Reflections on Race

[Sukerkin]

I came across this article on the BBC and, I am embarrassed to admit, I did not know of either the author or her works (or it's one of those moments where I have heard of a person but have forgotten again):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-19827316

Firstly, is she as prominent a writer in the American consciousness as the article suggests and secondly do her reflections on race gel with the realities of early 21st Century America?

 

[arnisador]

She's very well-known here, yes, and has certainly been very influential on race discussions. As to realities of current race relations...that's a complicated matter that varies so widely state-to-state that it's hard to generalize. But wherever you go, in the schools self-segregation by race is still very common even though in many places mixed-race social groups are also well-accepted.

 

[elder999]

Firstly, is she as prominent a writer in the American consciousness as the article suggests

Some people think so. From Wikipedia:

Her third novel, Song of Solomon (1977), brought her national attention. The book was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the first novel by a black writer to be so chosen since Richard Wright's Native Son in 1940. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

In 1987 Morrison's novel Beloved became a critical success. When the novel failed to win the National Book Award as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, a number of writers protested over the omission Shortly afterward, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the American Book Award. That same year, Morrison took a visiting professorship at Bard College.

Beloved was adapted into the 1998 film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. Morrison later used Margaret Garner's life story again in the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner, with music by Richard Danielpour. In May 2006, The New York Times Book Review named Beloved the best American novel published in the previous twenty-five years.

.
In 1993 Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her citation reads: Toni Morrison, "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality." She is currently the last American to have been awarded the honor. Shortly afterward, a fire destroyed her Rockland County, New York home.

In 1996 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.[10] Morrison's lecture, entitled "The Future of Time: Literature and Diminished Expectations,"[11] began with the aphorism, "Time, it seems, has no future." She cautioned against the misuse of history to diminish expectations of the future.[12]

Morrison was honored with the 1996 National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which is awarded to a writer "who has enriched our literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work."

and secondly do her reflections on race gel with the realities of early 21st Century America?

Whose realities? They certainly do with hers........

 

[Sukerkin]

Whose realities? They certainly do with hers........

What I was asking really was how they match with the opinions of my American friends such as yourself here on MT. That subset classifies as being as close to the 'realities' I can get .

 

[elder999]

What I was asking really was how they match with the opinions of my American friends such as yourself here on MT. That subset classifies as being as close to the 'realities' I can get .

Her observations about the current culture, insofar as she speaks about fashion, music and dance are spot on, and have always been, to one degree or another, though never moreso than the last 30 years.

What she says about "a dumb one " in charge being okay is something I should maybe stay away from, as I'm in far too similar a situation with this at the root of it to maintain anything resembling objectivity.

What she says about time? Proving to be true, again, through my own life experience-the realities of race are vastly different now than they were in 1965.

The rest of it? Well, these are all my opinions, and hers, and your mileage will vary-like arnisador said, it's almost altogether regional-attitudes towards race are different from New York to Minnesota, and from Minnesota to Mississippi, and from one side of Texas to the other (really!).

Just working a few hundred miles north of Los Alamos in New Mexico has led to some interesting observations for me.........

 

[WC_lun]

As others have said, she is a recognized author and is respected for her observations on race. The problem is there are so many different sub-cultures that view race differently here in the states, so it is hard to generalize. I think her observations are pretty spot on for the more populous parts of the country, where it is not possible to really self-segragate or view minorities with such disdain. It is so much harder to do that when you have high populations in such a small relative space because you know, work beside, and are friends with minorities out of neccesity. In this case familiarity usually does not breed contempt.

I do think she is spot on in her opinions about the attacks on Mr Obama. Politically there have been attacks vs his policy, but there are a few attacks that are nothing more than dog whistles for the racist and others who want to view him as evil and not really American. I mean seriously, what other president has had to put up with some of the nonsense we see being thrown at him today. How you can tell the differnce is there are attacks on him that use his policies as the basis for the attack, even if calling him names. The others, such as calling him lazy, stupid, not an American, or even the recent attacks on his mother. These aren't attacks based on anything he has done politically. They would not stand very long if he was a rich white guy either.

There is also perspective. My great grandmother was Cherokee. I have some of the facial feature of a Cherokee, but I look like a full blooded caucasian cracker boy Scott Brown would say I'm obviuosly white. That means my experience with race, even in the more progressive parts of the country are going to be different than someone who apears to be of a minority race. My best friend is half Phillipino. It opens yours eyes when you hear dumbass comments about him from people that don't know him...or know you are friends. So while he doesn't hear those comments, he certainly is exposed to racism by people who judge him by his looks. By the way, it makes me laugh because I've heard him called a wet back, chink, and towel head. So the ignorant can't even define the race they want to look down upon. Until such behaviour is seen as not aceptable by all but a sliver of Americans, we will still have a race issue. I do think it is getting much better over the years, as the young seem to integrate easier with different races, but again, my perspective is that of a white guy.

 

[Touch Of Death]

As others have said, she is a recognized author and is respected for her observations on race. The problem is there are so many different sub-cultures that view race differently here in the states, so it is hard to generalize. I think her observations are pretty spot on for the more populous parts of the country, where it is not possible to really self-segragate or view minorities with such disdain. It is so much harder to do that when you have high populations in such a small relative space because you know, work beside, and are friends with minorities out of neccesity. In this case familiarity usually does not breed contempt.

I do think she is spot on in her opinions about the attacks on Mr Obama. Politically there have been attacks vs his policy, but there are a few attacks that are nothing more than dog whistles for the racist and others who want to view him as evil and not really American. I mean seriously, what other president has had to put up with some of the nonsense we see being thrown at him today. How you can tell the differnce is there are attacks on him that use his policies as the basis for the attack, even if calling him names. The others, such as calling him lazy, stupid, not an American, or even the recent attacks on his mother. These aren't attacks based on anything he has done politically. They would not stand very long if he was a rich white guy either.

There is also perspective. My great grandmother was Cherokee. I have some of the facial feature of a Cherokee, but I look like a full blooded caucasian cracker boy Scott Brown would say I'm obviuosly white. That means my experience with race, even in the more progressive parts of the country are going to be different than someone who apears to be of a minority race. My best friend is half Phillipino. It opens yours eyes when you hear dumbass comments about him from people that don't know him...or know you are friends. So while he doesn't hear those comments, he certainly is exposed to racism by people who judge him by his looks. By the way, it makes me laugh because I've heard him called a wet back, chink, and towel head. So the ignorant can't even define the race they want to look down upon. Until such behaviour is seen as not aceptable by all but a sliver of Americans, we will still have a race issue. I do think it is getting much better over the years, as the young seem to integrate easier with different races, but again, my perspective is that of a white guy.

I have a friend whom is Red Samamish Indian. They all have red hair, and Washington State refused to recognize they were even a real tribe until about ten years ago. They handed him, and all the other males, about 40k and he blew through that in about a year. The end. LOL

 

[Big Don]

Meh, what do I know, I'm a white guy who doesn't have any white friends...

 

[Sukerkin]

:grins: Your opinions still matter, Don. Say what you think, that's the point of my question.

 

[aedrasteia]

I came across this article on the BBC and, I am embarrassed to admit, I did not know of either the author or her works (or it's one of those moments where I have heard of a person but have forgotten again):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-19827316

Firstly, is she as prominent a writer in the American consciousness as the article suggests and secondly do her reflections on race gel with the realities of early 21st Century America?

Sukerkin

have you read anything by her? can you find time to do so? She is an extraordinary writer. Not easy
- in subject or form. But one of the finest, ever. I have given Beloved to friends, not talkimg about the 'big' issues
but as a 'ghost story', a tale of haunting, murder. Can a child come back from the dead - and not know it?
If they were able to finish it, they were not the same afterward.

She reaches into the past to do something she calls 're-memory' - 're-membering'.

Her research is immpecable, her writing is quietly stunning.
She is unflinching in her willingness to look at the past and to put it before
her readers. She takes enormous risks in her subjects and her way of writing and not every one is
successful. But she is fearless in what she will attempt. She knows American literature deeply
(Poe, Hawthorne, Willa Cather, Hemingway) and others (Tolstoy, Shakespeare). She taught at Howard and Princeton
and is a serious teacher and scholar.

Is she prominent 'in the American consciousness'? Not broadly. but she is well-known among serious readers.
And because of Oprah Winfrey she is somewhat known to the larger public. No matter what you think of Oprah,
her book selections have been interesting - she's picked Morrison's work and interviewed her and made the movie
of Beloved - not very well, but controversial and talked about, because Oprah is a celebrity.

Her work speaks for itself: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Tar Baby, Paradise, A Mercy, Home (and more)
and a drama based on Desdemona (a dialog with Shakespeare's Othello) produced in Brussells in 2009).

I think you will respond to her, Suk. I think her work will terrify and inform you.

She speaks here. Listen and consider for yourself:

www.visionaryproject.org/morrisontoni

www.charlierose.com/guest/view/1690

www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5041

and on Youtube.

Please let me know what you think and feel in response to her work and her words.

 

[crushing]

I mean seriously, what other president has had to put up with some of the nonsense we see being thrown at him today. How you can tell the differnce is there are attacks on him that use his policies as the basis for the attack, even if calling him names. The others, such as calling him lazy, stupid, not an American, or even the recent attacks on his mother. These aren't attacks based on anything he has done politically. They would not stand very long if he was a rich white guy either.

I think a lot of people would rather forget those days when Dumbya's (aka Smirking Chimp) mother was often attacked for her appearance.

Maybe it's not race, but that people just don't like Samuel Hinckley's decendents?

 

[WC_lun]

I don't remember George W Bush's mom being called a socialist, whore, spy. I remember some comedians calling her dumpy and close kin to Bea Aathur, but that really isn't quite the same is it? I think maybe the closest comes from the attacks on Dealanor Roosevelt, but even those are mild compared to some of the nonsense we are seeing today.

 

[crushing]

I don't recall anyone calling Barbara Bush a socialist spy either. Alcoholic, Nazi, facist, silver douchebag with mad cow disease, yes. But never a socialist spy.

 

[WC_lun]

Do you have any examples of that? I really don't remember her being called such terrible things. Maybe my memory is just slipping.

 

[Rich Parsons]

She's very well-known here, yes, and has certainly been very influential on race discussions. As to realities of current race relations...that's a complicated matter that varies so widely state-to-state that it's hard to generalize. But wherever you go, in the schools self-segregation by race is still very common even though in many places mixed-race social groups are also well-accepted.

Here are work, one can see at the cafe tables of Korean's all together talking Korean. Tables of Chinese where they many times split based upon language and even dialect. And of course there is a table that is predominately black. Oh wait, there is the majority of tables with mixed sex and race all sitting and eating, and with an all caucasion tables as well.


Do they split based upon race?
Do they split based upon language?
Do they split based upon lack of commonalities in general?
Do they join for commonalities ?