Shahrazad Ali


Shahrazad Ali, raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, is an author of several books, including a paperback called The Blackman's Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman. The book was controversial bringing "forth community forums, pickets and heated arguments among blacks in many parts" of the US when it was published in 1989.

Book reviews

Stories about the book appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsday, and Newsweek. Ali appeared on Tony Brown's Journal, the Sally Jessy Raphaël Show, The Phil Donahue Show, and Geraldo TV programs—and was ridiculed on In Living Color. The book reportedly brought black bookstores new business, while other black bookstores banned it. It also provoked a book of essays that explored the negative impact of The Blackman's Guide.
Some passages of her book describing African American women—referred to as the Blackwoman, as is the parlance of the Nation of Islam—quoted in the media include the following:
Ali stated, "I wrote the book because black women in America have been protected and insulated against certain kinds of criticism and examination." Critics complained that book offered no factual data to substantiate her views or information about how she came to her conclusions and was essentially as a vanity-press product that would have been ignored by black people and others had it not been for the media attention its novelty and outrageousness created.

Guest commentator

In August 2013, Ali re-emerged in the media as a guest commentator on the HLN program Dr. Drew on Call. She was also interviewed on The Trisha Goddard Show along with white supremacist Craig Cobb, agreeing with Cobb that the black and white races should be separated.

Life

Ali is the mother of 12 children, nine of them adopted.

Selected bibliography

In addition she has written some books no longer in print.