Saturday, November 28, 2009

consume racially themed entertainment that makes them feel good (instead of challenged)




If you're thinking about holiday gifts these days, and if you ever give books, here's a popular, race-related novel that I recommend against buying -- Kathryn Stockett's The Help. This fictional depiction of Deep-South interracial harmony was one of this year’s bestsellers; it's currently Amazon.com’s seventh bestselling book, with a five-star rating generated by almost 1200 customer reviews.

If you want to give a white reader a book that has anything to do with race, why not instead support non-white writers? Author Carleen Brice’s blog is a great place to look for ideas: White Readers Meet Black Authors. If you have other suggestions, please let us know in a comment.

When a white friend suggested that we read The Help together, I hesitated, like I always do with a new "bestseller." Like Hollywood movies, bestselling fiction almost always sells well by playing up to stereotypes and preconceptions commonly held by middle-class white people; if a novel deeply challenges such notions instead, it almost never makes the bestseller lists. Since I had some free time this week, I decided to see why this white author’s book about black maids in the early-1960s has been pleasing so many readers. I was entertained at times by The Help, and I’m grateful to my friend for suggesting it, but as I said, I can’t recommend it.

The Help is told from the point of view, and in the voices of, three different women living in Jackson, Mississippi. Two of them, Aibileen and Minny, are veteran maids working for relatively wealthy white housewives, while Skeeter is a young white woman on the cusp of becoming such a housewife. Skeeter has other ambitions, though, writerly ones; she draws the two maids into a secret scheme of producing a racially explosive book, consisting of Skeeter’s interviews with black maids who describe and expose the abject conditions of their servitude.

Among the book's many problems, I continually balked at Stockett's efforts with what amounts to literary blackface. Writing in alternating first-person sections, Stockett renders the voices of Aibileen and Minny with mostly complete, mostly grammatical sentences; they’re also tinged with just enough Ebonics-like touches to make them sound "black." I don't know what black maids talked like in the early 1960s, but I’ve read both white Southern readers and black readers of this novel online, and some say that the voices of Aibileen and Minny are accurate, while others say they’re inaccurate. At any rate, I found all the non-standard verbs, and the “a’s” instead of “of’s,” and so on, annoying, especially because Stockett apparently made no attempt to similarly mark the narrative voice of her one white protagonist.

Since Stockett attempted racial and regional ventriloquism with her black narrators, I continually wondered why she didn't do so with her white one, Skeeter. As a product of her time and place, the speech and internal dialogue of a person like Skeeter would likely have some regional features. However, nothing that I could detect in Skeeter’s narration varies much at all from standard American English.

Actually, in this and other ways, Skeeter struck me as anachronistic, a white Southern women more of our time than her own. Maybe that’s why so many white women like this novel -- because they can easily identify with this deregionalized white character? Aside from her relatively standardized English, Skeeter’s thoughts and actions seem too thoroughly uninfected by her white supremacist surroundings. She’s too willing to cross racial lines, and too disgusted with those whites who are infected by white supremacy. In overly stark contrast to most of the other white women around her, she treats "the help" just like she would any other (white) people -- even better, actually. There is one other white woman in the novel who seems similarly at ease with crossing and/or ignoring racial lines. Celia is the child-less, layabout white woman who’s recently hired Minny, and Minny repeatedly feels taken aback by the way this white woman, who has “white trash” roots, treats her like another white woman, instead of a black one.

I found the nearly total abandonment of common white customs and habits by both of these white women in their interactions with black people, during the Jim Crow era in the deep South no less, implausible. As a writer, Skeeter is a stand-in of sorts for Kathryn Stockett, who was also once an aspiring writer living in Jackson, Mississippi. I find it telling that when an interviewer asked Stockett if Skeeter is an autobiographical character, she replied, "Absolutely not. I was never that brave. Frankly, I didn't even question the situation down there. It was just life, and I figured that's how the whole world lived. It wasn't until I was about 30 years old that I started looking back on it."

Exactly. And that’s exactly what’s wrong with the thoroughly non-racist Skeeter. I’m not surprised that it took moving away from Mississippi, in terms of both distance and time, for Kathryn Stockett to “question the situation down there,” and I’m certainly glad she’s now “questioning” it. Racist thought and behavior on the part of whites during the Jim Crow era was just the norm back then, so seeing the evil in that, let alone thoroughly resisting it, would likely be very difficult while living in the thick of it, and while enjoying the privileges of membership in the white club.

And so, again, it seems implausible that someone like Skeeter, having been born and raised at that time in Mississippi, would be so completely outside of that norm, so different from other white people. And again, it does seem plausible that Stockett (and perhaps her editors) portrayed her that way so that white readers can more readily see themselves in Skeeter. In this sense, and others, this novel is thoroughly white-framed entertainment, designed to appease, rather than challenge, the ostensibly liberal sentiments of white consumers.

Unfortunately, then, while The Help is about people who risk their lives to challenge the status quo of their day, the book itself does very little to challenge the status quo of its own day. A particular norm of today that The Help fails to challenge, and instead reinforces, is the tendency of white consumers to favor racially themed entertainment that makes them feel good about the victims of white supremacy, and about the few good white people who resisted it. Ultimately, such entertainment -- from Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawkshank Redemption to Gran Torino and The Blind Side, and many, many more -- also makes white audience members feel good about themselves, which they do when they distinguish themselves from the bad, racist white characters, and when they feel good about the connections that they imagine they’re making with the noble, forgiving, goodhearted characters of color.

Over a decade ago, Benjamin DeMott spelled out the problems with a long parade of such media-generated friendships in his book, The Trouble with Friendship: Why Americans Can’t Think Straight about Race. DeMott demonstrated that this seemingly white liberal impulse -- to reach across racial lines toward the common humanity in all races of people – springs from fundamentally conservative sources. When white people see black people as “just like us,” they overlook the institutional and systemic barriers that hinder black lives, leading them to embrace those black people who seem pretty much like friendly white people underneath it all, and to blame those black people who don't seem that way, because they "insist on" living in bad conditions, which they supposedly bring on themselves by failing to pull themselves up by their proverbial (but basically nonexistent) bootstraps.

Such cultural products usually have a character at the center that white readers can identify with, a goodhearted white character. Black people in particular are portrayed in such entertainment as also goodhearted, suffering (but strong), noble, and most important of all, forgiving. These qualities are drawn out of The Help's black characters by a white woman, Skeeter, as she gets to know them through the interview process for her book, which is called, more simply, Help. And although (spoiler alert!) Skeeter publishes the book anonymously, and shares the royalties with her black co-authors, it is her book, since its publication helps her flee Mississippi. Skeeter heads for New York City and leaves Aibileen, Minny and the other maids behind, to continue sorting through the threatening disturbances caused by the publication and popularity of Help.

This novel is only about the black women who are “the help” on its surface. Despite the three-dimensionality of Aibileen and Minny, the real stories are those of the white women -- the cartoonishly evil ones who abuse the help (and their own children, mostly through neglect), and the implausibly innocent ones who humanize the help. In the case of Skeeter, even a good white character ultimately ends up using the help, for her own purposes and advancement, by publishing a self-serving book about them. Not unlike, it seems, Stockett herself.

I made it all the way through The Help, and I was even entertained along the way. I also found the characters and story believable much of the time, despite the mostly cartoonish cast of characters. Nevertheless, I also realized as I read that for all of that to happen -- for the story to work well for me, as an engaging story that I could ride along with and fall into -- I had to suspend my awareness of just how this book's racial dynamics work for most white readers.

Those readers have basically been trained to enjoy cozy, fantasy-driven entertainment about interracial harmony. This training has included a long procession of previous feel-good tales about friendship between goodhearted white folks and forgiving black folks (a tradition that stretches at least as far back as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), and also by a white-framed culture in general, which discourages us from seeing that racism remains a problem that is much deeper and more enduring than any personal friendship could ever be.

48 comments:

  1. Great review, insightful.

    And ugh, thanks for the warning!

    Heard about it, won't buy it now for sure.

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  2. I really enjoyed your review. And most of the things you spoke to are reasons why I have a hard time watching television and reading books written by white people. No matter how much they want to talk to racial disparity the key is to make everyone feel good at the end.

    The other issue with books like these, is I don't think white women consider themselves to be oppressive as much as they consider this to be a man's role.

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  3. As a Black man I understand the racism ingrained in the consciousness of most Americans of all cultures.Like miajere your second poster to this post,I'm very selective of what I watch on televison(tell a lie),which radio programs that's on my radio.(I'm usually tuned to XM169).With all that said thank you for your honest review of this book.
    Knowing what I know after 57 years on this planet I still strive to treat others as I want to be treated,even though it gets more difficult to do so by the day.I have bookmarked your blog on mine.

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  4. It's called African American Vernacular English (AAVE), actually. "Ebonics" is pejorative.

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  5. "It's called African American Vernacular English (AAVE), actually. "Ebonics" is pejorative."

    Says who? Nobody knows what the --- that means, ebonics on the other hand is easily recognizable and understood based on the dumb tv ads from the past.

    I thought this article was very well written and informative. I have grown tired of the fantasy, feel-good books and movies myself.

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  6. Greg, AAVE is actually the correct term when describing the specific dialect. Ebonics is a shortcut to such a term; but, it is usually placed in the pejorative.

    Word of advice: just because someone offers some information that you are unaware of, leave the snippy response at home.

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  7. I agree completely about your main point, but not with this sentence: "If you want to give a white reader a book that has anything to do with race, why not instead support non-white writers?"

    While I absolutely support non-white writers, I think we should also support white writers who are anti-racism and whose writing reflects that. If we don't, their voices will just disappear.

    And Record Mile, "African American Vernacular English" is a term coined by white people, whereas "Ebonics" was termed by Robert Williams, a Black linguist. Just sayin'.

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  8. According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, among linguists, "Today African American English (AAE) is the generally accepted term, although AAVE is still used too."

    I used "Ebonics" instead in this post because I'm sure that very few of my readers are linguists, and also because, as the Wikipedia entry on that term notes, "Ebonics seems to have become little more than an alternative term for African American Vernacular English." I don't rely on Wikipedia as the last word for anything, but that is a succinct summary of my understanding of the term, and as Greg Dragon pointed out above, Ebonics seems easily recognizable, while African American Vernacular English seems, in the context of my post, um, potentially pedantic? At any rate, less likely to be quickly understood than Ebonics.

    The comments above remind me, though, that as record mile and Honeybrown1976 pointed out, Ebonics is usually used now in a pejorative sense, and less often as a merely descriptive shortcut for AAVE/AAE (even though, as Jillian points out, the term was originated by a black psychologist, Robert Williams). So, I'm rethinking the use of "Ebonics" in the way that I used it in this post.

    Also, Jillian, if you know of some fiction by white writers that deals effectively with racial whiteness, I'd love to hear about it. I know of a lot of non-fiction by white writers that does that, but fiction? Not so much. For the most part, Asian American writers publish books "about Asian American people," African American writers publish books "about African American people," but white American writers (supposedly) publish books "about people." Which novels by white writers are explicitly, knowingly, or searchingly about the racial status of "white people"? (Aside from the one with my namesake as its protagonist.)

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  9. The key of any entertainment is to entertain us. While that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a happy ending, it does mean that at least something needs to be worked out or through, even if it's only a partial resolution.

    I'm puzzled as to what the answer to this is. If addressing racial themes shouldn't be done in the context of entertainment (which is how I'm reading your review and miajere's comment), then what we're going to end up with are a lot of whitewashed books (either with all the characters being white, or having characters of color who are basically white with a darker skin). It feels a little like the debate that white people shouldn't write people of color, because we often fuck it up. But if white people don't write people of color, then we have a lot of whitewashed books (because the majority of published and successful authors are still white, due to systemized racism and prejudice against authors of color and main characters of color).

    As a writer myself (who has recently been struggling with writing PoC in two different novellas, when I'm used to writing white characters), I'm very interested in this conversation. But I'd like to know what people want writers to *do* - do you feel white authors should just stay away from tackling racial themes? Should racial themes only be tackled in certain genres? Should they only be tackled if the book is going to have a downer ending? Can issues of racism appropriately be just a part of the plot (or dealing with racism being part of a character's development) without it being the major plot arc, or is that minimizing racism?

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  10. Another question is: how can we acknowledge those that do exist within the stereotypes, without playing into the stereotypes? For example, in one of my novellas, the two main characters (a black woman and a white woman) have to go through an inner-city neighborhood, during a scene where they're being hunted and trying not to attract attention. My black character grew up in a middle-class neighborhood but spent a few of her adolescent years in an inner-city neighborhood after the family finances took a downturn, so she has some experience with such areas. She tells the white character, "Whatever people say, don’t respond. There’s a lot of men in this neighborhood with too much time on their hands, and they can be assholes sometimes. Most of them are fine, but some are jerks. It’s best to ignore them. If anybody actually comes up to us, let me do the talking." I'm sure it could be argued that such a statement pushes the stereotype of young men in inner-city neighborhoods being lazy (because they're not out working) and disrespectful to women (because some of them can be jerks who act in misogynist ways) and threatening (it's best not to interact with them). But the fact is that those people do exist, and my characters would be likely to encounter them in such a situation. It's realistic that two pretty young women would attract unwanted attention, especially with one of those women being white, since it's an inner-city neighborhood that's predominantly black and Hispanic. (And the same happens in reverse - my black character discusses later in the novella how sick she is of people being surprised by the way she talks, because they see a black woman with an Afro and expect her to use ghetto slang. Or she goes into a store and the shopkeepers watch her, because they expect her to shoplift. She gets unwanted attention in their predominantly-white neighborhood due to her race.)

    How does one walk the line between being realistic in a portrayal, and playing into stereotypes? Is it inevitable that writing or mentioning a character who happens to fall into a stereotype, is playing into that stereotype?

    I also find the statements about racialized language interesting - last night while doing a final edit of that novella, I ended up removing some of my black character's vernacular (for example, her occasional use of the term "girl") because I was nervous about it being perceived as "oh, here's a black woman who uses 'girl', how stereotypical." But then I'm nervous that I'm whitewashing her language by removing possible cultural references. A lot of this feels very fail/fail because I can't figure out which way to go, but refusing to write PoC and only portraying white characters is fail as well. :/ So yeah, I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

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  11. :literary blackface:

    indeed.

    thanks macon, very thought-provoking review.

    i think robin that it's great that you're trying to handle the races of your characters carefully. the races of your POC characters, it seems. do you deal at all with the race of your white characters? or are they "just people"?

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  12. Another great post.

    I note that a lot of actual Mississippians from that era really do allege that there were a *lot* of people as hip as this white character (or versions of this).

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  13. Robin, keep up with the writing. While I can understand your hesitant nature towards racialized language, don't forget that all POCs do not necessarily speak in the same manner that is associated with the group membership.

    For example, as a black woman, I rarely use the term, "girl" when referring to another woman. Also, there are "black" terms that I do not understand or know.

    In addition, I might want to point out the problem that I have with the term, Ebonics. It implies that anyone with Ebony, or black, skin acquired their speech patterns from the same source or conditioning of said source. Furthermore, the race of the term's creater, doesn't change anything.

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  14. "While I absolutely support non-white writers, I think we should also support white writers who are anti-racism and whose writing reflects that. If we don't, their voices will just disappear."

    With the exception of non-fiction books, I have also yet to hear about fiction books written from a white anti-racist view as Macon pointed out. If they exist I haven't heard of them. Quite frankly I wouldn't read them. The white anti-racist should stick to writing non-fiction as it does more to further their cause. Many white people aren't going to read, much less purchase fiction with racial themes, unless it makes them feel good about themselves. And I don't mean a few here and a few there.

    " I'm puzzled as to what the answer to this is. If addressing racial themes shouldn't be done in the context of entertainment (which is how I'm reading your review and miajere's comment), then what we're going to end up with are a lot of whitewashed books (either with all the characters being white, or having characters of color who are basically white with a darker skin)"

    Racism isn't 'entertainment' especially if you are the ones bearing the brunt of it. However,if it is your goal to write about these themes, then do so . Ultimately people will like your writing or they won't, but that is part and parcel with being a writer as with any art form. I might not agree with who writes about what subject, but I am not buying millions of books. The market is big enough to support many different authors whether self published, through an independent publisher or through a major house. It is also big enough to support many views. I am sure Dan Brown doesn't give a rat's ass as to how the Catholic church receives his books as he is laughing all the way to the bank. At least you seem to have some concerns as to how you portray different people.

    "(because the majority of published and successful authors are still white, due to systemized racism and prejudice against authors of color and main characters of color)."

    All the more reason to go out and purchase or read novels by racialized people as a way of supporting them. Money talks and if more people purchase these books, the major publishers will take notice.

    As for your conundrum with the use of racialized language, I agree with Honey Brown's assessment, so keep writing and stop worrying.

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  15. macon said,
    "Also, Jillian, if you know of some fiction by white writers that deals effectively with racial whiteness, I'd love to hear about it. I know of a lot of non-fiction by white writers that does that, but fiction? Not so much."

    I plan to write more larer, but To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

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  16. Ugh I just had to do a "midterm" report on a teacher film and was just nauseated at the amount of BSing I had to do in order to get an A on that paper. I know that my teacher thinks these teacher films are the best thing ever and I just don't. I think they are, as you've described, something to make white people feel good about themselves. It makes white people feel good about their "contributions" (showing up and not acting stereotypically white) to the poor, poor POC who could just never make it without them.

    At the end of my report I stated that Dangerous Minds would have been slightly more interesting if Miss Johnson had been a black woman. Not another white savior teacher movie please, thanks.

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  17. Sorry to hear that, Victoria. Dangerous Minds jumps out at me too as one of the worst examples of this genre -- I wrote about it last year (you might enjoy this post too).

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  18. Macon, in your critique of Dangerous Minds, I was really suprised to see that you didn't mention that the real teacher whom it was based on actually used rap and hip-hop lyrics to make the "dead white guy" school mandated literature relevent to the kids. In her autobiography you see that the kids were failing because society and the school system failed them. The change to Dylan lyrics was a step by the filmmakers to make it familiar and comfortable to white people.

    As Roger Ebert said:

    "The real Miss Johnson used not Dylan but the lyrics of rap songs to get the class interested in poetry... What has happened in the book-to-movie transition of LouAnne Johnson's book is revealing. The movie pretends to show poor black kids being bribed into literacy by Dylan and candy bars, but actually it is the crossover white audience that is being bribed with mind-candy in the form of safe words by the two Dylans. What are the chances this movie could have been made with Michelle Pfeiffer hooking the kids on the lyrics of Ice Cube or Snoop Doggy Dogg?"

    And this genre could be called White Knight lit... stories of a White (caucasion) white knight who rides in to save the poor, poor POC from themselves.

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  19. Miss Johnson from "Dangerous Minds" actually was a white woman. The film was based on a true story. I had a chance to interview Johnson years ago, and she took issue with the way black parents were portrayed and the demographics of the classroom in the Hollywood version. Apparently, it was more racially diverse and not just a white teacher instructing brown and black kids.
    As for anti-racist white authors writing fiction, how about novelist Gayle Brandeis, author of The Book of Dead Birds. She's been endorsed by Toni Morrison and Barbara Kingsolver, another anti-racist white author. The Book of Dead Birds centers on a black-Korean woman and her Korean mother. Another author who comes to mind is Jonathan Lethem, author of the Fortress of Solitude.
    Robin, as for your book, treat the black character like any other. Listen to the character. Is she likely to use a term like "girl" repeatedly. If so, go for it. Maybe you need to get to know yor characters better. People say that characters already exist; we writers are just the vessel they use to spill onto the page.
    Are you stressing about whether the white character uses terms such as "like," "totally," "awesome" or "rad" all the time. If not, why are you stressing so over the black girl's speech?

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  20. @AE who said do you deal at all with the race of your white characters? or are they "just people"?

    It depends on the story. Often my first-person characters are barely described, because I want them to be as "blank slate" as possible - I want the reader to be able to project whatever they want onto the first-person character (who is the one they're supposed to be empathizing with). Interestingly, in the novella I reference above, it's the black character that's my primary first-person (the format alternates between present-time first person, and second-person flashbacks from a different character); it took me three pages in before I realized that my first-person was black. The white character thinks in relation to my main character (they're both supernaturals, which is why they can see in the dark), I decided that if these were to be my final moments, I wanted to do something better than cowering among rotting vegetation and animal droppings. I rolled onto my side to face you and placed my free hand on the smoothnesss of your cheek. In the darkness your skin had a faint luminescence to it, a reflected light-grey over chocolate. How beautiful you were, with crumbles of dirt smearing your face and dead leaves tangled in your hair. And I wrote that and then thought, "Wait a second! She's black? I've never written a black first-person character before. OH GOD I'M GOING TO SCREW THIS UP, I KNOW IT." (I go through that panic whenever one of my main characters is a person of color, pretty much.) The white main character, when we first meet her, is described as She was sitting up with her back propped against the wall of the house behind her, one leg out straight, the other knee out to the side as if in the midst of a pirouette. Her chin rested on her chest and her dark hair tumbled down, obscuring any details of her face or front other than a general impression of pale skin. There are other references to the whiteness of her skin (for example, the black character quips something to the effect of, "You're the only white woman that I never minded having touch my hair. It's somewhat ironic, considering you're the whitest white there is. It doesn't get paler than a vampire of Welsh descent.") so I would suppose that yes, in that story it's adequately addressed.

    In my other novella, the first-person character's whiteness is an issue when she falls in love with a PoC who is struggling with internalized racism - he doesn't really want to discuss it with her because she isn't going to get it. (And she doesn't get it, when he does finally discuss it. She's baffled by what he's trying to deal with because it's so far out of her realm of experience, and like many white people, it's hard for her to imagine something other than being white, except on the most superficial level.)

    In other stuff I've written, skin color and/or ethnicity is only remarked on if it plays a role somehow, although sometimes there will be a reference to "she had the creamiest white skin I'd ever seen" or something quick like that. Often I choose to stay away from physical description though, because once again, I want the reader to be able to project what they want to project.

    I had an interesting experience on my blog recently - I posted an interaction I had with a black person, without specifying their race until later in the post (part of the context of the post was that the experience made me challenge my own perceptions of black social experience). A black reader commented in response, because you didn't identify her as black until later in your post, i automatically assumed she was white. though if you were black and telling this story, i would've assumed the girl was black unless you'd said otherwise. funny how that works. That simple comment taught me a lot about projection and how our assumptions change our perception.

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  21. @Robin

    It's very interesting to me that this question(s) was raised on a blog I read at the end of the year when the LJ literary blogosphere (particularly in the SF/F realm) virtually exploded at the beginning of this year with regards to this question, which is, in short, the problem of appropriation.

    To be honest, while I understand the need for resolution, I find problematic that you want someone to give you an answer to this question. It rather mirrors your opening statement that “something needs to be worked out.” It’s problematic because there is no single easy answer and nothing is “worked out” in real life, in our lives as PoC. From the day of our births, our race issues were follow us home and coil around us in our beds, closer than any lover, and even death is no resolution. I say this not to be melodramatic but to express to you how personal and intense these issues are for PoC as a community and as individuals. It shouldn’t be about your right to depict characters of color so much as it should be about your responsibility to handle people’s lives with care and respect, and even that shouldn’t be at the center of your thought process because then a problematic situation is created in which you, as a white writer, is somehow at the center of the discussion, as if the most important thing at stake is your feelings of either inadequacy or satisfaction.

    At the end of the day, it should be about the PoC whose voices are often ignored. Therefore, the best thing you can do is to do research by listening to PoC about who they define themselves to be and how they represent themselves (as a community and as individuals). SF writers often commit themselves to exhaustive research on the physics of space travel or time paradoxes, historical fiction writers pore over historical documents about the chose period in time, why should writing about a culture and a people unfamiliar to you not warrant the same amount of research? It’s like Tolkein creating several functioning languages with staggering attention to morphology, phonology, syntax, etc.; and yet seeing no problem with dehumanizing the faceless, evil masses of the East in contrast to his noble “Men of the West.”

    My point (and I suppose my response to your question) is that depictions of PoC in any medium will necessarily be “political” in some way, shape, or form because marginalized bodies and minds are the stages upon which politics take place. The personal and the political are inextricably twined for PoC. If you depict CoC in your works, you will be engaging in “racial themes” because you will be utilizing that stage, and a person on a stage always says something to the audience. If you really want to make sure that you say constructive and inclusive things, do your research: read works written by PoC writers, listen to many PoC who have lifetimes of experience living in racialized bodies, and be prepared to accept criticism, sometimes harshly worded because sometimes we are too exhausted and frustrated to be nice.

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  22. For example: when I read “There’s a lot of men in this neighborhood with too much time on their hands, and they can be assholes sometimes. Most of them are fine, but some are jerks. It’s best to ignore them,” my first thought was to say to you, “so this is Beverly Hills then.” My thoughts about this depiction are that as a woman of color, 9 out of 10 times I have been sexually harassed, it has been in a well-to-do community with a significant white population (including Beverly Hills) and 9 out of 10 times, it has been by white men. That’s the inherent problem with stereotypes people don’t exist within stereotypes, caricatures do and stereotypes are by nature self-perpetuating tools of marginalization. Why does a stereotype of white middle class men with above average IQs being serial killers not exist?

    In the name of research, I can provide a ridiculous number of blog posts about the issue of appropriation in literature but let’s start with 5. 1, 2, 3 are by people of color and 4, 5 are by white people struggling with their own depictions of CoC.

    As a bonus, this is an incredibly poignant and well-written essay about the how and the why readers and writers of color can be so defensive when it comes to the way CoC are handled in literature.

    *Note: Macon, I do apologize for the length of this comment, but I believe representations (& appropriations) of marginalized peoples in the literature/art/media is very important.

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  23. @Honeybrown who said For example, as a black woman, I rarely use the term, "girl" when referring to another woman. :

    I've been thinking about it a lot today. Generally I try to avoid messing with the speech habits of my characters, since my characters are their own people (in a sense), they aren't just cardboard cutouts, and it's been my experience that when you mess with them consciously too much, they'll often stop cooperating. ;) And it felt natural to me that my character would use that term. Yet today I was pondering the fact that even though they're all different from each other, all of them are still born from my subconscious. Does it feel natural to me that my character would use that term, because that's a term I see black women use in popular entertainment? Is it my own biases and stereotypes bubbling up and influencing her language? Probably. So I don't feel nearly as bad now about removing it and messing with her voice.

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  24. @Herneith, who said The white anti-racist should stick to writing non-fiction as it does more to further their cause.

    There's fiction writers and non-fiction writers, and a few who can tackle both well. In my case, if asked to write non-fiction, I'd be staring at a blank word processor screen and trying to figure out where the hell to go with it, LOL. Likewise, there's those that can make amazing literature out of their experiences, but couldn't create an original fictionalized character to save their life.

    Racism isn't 'entertainment' especially if you are the ones bearing the brunt of it.

    Would you consider books such as William Faulkner's "Intruder in the Dust" (or most of his body of work, actually), or Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", or other such literature to be entertainment? Because I certainly would, since they're books I read for pleasure. But just because something is a pleasure to read doesn't also mean that it needs to be fluff - the books that I enjoy most, and the ones that I return to read again and again, are those that make me think and feel emotion in addition to being a pleasure to read. I want to read books that I have to ponder afterward, that don't leave me as soon as I put them down. I want to read things that change the way I see the world. And fiction is often as effective a vehicle to do that as non-fiction. It may even be more effective in some contexts, because people are less defensive when reading fiction than when they're reading challenging non-fiction.

    But perhaps my use of the term "entertainment" is going to mean different things to others - maybe some or most people see something "entertaining" as something that's automatically fluffy and/or shallow? If that's someone's perception of that term, then yes, I'd agree that racism shouldn't be dealt with in the context of entertainment - it shouldn't be played for laughs. My perception of entertainment is anything that I enjoy reading, and to me, often the most serious topics can make for the most thought-provoking and desirable reading.

    All the more reason to go out and purchase or read novels by racialized people as a way of supporting them.

    If we're plugging authors of color, may I suggest Rohinton Mistry? He's amazing. His books deal with the psychological dynamics of Indian (India Indian, not Native American) families and relationships, and they're incredible. He has lush prose and his characters are complex and heart-wrenching. Love love love for Rohinton Mistry.

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  25. Robin asked, "Should racial themes only be tackled in certain genres? Should they only be tackled if the book is going to have a downer ending? Can issues of racism appropriately be just a part of the plot (or dealing with racism being part of a character's development) without it being the major plot arc, or is that minimizing racism?"

    It's not that white people shouldn't write stories with POC, but I'm finding it's the one area in which writers feel they need no research. It's as if they need not investigate the topic because, "I have a black friend, and he usually enjoys... hates.... watches.... talks like...."

    I think a good writer has to be okay with hearing honest feedback about their characters, and most white writers get pats on the back just for trying to include POC at all, regardless of how crappy the character is. So I say, "write away!" But don't be afraid to ask the audience you wish to respect in the process for some honest, "spare no feelings" feedback about your CoC.

    And I disagree with the idea that you can do this kind of research by questioning/interviewing PoC.

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  26. "[...]even that shouldn’t be at the center of your thought process because then a problematic situation is created in which you, as a white writer, is somehow at the center of the discussion, as if the most important thing at stake is your feelings of either inadequacy or satisfaction."-Liriel

    Thank you for that, Liriel. This comment thread hijacked by a white writer wondering how best to go about appropriating; Lord have mercy.

    Years ago, prior to its release, I was part of a focus/target group looking for reactions to Dangerous Minds. The researcher was shocked, like shocked speechless, when I expressed cynicism at the production of yet another "White Woman Saves Black Children" movie. I'll never forget that moment of someone who worked for Hollywood coming face to face with someone who repudiates all the racism Hollywood has to offer.

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  27. (Hope this is working this morning - I've been trying to post this since last night!)

    @liriel who said From the day of our births, our race issues were follow us home and coil around us in our beds, closer than any lover, and even death is no resolution.:

    I just wanted to say that on a literary level, that sentence made me (metaphorically) swoon. <3 And now on to the actual content.

    For the past year I've been watching Racefail with intense interest, and there was a recent post on Angry Black Woman on "the appropriateness of appropriation" that I've been mentally digesting for several weeks now. I've read extensive discussion on the merits of not writing PoC (you won't fuck it up and thereby upset people), and the downfalls of not writing PoC (whitewashed stories and the continuing lack of a lot of CoC). It's a lot of food for thought, but that's also the difficulty; there's so much there that it's hard to reach any conclusions about how or even whether you should proceed. Multiple times now, I've found myself as confused after several hours of Racefail-reading as I was when I began. :/

    It rather mirrors your opening statement that “something needs to be worked out.” It’s problematic because there is no single easy answer and nothing is “worked out” in real life, in our lives as PoC.

    "Worked out" or "resolution" doesn't necessarily mean that things end there. For example, part of my second novella's ending is that the male (PoC) character realizes that his internalized racism is an issue that he's going to be dealing with for the rest of his life, and it's not something that he can just dismiss his new realizations and then return to his life of being in denial. While it isn't a resolution in the sense of "yay, everything's fine now, I'm happy with me and the world will be too!", it's still a resolution in the sense of "these are the conclusions I've reached, and it's ongoing and always will be, but I've made a bit of personal progress simply by coming to these conclusions, and I'm continuing to address it." A resolution doesn't necessarily mean that things get fixed, all the loose ends get neatly sorted, and/or things end positively.

    [continued next]

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  28. [continued from previous]

    @Liriel who said It shouldn’t be about your right to depict characters of color so much as it should be about your responsibility to handle people’s lives with care and respect, ...:

    The responsibility is why it's intimidating. I don't want to contribute to stereotypes, and I don't want to continue to support racist structures. I don't want my people to be caricatures. At the same time, I know there's no way for me to not write with "white blinders" on; I can do a lot of research (and have, for both of these stories) but ultimately, while I can understand some of what my characters might experience on an intellectual level, I don't viscerally "get it". I've tried to compensate for this by seeking out beta-reviewers (people who read the first draft and offer criticism/thoughts) who are people of color (and of similar ethnicity and environmental circumstances to the character in question, as much as possible), but even there I know it's problematic because I'm going to PoC and basically saying, "Hi, I'm writing about somebody who may or may not be like you but at least they share your skin color, so would you do me the favor of letting me know if you think I've fucked up in this portrayal? Because I really don't want to publish this if it's fucked, and thereby upset people who are of that ethnicity and read it, and potentially contribute to racism." But I honestly can't figure out a way around it. I do research but I know that all the research in the world can't prevent me from making subtle mistakes, all it will do is help prevent me from making the obvious big ones. But subtle mistakes can be just as hurtful as big ones. :/ (For good examples of this, check out the Oyate "books to avoid" section; some of those aren't huge mistakes, but they're still very upsetting to those who read them and know more about the topic.)

    and even that shouldn’t be at the center of your thought process because then a problematic situation is created in which you, as a white writer, is somehow at the center of the discussion, as if the most important thing at stake is your feelings of either inadequacy or satisfaction.

    I wouldn't say it's particularly about my feelings of satisfaction or inadequacy - I know I'm inadequate, which is why it's stressful. It's about the fear of fucking up and upsetting people, and/or fucking up and perpetuating racism. (Basically I fear the consequences of my actions, in either direction.) I don't want to fuck it up when it's this important. (I'm sure people would argue that it's just some fiction stories, it isn't important in the grand scheme of things. But I think that any time somebody says something meant for an audience of more than just themselves, it's important. You never know who is going to read it, and the impact it may have on them. A tablespoon of water usually doesn't do much, but it can be a matter of life and death for a plant. And one tablespoon plus other tablespoons adds up, so if you're writing yet another story that normalizes whiteness and Others PoC, then you're contributing to the critical mass that supports the status quo.)

    As for the rest of it, and the links: thank you. I do appreciate the check (and I mean that sincerely), and the extensive replies. You've given me more to think about, and I hadn't yet come across those links. I've already read a couple (the one from Deepad, and the subsequent post linked from the bottom, were both amazing) and I will be reading the rest of them tonight. [Additional note from this morning: yeah, staying up until 4 AM reading probably wasn't the *smartest* idea when one has small children who still get up reasonably early in the morning...]

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  29. @Nadra who said Are you stressing about whether the white character uses terms such as "like," "totally," "awesome" or "rad" all the time. If not, why are you stressing so over the black girl's speech?

    I have never written a white character that talks that way. Despite growing up in Southern California, I never personally knew a white person who talked that way, outside of media depictions.

    Although I'm a character-based author, the fact is that these characters *aren't* spirits or some form of existence outside of the writers - they're creations of our subconscious. And that means they're going to be created from all those subconscious structures and biases that we've spent our lives absorbing. The fact that I feel like it would be natural for my character to use the term "girl" doesn't necessarily mean that that wasn't born out of the media stereotypes I've absorbed. I've no doubt that every writer who writes a stereotyped PoC feels that that character is exactly how that character is supposed to be - but the rest of us will read it and facepalm. It's a GIGO situation.

    @funslinger who said This comment thread hijacked by a white writer wondering how best to go about appropriating; Lord have mercy.

    Yes, I'd like to learn how to write as well as possible, and part of that means learning how to avoid mistakes and hurting people. I've read (a lot of) Racefail-related posts, I've read articles about Writing the Other, and I've found appropriate beta-reviewers (as much as possible). But I don't believe that that means I've learned as much as there is to learn, or that everything of worth that there is for people to say on the subject has already been said. A discussion of how whites fuck up while writing PoC and racism-related themes seems like a natural place to ask questions, and I respect a lot of the frequent commenters here and consider their input valuable. (In fact, this blog has been where I've gone to search for my beta-reviewers, because with those I choose to approach, I have previous experience with the quality of their comments and know they're intelligent in general, educated about race issues, and critical thinkers.)

    I suppose a different way to handle it might have been to simply post a message asking if people might be willing to contact me off-blog to discuss it? But there's disadvantages to that, because then I'm learning, but nobody else is getting the chance to benefit from the back-and-forth dialogue. An open forum that's archived means that it becomes an educational resource indefinitely.

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  30. I am surprised noone has mentioned the most recent addition to these films,(I do love the term "white knight" literature.) The Blindside, which caused my seven year old to ask why the Black character has to seem so silly. I love your blog Macon and enjoy the discussions, thank you for taking the time to provide such interesting content.

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  31. My favorite phrase for those types of movies/books is still Honkey Savior. But "white knight" works well too. :)

    My husband's been waiting for James Cameron's Avatar for years and years now, and he was really excited to show me the trailer when it was finally released. I watched it and exclaimed afterward, "What these Na'vi need is a honkey!" He stared at me and said in exasperation, "What now?" So I explained the concept of the honkey savior. He was not very impressed, especially since he loves the movie The Last Samurai and I used that as a primary example. Ah well. I'm sure we'll have a very lively discussion after seeing Avatar.

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  32. I so agree with your comments. I read it and couldnt put my finger on why this was just an "OK" read and you answered that for me. Thanks !

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  33. @Liriel "For example: when I read “There’s a lot of men in this neighborhood with too much time on their hands, and they can be assholes sometimes. Most of them are fine, but some are jerks. It’s best to ignore them,” my first thought was to say to you, “so this is Beverly Hills then.”

    Co-sign!!!

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  34. Robin,

    If you still need beta-reviewers, I'd love to see your work. :-)

    I'm a big bookworm, but I'm so critical of the books I read, that I feel like I might want to become a book editor if this Spanish professor thing doesn't work out.

    Topic: What about J. J. Abrams (is that his name) and White authors of interracial romance stories? I tried to read one of his books and thought it was really stupid, but then I read another one and found it to be a pretty good fluff story. Interestingly, the book I liked was written from the POV of a Black woman.

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  35. Macon, I think you're on the right track with your observation that white people can identify with Skeeter because she is anachronistic.

    Here's the thing about being a nice young attractive-yet-modest middle-class white woman: people like you. They treat you nicely. You grow up sweet and idealistic, and when you see suffering, your heart swells with tragedy and a desire to kiss it and make it all better.

    Skeeter is an expression of that desire, and as such, she's a character that a lot of people can identify with. And her appeal is definitely broadened by her lack of accent.

    Another dimension I'd like to point out is that the racism that Skeeter (a stand-in for the reader) encounters is located in the reader's past, and in the South - exactly where you'd expect to find it. That's probably the single most "comforting" part of the story. Furthermore, Skeeter is young, college-educated, and childless, and escapes to New York when she's done fighting racism in the South.

    So it's basically fantasy fulfillment for well-intentioned people who think racism is in the past and in the South.

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  36. Reminds me of The Secret Life of Bees, a tolerable movie and a horrible book about a "good" white girl who doesn't see race and her 4 black spinster mammies in the 1960s South. The story was was highly recommended to me by several boomer white women that I work with. Offensive tripe.

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  37. You know, people keep talkin about The South, and it got me thinking.

    There were indeed people in the south who were not the stereotypical racist slave owner. There's this myth that the south was nothing but racists and the north was nothing but good, wholesome, openminded people. Why do so many white authors shy away from the topic of racism in the north? It's like white families with history in the north choose to gloss over and ignore this, possibly as a way to absolve themselves of any wrong doing by their ancestors. I just find it strange that the idea of a nonracist southern woman is so totally shocking while we unquestioningly continue to support the myth of the racially aware north.

    This is one thing I liked about the movie Gangs of New York. The celebration of the Emancipation was depicted as full of protesters and people upset with Lincoln, rather than a white-washed, sugarcoated version of the events.

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  38. The Secret Life of Bees annoys me to no end, thelady. That girl was completely oblivious to her surroundings and she brought nothing but trouble everywhere she ventured.

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  39. Ah, yes, Robin. I know that particular trope that you reference with regard to Avatar. It's called Mighty Whitey. He/she can do things better than any other group. What's even "better" is when he/she can do it better than the originating group.

    Oh, what fun!

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  40. Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
    by Paul Kivel

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  41. @Jasmin: I would love another beta-reviewer! :) Although I've already found beta-reviewers for the one that's still in progress (I actually thought it was done but realized it needs to be lengthened because it's too intense at the moment) about internalized racism, I do need beta-reviewers for the other just-finished novella (which is the one I've discussed above, about the white woman and black woman). If erotica doesn't offend you, by all means drop me an email at robinwolfebooks at gmail.com and I'll get you set up. :)

    @Cloudy: I'd have to agree. When I was seven I read a book called The Tiger's Tail which was an account of Thomas Nast, a real-life political cartoonist who helped to bring down the corrupt Tammany Hall political group in NYC. There are descriptions in there of the protests, days-long riots with black people getting lynched from streetlights, etc. So that was always my context growing up; it wasn't until I was older that I realized there was this perception that there was some kind of geographical dividing line where suddenly a black person went from "subhuman slave down there" to "equal person up here".

    @honeybrown: I fully expect that this film will take it one step further, since in this case the Mighty Whitey will be incognito as one of the oppressed group. And then it must eventually all come out that - gasp! - he's actually one of the oppressors! - but they'll still forgive him because, come on, what are they going to do without their Honkey Savior?

    Or who knows, maybe Cameron will surprise me and it won't be that cliched. But I'm not holding my breath.

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  42. Robin, that's an interesting take. But, from the trailer, I think the Mighty Whitey angle will come from a Manifest Destiny angle. They want to conquer this land and will have to "deal" with the disobeying natives.

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  43. That's why I never read books that have the Oprah Winfrey seal of approval.

    actually, would that make me a racist?

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  44. I appreciate your posts, and your ability to accept that people are prejudiced, without judging it or them for their prejudices (seeing that the problem is in the refusal to acknowledge them). We're all so scared to talk about race because nobody wants to be called a racist, but it's a stupid waste of time to pretend we don't see it. I see it. I'm white, and I have to consciously work to change how I see Black people, in particular. I could say "no, I'm not racist" simply because I understand and try to empathize with the struggles of minorities (particularly Blacks) in the U.S., but for all of my understanding, I've still got enough race-consciousness to know that I see Black people differently than I do White people. I wish I could say I would date a Black guy, but I wouldn't. I think that's pretty damn racist of me. The very least I can do is own up to it.

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  45. Thinking more about this topic, I wanted to provide two examples I feel demonstrate the right and the wrong way fiction can treat the subject of whites dealing with racism.

    First, the bad: Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood. I know there are lots of people who will disagree with me, but I consider this a White Knight story and plenty offensive. I couldn't even finish it. Oh a racist white guy learns to stop being racist and saves all the PoC he used to hate! How... uninspired. I know many Hmong people were happy to finally be acknowledged, but is this really the only way? Surely it could be done without continuing to portray the Asian community as weak and ineffectual.

    Now the good: American History X. Raw and shocking. nothing is sugar-coated. No one is made to feel warm and fuzzy. It's gritty and doesn't hold back. There are no Honkey Heros, no magically special friendships that bloom. The white people are not the good guys. It delivers it's message straight: hate begets hate and will consume us all if we don't fight it. I like that it covers the white characters' backgrounds and shows how being fed little bits and little bits of racism at a time can snowball and grow into something deadly.

    We need more fiction like this, stuff that really changes you and shows you that all attitudes and actions have consequences and that the day you decide to "wake up' might come a day too late.

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  46. Robin,

    I just emailed you (with an explanation for why it took me so long). :-)

    And now, back on topic.

    Has anyone ever read "Steal Away" by Jennifer Something? It's a kid's book, and the last time I read it was years ago, so I have no idea whether the story is handled well or not (it's set during slavery). However, I do remember the ending (I don't want to spoil it just yet) was an unconventional end to the traditional "escaped slave" narratives, unique enough to surprise me even as a 3rd grader. Maybe someone else who's read (and remembers) the book can add?

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  47. So no sooner than I find and read this post, do I find out that my girlfriend's white boss suggested this book to her - even lent her own copy.

    The same boss who friended her on Facebook and then mysteriously a week or so later randomly asks the question "Has anyone read Kindred [by Octavia Butler]? My girlfriend lists Octavia Butler as one of her favorite authors.

    Now it's possible, albeit a remote possibility, that this woman actually read Octavia Butler of her own volition, and it was just a coincidence that she asks that question right after friending my GF, but I sincerely doubt it.

    To me it's just another case of a white person trying to show an African-American that she's "okay", that they have something in common, that they can even be "friends" - but it's so damned contrived and forced that it's insulting.

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  48. Thanks for the thoughtful blog. I'm Swedish, white as I can be. Creating and maintaining a local web site for Amnesty International USA (Tempe AZ), along with a long list of other tasks I volunteer to perform for the chapter, is how I spend my time. Most of what I read, listen to, and watch I do so to learn and raise my awareness of how "Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn!"(Burns). It's difficult to leave much of what I find out behind, although I do try to "compartmentalize" what I can. Otherwise it may become impossible for me to continue my work and participate in a happy life with friends and family.
    I purchased a copy of the book "on tape", and so listened to it. I was looking for entertainment, and enjoyed the story with little critical thought. The existence of two parallel societies living and working in the same homes and neighborhoods with little real communication and/or intimacy passing between them was revelatory to me and a source of real but brief fascination.

    The first time I confronted the race aspect of the story was while watching the previews of the movie, sadly surprised that the cast on screen was predominantly white. My mind's eye saw it as a black story when I listened to it.

    Again, I approached the novel as an entertainment from the onset. If the ability to do so came naturally to me, it perhaps came just as naturally to the black reader to experience
    it as emotionally charged and controversial. I regret my thoughtlessness and appreciate the "wake-up" call.

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