The Coldest Winter Ever

by Sister Souljah

  But clearly there was so much unfinished business in Jamaica. There was massive poverty. Yet there was a new generation who refused to love the land and grow foods. They felt farming was beneath them. There was an ocean, yet there was not enough fish for everyone to eat at mealtime. There were black workers anxious to accommodate white tourists but visibly and verbally hostile to the black tourist. There were girls everywhere, naked with foul attitudes and a miseducation.

  It was the Jamaican ghetto climate that encouraged me to finish The Coldest Winter Ever, an exploration of not only ghetto life, but ghetto psychology and the set-up that people in hoods everywhere face. While there I also completed four songs (unreleased). Once again I was shook into producing something that I hoped would resurrect the human soul, and save the women and men from an obvious and evil cycle of destruction.

  6. Which character did you create first?

  Winter Santiaga was the first character I created. I wanted to write the most accurate depiction of the characteristics I felt were becoming popular in the teen female population. I felt if I could use all of my powers of imagination to capture that crazy, selfish attitude, along with that uncontainable spirit, all packaged inside the typically beautiful black ghetto girl body, I would have the most powerful and accurate urban female character ever written up until this time.

  The second character I created was Midnight. I felt like a sculptor with a chisel. I loved the process of breathing life into him. Santiaga was next because I knew I needed to show what Midnight would become if he did not make a dramatic change in his lifestyle. Then there were Bullet and Natalie. Mrs. Santiaga came afterward. I knew she would be a mother who basically talked a lot of foolishness and rah rah, while basically standing by and letting things that should not be happening, happen.

  7. How did you write the novel, what method?

  I saw the novel as a movie in my head. As the pictures connected one by one in my mind’s eye, I wrote down the words that described exactly what I saw. I knew I had to choose the right words. I wanted you, the reader, to see what I saw, exactly as I saw it in my mind. I tried to make each character be the kind of character who wanted to get the reader onto his or her side. In order for each character to struggle for a space in the mind and heart of the reader, I had to let them argue their position, which was to convince you that they are real. There are no small characters in The Coldest Winter Ever. Even the characters who did the most subtle things or appeared the least, wanted to be real. The bodyguards of GS, the girl in the abortion clinic who kept having all of the abortions, the girls in the bathroom who gave Winter the bag with the guns and drugs, the old lady in the hotel parking lot whom Winter clobbered. I imagined that they all wanted to convince you that they existed.

  I write every word out in longhand with a regular pen and paper, not a computer. Usually I write surrounded by people in motion, for example in a library or bookstore, or at a family wedding!

  8. Are Winter Santiaga and the Santiaga family black?

  Yes, they are a black family. I was surprised by how many people asked this question in letters and emails. However, I do understand where the questions are coming from. The name Santiaga is a Latino-sounding name. Therefore, many are assuming that the family is Spanish, and that if they are Spanish, they are not black. The confusion on these type of issues stems from not understanding African history, geography, and culture. Black people were the first humans to inhabit this Earth. We were navigators, merchants, and travelers throughout the globe. Therefore we may be found living and or born anywhere on the globe, speaking any of over 1,000 languages. There were even black people living in what we now know as America, before the coming of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. (See Dr. Ivan Van Sertima’s book They Came Before Columbus.)

  For most students of every race, because of the inaccurate American public school curriculum, the study of the black presence and contribution to the world begins at slavery. It’s as if blacks did not exist, prosper, and build before becoming slaves.

  However, through slavery, black Africans were captured, transported, and dispersed as unpaid laborers throughout the globe. As a result you will find large numbers of blacks living everywhere, speaking every language. Because the blacks were considered property, and were then owned by the English, Spanish, French, Italian, Irish and Portuguese, they were forced to abandon their original African names. The new names that blacks were assigned were European names. This is why millions of blacks today have Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, and English–sounding names even though they are not Europeans. This is also why you cannot determine whether a person is black or white by simply knowing their name.

  When I was a college student, I learned all of these truths. When I traveled outside of the country, they were reiterated. When I was in Russia, everyone kept asking me if I was from Cuba. I thought that was completely strange. Then finally I met a Russian college student who had traveled to Cuba. He explained that most of the people in Cuba are black like me!

  My husband, who is black, has a Latino-sounding last name. Now so do I. I am amazed by his many friends who come from Jamaica, Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, Guyana, Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, and Puerto Rico. They are all black-skinned people speaking English as well as other languages.

  9. What were you trying to achieve with the novel The Coldest Winter Ever?

  First, I wanted to write a great piece of literature. I wanted it to have wonderful characters, accurate language use, vivid but not overdone descriptions, intricate foreshadowing, powerful themes, multileveled plots, and an ending that created a craving for more. I wanted to write something so great that even if you hate me, you still would be willing to truthfully say “that was the best novel I ever read in my lifetime!”

  More specifically, I wanted so much good to come out of the novel. I don’t know if to this day, what I wanted is what was achieved. I know the book is extremely popular. But here is what I was going for.

  a. To put drug use out of style. I thought by creating characters like Mrs. Santiaga and showing step by step how she went from Halle Berry or Angela Basset type of beauty to a crazy, crumbling crackhead, I would let all youth know that drugs make you not only unhealthy, but mentally unstable and ugly.

  b. To put drug dealing out of style. I thought by showing the decline of Ricky Santiaga, how he went from being at the top of his game to becoming a slave, I would teach the youth that drug dealing is not a smart or viable business option. Especially now when so many businesses have opened up to the youth through the success of hip hop. Now you can become paid, happy, and successful doing so many other things. You can go into photography, graphics, clothing design, styling, real estate, film directing, video directing, game design, shoe companies, vending, or writing. Nowadays, if you’re smart, it’s about creativity, patience, and aggression, teamwork, and profitable legal business practices.

  c. To get youth to recognize their talents and convert them into business. I thought that Winter Santiaga was so incredibly talented. I see so many ghetto youth like her in that way, every day. If she would have recognized that all of her talents were gifts that could have been shaped into successful and legal business, she would never have had to chase after dudes with money, rappers, or the drug game. I see girls in the ghetto every day who may not give a damn about school, but who are so creative. They can zigzag a thousand braids on your head in unbelievably perfect, neat designs. That is both a talent and a business. It’s part of the beauty industry. In New York you can charge professional women one hundred dollars or more for those type of styles. Two or three heads a day, you could be straight. Instead of walking down the jail corridor in a straight line.

  d. To get the youth to use their time wisely. Natalie was a good example of someone who wasted a lot of time. She would have her radio on, her television on, and be gossiping on the telephone at the same time. She was in everybody’s business. But she did not have any real business of her o
wn. The reason why she did not have her own money was because she wasted so much time doing things that added up to zero. All the while, she believed she was doing big things! I think every kid should realize that this is America. America is made up of businesses. You are either the owner or the owned. So use your time to figure out what kind of product you are going to create and sell. Make it legal. Do a good job and make it of good quality. Your career could start off as something simple. Maybe you’ll become a world-famous photographer who started off with an instant throwaway camera from the corner store. Maybe you’ll begin by photographing your friends, your hood. Maybe you’ll tell your story to the world in pictures.

  e. To recapture the black male identity. I felt that too many people had too great an influence over who our fathers, brothers, and sons have become and are becoming. When it becomes normal for our sons to name themselves after reputed murderers, gangsters, drug dealers, and pimps, we can be sure they have decided they have no one else worth looking up to, no one else’s life who they would like to imitate. We can be certain they have no clear understanding of what manhood is, as well as no black man who they feel represents all of the characteristics, dimensions, and power of what black manhood is supposed to be. Currently our sons are naming and imaging themselves after Noriega, Escobar, Gotti, Alpo, Don Corleone, Gambino, Bishop Don Juan, Pretty Tony, and a host of other destroyers.

  I believe there are some real examples of black masculinity and manhood. However they have not been popularized, marketed, written about, filmed, and commercialized. I am trying, as one woman, to bring back and magnify the true and accurate essence of black manhood. Writing the character of Midnight was one way in which I am trying to accomplish it. Perhaps when he is brought to film, one of my goals will be achieved.

  f. To redesign the black female identity. I wanted to shake up the backward notions of womanhood pushed by the American money machine. It seems that they are pushing images of women that are only one-or two-dimensional. For example, you are either cute and stupid, or ugly and smart, or scientific and reclusive, or business-minded and morally bankrupt, or sexy and whoreish, or athletic and masculine, or political and boring. Most women, I believe, are not only two things. They are so much more. We also would like to raise our daughters to be so much more. In marketing Sister Souljah as a character, I hoped to show that the possibility exists that you can be from the projects, drug free, paid, political, popular, cultural, pretty, productive, married, motherly, powerful, feminine, intelligent, beautiful, and loved.

  g. To put the black family back together again. Through the Santiagas I knew people would be impressed with the idea of family. I knew daughters would fall in love with the idea of having a father. I knew wives would fall in love with the idea of being married to a sexy provider. I knew single women would fall in love with the idea of having a husband. It’s sad that family has become an “idea” as opposed to a reality. I wanted to have readers fall in love with the idea of family. I wanted people to repeat Santiaga’s famous line, “Family sticks together.” It is my hope, however, that the story successfully translates that family must stick together around a positive, life-giving, meaningful plan. Because when family is united around negative leadership, and a wrong plan, they don’t end up together. They end up separate.

  h. To expose how the American economy is fueled by drug dealing and drug money. I thought it was important to show that it is not a coincidence that there are so many drugs in poor black and Latino neighborhoods. I wanted to highlight how the government made it possible for these hoods to be flooded with drugs, so that the poor would remain doped up and powerless, unable to focus, concentrate, organize, protest, or build. I wanted to show how some police officers, police precincts, and politicians participate in drug dealing. I wanted to show how prisons, which are huge money-making ventures, can actually be filled up with entire neighborhoods of people who were simply trying to enjoy life and ease the pain of poverty.

  I also wanted to show how those who have the potential to provide the leadership in a poor ghetto community end up turning on that same community by becoming drug dealers. Instead of adopting the philosophy that we can work together to save, to heal, to build legal business in, and to control the politics of our hood, a few go for the quick dollars and sacrifice the souls they could have saved.

  Lastly, I wanted to show through the character Bullet how the state will finance and protect a drug dealer like Santiaga, as long as he pays off the right people. However, when they decide to take him down, they still have another crew to replace him. Because there is a need for the powerful to keep the drugs available in our communities, to keep our kids either dealing or incarcerated for dealing. To keep our families using or either rehabing from using. To keep the probation officers checking our urine. To keep the corrections officers locking our cells. To keep us fighting one another. To keep the police policing us. To keep us in a constant state of aggravation, disunity, powerlessness, poverty, and slavery.

  10. Will there be a sequel novel? What’s taking you so long?

  Yes, there will be a sequel. It will be completed in 2004. It will be on sale in 2005. It took me about two years to get the entire sequel sorted out in my head. Then my mind formulates it into a movie playing inside my mind. Then I must write down, very precisely, each and every detail, so that you will see exactly what I am seeing in my mind. It’s coming. The only hint I can offer is that the story will be told from beginning to end by Porsche Santiaga. However, every question you ever had about The Coldest Winter Ever that was not answered in Part I will be answered in Part II. I’m going for writing a better story the second time around.

  BONUS QUESTION:

  Will there be a movie of The Coldest Winter Ever, Part I?

  Yes, however it will not be quick. Sister Souljah in Hollywood, feels like a lion in the middle of an ocean.

  CONTACT INFO:

  For lectures, book signings, and business, you may view Sister Souljah’s Web site at: sistersouljah.com

  Sister Souljah’s e-mail address is: sistersouljah@sistersouljah.com

  Sister Souljah’s mailing address is:

  Souljah Story, Inc.

  208 E. 51st Street, suite 2270

  NY, NY 10022

  Sister Souljah’s telephone number is: 917-709-6664

  Please do not send Sister Souljah your manuscripts. She is not a publisher.

  CHARACTER ANALYSIS:

  WINTER SANTIAGA

  The voice of Winter Santiaga is strong and decisive. Her boldness is the everyday style of millions of ghetto girls worldwide who wear attitude like battle armor. This is why she is the thirteen-year-old, undisputed protagonist of the novel The Coldest Winter Ever.

  A five-year-old ghetto girl is as grown as any twelve-year-old girl living anywhere else. Her experiences are multiplied and accelerated, as she lives out her life right beside, on top of, and below hundreds of men, women, and children, all project dwellers.

  In the projects, space is tight. Too many times it is dangerous, sometimes dirty. A five-year-old ghetto girl may be in charge of an apartment that is mostly motherless. She may be responsible for the care of an infant child, to cook, to guard the door keys, to lie to the curious welfare workers, children’s service agents, probation officers, and other controlling onlookers. She “holds it down” while Mommy works for metro money, chicken, and 150-dollar sneakers.

  She can stare you dead in your eye without blinking. Deceive you without smiling. Put you in your place when you cross well-drawn lines and boundaries. She knows when someone is looking at her funny, drinking too much, or about to do something shiesty. If you fight her, she’ll fight you back, even if you’re bigger. If she thinks you want to fight her, she’ll punch you in your face first, just to get the jump on you. If you help her, she’ll take what you’ve got but never trust you. She’ll use it but won’t depend on it happening twice.

  Ghetto girls are hell-bent on survival. They don’t think they might be attacked
. They’re sure they will. This ain’t poetry or music. She’s trying to grow up without people stealing all her stuff; her pocketbook or her pussy, her shoes or her sanity, her money or her man, her rights or her reputation. The victorious are the ghetto girls who are able to, through hook or crook, gain the most and lose the least.

  This is why the fearless Winter Santiaga, an alluring teen in a ripe body, is liked, lusted after, and loved in ghettos from Brooklyn to Jamaica, Johannesburg to Brixton, Brazil, and back. Winter pushes to remain the taker and not the tooken.

  Imagine the mixture of fight and fortitude the ghetto breeds, with the arrogance of affluence, a human Molotov. The result—little Miss Winter Santiaga. Born in 1977, in Brooklyn, New York, Winter is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ricky Santiaga. Her younger sisters are named Porsche, Mercedes, and Lexus Santiaga. Their family gained wealth through her father’s carefully constructed illegal drug dealing empire.

  The drug money and all of the expensive material possessions it can buy place Winter in the position of being an upper-middle-class girl, living in an underclass ghetto. Her father’s henchmen, a network of uncles, aunts, and cousins, all of whom earn from her father’s business, protect and insulate Winter from the hatred and jealousy that is unavoidable when one clique in the hood is eating and earning while the majority of people starve and scrape to get by.

  Winter, in turn, decorates herself in jewels and authentic designer wear. The amount of beautiful things she has stands out, because it is not one or two items from time to time. It’s an unrelenting daily fashion onslaught of the best of everything from small to large, accessories included. Under normal standards, living where she lived, she would’ve been challenged and robbed, maybe even raped, definitely harassed. Instead, it was this “unreality” that framed her mentality. She had these things, she believed, because she was supposed to. She was a princess, the other girls were not. Her father was the king, the other men were not. Her mother was the queen, the other mothers were not. It was a ghetto hierarchy that moved from the top, King Santiaga, to the bottom, the defeated crackheads. Winter’s attitude was, “Hey … bow down to the family who puts food on the table for you and yours.”