; they knew that black people were dying everyday in the streets of Los Angeles to gang violence created by poverty and social chaos, but they did not care. If young black man in L.A. would kill their kind, their own brothers and sisters, what would make white people think they wouldn't kill them too? Do white people think they're better, or is it that white death means so much more then Black Death?"

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Obama's Accidental Sister Souljah Moment

2008-08-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama leads a charmed life. He finally had his Sister Souljah moment and didn't even have to show up. Jesse Jackson did it for him solo.

Sixteen years ago, Bill Clinton used a Jackson-sponsored forum to rebuke the rap singer for suggesting that black people "have a week and kill white people" rather than each other. Jackson fumed as Clinton made the comments and denounced them later. Politically, Clinton came out such a winner that "Sister Souljah moment" now has its own entry in Wikipedia.

Roll forward to this week and the controversy that is attracting so much attention. Obama did not have to rebuke an important constituency himself to define himself as different from the Jackson-Sharpton wing of the Democratic Party. Being attacked by Jackson was more than enough to get across the point. Whatever people may know or think they know about Obama, they can no longer mistake him as a direct descendant of old-style black politics.

Jackson's multiple apologies attest to the harm the civil rights leader knows he did to himself. His crude comment, captured on an open microphone on Fox News, was so out of bounds that even Jackson's son, a national co-chair of Obama's campaign, leaped to condemn "the ugly rhetoric" and urged his father to keep his mouth shut. Jackson has certainly diminished himself and, given the fact that he attacked the first African American to lead a major party into a general election, likely hurt himself in particular within the black community.

The full extent of Jackson's grievances with Obama may never be known. The direct reference that led to the raw remark came over Obama's embrace of faith-based programs to help deliver social welfare assistance, although there was also a suggestion that Jackson was troubled by other ways he believed Obama was talking down to black audiences.

Whatever his disagreements, Jackson's outburst suggested that he has some fundamental disagreements with Obama's worldview. The more he makes that clear, the better it's likely to be for Obama. Jackson is an old-fashioned liberal with an abiding faith in government, for which he makes no apologies. He has kept that flame burning for many years.

But he is also trapped in a battle that was resolved within the Democratic Party long ago, when Bill Clinton declared the era of big government over. The party is comfortable with both governmental and non-governmental solutions and Obama is on the other side of that divide. He speaks in a language that is foreign to Jackson's ears.

In one of his apologies, Jackson compounded his problems, as he sought to define Obama's candidacy only in the context of his own history in the civil rights movement. There's no question that Jackson's presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988 helped pave the way for Obama (and Jackson's demand for proportional distribution of delegates turned out to be Obama's secret weapon in his race against Hillary Clinton).

While Obama has acknowledged his debt to those who led the civil rights movement, he has never sought to define his candidacy or his politics strictly in a racial context. Even in attempting to praise Obama, Jackson left the impression that he is unhappy with the way Obama has projected his candidacy, or would like all Americans to see it strictly through the prism of civil rights.

Obama has been reluctant to pick fights within the Democratic family. He has not tried to define himself by taking issue with one faction or another, as Bill Clinton did when he was running. He has often floated above the party on his rhetorical message of change and new politics.

Obama also has long appealed more to upscale, well-educated voters than to downscale and less-educated voters, in part because his reform message plays better in those wealthier precincts. Finding ways to talk more directly to hard-pressed working families has been a major priority ever since he lost the Ohio primary to Clinton in March.

If Obama were looking for a way to endear himself more to those white, working class voters who were resistant to his appeals in the Democratic primaries, nothing is likely to help more than a condemnation from Jesse Jackson.

Racial politics certainly still exists in this country. Obama was damaged by the remarks of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and will still face skepticism and hostility among some voters because of the color of his skin -- no matter how strongly he denounced Wright last spring. Jackson's vulgar denigration won't erase questions about Obama's long association with Wright, but may serve Obama's purposes in pointing to the sizable generational division in black politics.

Perhaps Jackson will find enough ways to apologize to make this controversy disappear quickly. By the time the campaign ends, the episode may be remembered only as a footnote or less. But as a moment, it has served Obama nicely -- and he didn't have to do anything other than happily accept Jackson's apology.

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No Disrespect

1996-01-29T07:00:00.000-08:00

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Rapper, activist, and hip-hop rebel, Sister Souljah possesses the most passionate and articulate voice to emerge from the projects. Now she uses that voice to deliver what is at once a fiercely candid autobiography and a survival manual for any African American woman determined to keep her heart open and her integrity intact in 1990s America.
Title: No Disrespect
ISBN: 0679767088
Author: Sister Souljah
Published: 1996-01-30

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