What a Girl Wants, Part 3
The latest “episode” in this series is up at Chasing Ray. Here’s my post, but I hope you’ll stop by Colleen Mondor’s site to read the rest of the authors’ comments. It’s definitely a touchy subject…
I hate Halloween. It’s my least favorite holiday because it generates endless opportunities for folks to impersonate the Other. Every year my attention is directed to grotesque images posted online by frat boys who got plastered, smeared black grease on their face, donned an afro wig, and went to a costume party with either a noose or a gold chain around their neck. I hate Halloween because it reminds me of the minstrel tradition and the license that gave whites to impersonate their IDEA of African Americans. Always more fantasy than reality, minstrel shows allowed whites to distort, degrade, and dehumanize blacks—and then say, “It’s just entertainment!” When it comes to literature, I’m still a bit wary because I know that many members of our society are oblivious to this history of misrepresentation, and therefore write the Other as a distortion that merely serves the interests of the majority group.
Not too long ago I read two books written by whites about slavery during the Revolutionary era; both won prestigious prizes, but only one, in my opinion, was deserving of its award. The other book, I felt, used an African American character as a listening device; she existed only to observe and report on the more important activities of the whites around her; the girl herself was a blank.
Writing a convincing character takes more than imagination—and that goes for EVERY writer. Just being black and female doesn’t make me an automatic expert on everything having to do with black women. There are differences in class, sexual orientation, nationality, age, ethnicity, etc.
No one person can (or should presume to) speak for an entire group. I don’t mind if men write about women, though I find few do so effectively. I don’t mind if whites write about blacks, so long as they do their research AND enough soul-searching to be aware of their biases and blindspots. Also, because the publishing industry is so homogeneous, I’m not sure how many different pairs of eyes look at a manuscript before it winds up in print. I do, however, wonder about the overwhelming number of white authors who choose to write outside their race; according to the CCBC, in 2008 more non-blacks than blacks published books about black culture and history. I don’t think that’s right or fair, and it makes me wonder: are white editors more comfortable working with non-black authors? Is there something objectionable about the manuscripts black authors produce? Are they “too real” to handle?
When I think about the character that resonated most with me, I think back to Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy—a Caribbean teen working as a nanny for an upper-middle class white family in NYC. She delighted in making her employers uncomfortable with their wealth and privilege; she withheld the gratitude and affection they expected, and insisted that they confront the oppressive history that forced her to leave home and become a servant in their country. Lucy mocked their liberal politics by being radical and unrelenting, and I loved her for it…
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