I majored in English lit at university and one of my early requirements was a single author course. Having little general knowledge of famous authors, I chose the Toni Morrison class at random. I remember on the first day being surprised to find our that Toni Morrison was a woman and that her writing had such a strong focus on race and slavery. I was rather intimidated.
Turned out to be one of the best classes I had during those years. It was a very small group (I feel like only ten people or something) and there was a lot of really excellent discussion about the books. Jazz stood out to me as one of her best works, the focus shift in narrators throughout the novel was, I think, my first real exposure to the "unreliable narrator" concept and it made the story so powerful.
I had a similar experience growing up in the mostly white suburbs of Baltimore. We read Beloved junior year and it was absolutely devastating. It opened my eyes to the deep, unhealed wounds of slavery and that sort of tumultuous, all-consuming pain. It was a difficult book to read at that age—I can't imagine any age when it would be easy to read—and I appreciate that we were asked to sit with it.
Another book that had a similar effect on me was Yukio Mishima's "Confessions of a Mask" about a boy growing up gay in 1930–50s Japan. I don't know that he ever actually says he's gay and you get this feeling that he doesn't even have the language to describe himself, let alone any kind of framework or support network. It was described to me by the friend who recommended it as "devastatingly sad" and I agree. He was absolutely, completely, and utterly fucked from the moment he was born and there's nothing he could do about it. The book threw me off for weeks. I highly recommend it.
Yukio Mishima's biography is a depressingly vivid example of the dangers of repressing your identity, with his repressed gay identity seemingly spilling out into far-right nationalism and then terrorism.
I love reading, but only a handful of books have really changed the way I look at the world. The Bluest Eye was one of them.
Minor spoiler: in the bluest eye a young black girl obsesses over a white female doll with blue eyes. Before I read it, I never considered the impact that the idealization of white beauty could have on minorities. After reading that book, I realized how important it was for children to be able to look up to role models (fictional or otherwise) that look like them.
In my own life, I have had my own share of fantasy role models (I am a huge Tolkien fan, and when I was younger I loved all things fantasy) that shaped my own identity, and after reading The Bluest Eye I had to consider the idea: how would those books have affected me if all characters looked nothing like me? I do not think the effect would have been positive.
To be fair, Tolkien explicitly set out to create a Northern European pre-history or mythology. I am not sure if he even considered non-European readers as his audience.
A good parallel might be the love many Westerners have for anime.
Pretty much everyone is light skinned, except for some southerners who are not prominently featured, but mentioned a few times. The descriptions of them are not exactly positive http://www.henneth-annun.net/bios_view.cfm?SCID=194
(Disclaimer: I have not read any “actual” work by Toni Morrison, so my knowledge is limited to the following, which I wanted to share.)
There's a great profile of the editor Robert Gottlieb who worked with her, including a few wonderful quotes from Toni Morrison revealing how she worked (search the page for "Morrison"; there are about 10 quotes), from 1994: https://web.archive.org/web/20161227170954/http://www.thepar... — the whole thing is a great read even if you don't care about Toni Morrison (every lover of reading is likely to enjoy it), but if you do, it may just be a few snippets that you might have otherwise missed as it's not “about” Toni Morrison.
> [Morrison] Writing my first two books, The Bluest Eye and Sula, I had the anxiety of a new writer who needs to make sure every sentence is exactly the right one. Sometimes that produces a kind of precious, jeweled quality—a tightness, which I particularly wanted in Sula. Then after I finished Sula and was working on the third book, Song of Solomon, Bob said to me, You can loosen, open up. Your writing doesn’t have to be so contained; it can be wider. I’m not sure these were his exact words, but I know that the consequence of the remarks was that I did relax and begin to open up to possibilities. It was because I was able to open up to those possibilities that I began to think things like, What would happen if indeed I followed this strange notion or image or picture I had in my mind of this woman who had no navel . . . whereas normally I would have dismissed such an idea as recklessness. It was as if he had said, Be reckless in your imagination.
> [Gottlieb] I remember the discussion with Toni as she was beginning Song of Solomon, because although we always did some marginal cosmetic work on her manuscripts, obviously a writer of her powers and discrimination doesn’t need a lot of help with her prose. I think I served Toni best by encouraging her—helping to free her to be herself. The only other real help I gave to her was noneditorial: I encouraged her to stop editing and to write full-time, something I knew she wanted to do. As I remember it, I reassured her about her finances—but what I was really saying was, You’re not an editor who does some writing, you’re a writer—acknowledge it; there’s nothing to be scared of. We always understood each other—two editors, two lovers of reading, and exactly the same age.
[…]
> [Morrison] Writing for me is just a very sustained process of reading. The only difference is that writing a book might take three or four years, and I’m doing it. I never wrote a line until after I became an editor, and only then because I wanted to read something that I couldn’t find. That was the first book I wrote.
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
As a student of scholar and literature and a former professor of the same, this is a sad day for me. I've taught many of Morrison's novels and learned more with every reading.
Morrison is a giant among writers, and the world is poorer for her passing.
The NYTimes obituary titled "Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, Dies at 88" is unavoidably narrow. Toni Morrison's novels contain universes. [0]
Like several others in this thread, I read Beloved at an 11th grade student in literature class.
It was the most humbling thing I remember reading. Moving, despite no personal context for the characters' experiences. Written beautifully without feeling over written.
It made me realize how far I was, and probably would ever be, from proper writing talent.
My first intro to Morrison was thru 'The Bluest Eye'. Afterwards I read many of her books incl 'Beloved'. I loved all of them.
One thing I could however never understand was how a person with such deep insights into the African American experience could call Bill Clinton, 'the first Black President'. I thought at first maybe there was something I didn't understand. But as years passed, I've been increasingly feeling that perhaps that wasn't the case.
I think she meant that in a very straightforward way: that he was the first US president to represent the African American citizens of the US in any real way.
That doesn't mean he wasn't a flawed president, just they he was their president in a way that hadn't been experienced before.
I still don’t understand why she called Clinton the first black president. I think people confused his charm for respect and understanding. I believer Bill Clinton was the first presidential candidate to get Black voters. Until then most candidates would rely on black celebrity and community leaders to meet black voters. Not only would he meet them in churches and community centers, he was really comfortable doing it. Most white politicians would do an awkward stump speech in a church or center with an eye on the exit. And that wasn’t the case with Clinton. He was a natural shmoozer.
She later clarified what she meant, in her 2008 interview with Time magazine by saying: "People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race."
In her original comment it is more limited even than that - it refers to hearing other people "murmuring" of Clinton as "the first Black president" in the context of his impeachment, rather than giving some sort of unqualified endorsement of the idea herself; but people do love an inflammatory sound byte.
tldr: It's complicated. But to over-simplify: the Clintons had black friends, seemed to genuinely believe that black people were just as qualified for prestigious/important jobs as anyone else, and Bill Clinton had both a personal background and expressed himself in ways that resonated with many black Americans.
None of that had ever been even a little bit true of an American President before. And it was a big deal.
All of that is easy to forget, now, after we elected an actual black person President. But man, the 1990s were a different time. Lots of things are bad (really, really bad) now. But lots of things have changed in the last 25 years, too.
I'm confused - the link does not say the things you say about black friends or considering black people just as qualified. None of what she says is related to his attitudes or policies towards blacks.
It doesn't even say she considers Clinton the first black president. Just that someone unspecified have been saying that.
I had to read The Bluest Eye in college. That is one book I'll never read again, and that's because it's so brutally honest about the characters' experiences. It's too real.
Great book. Highly recommended. I'm afraid to read any more of her books, but I probably should.
It contrasts with The Awakening, also required reading. It's like the other side of The Bluest Eye. What did Edna Pontellier's awakening cost the black servants who enabled it?
A lot of African-American fiction can have that effect. Corregidora by Gayl Jones is a book that blew me away and made me really upset. It took me almost twenty years to read it a second time.
We read her book Song of Solomon in my senior high school English class. It was one of my favorites of the class, along with Catch-22. I don't think I really got even close to 100% of what it was about, but her writing was just so gripping and beautiful, I still enjoyed the ride.
Years later I read Beloved and I was able to appreciate it much more. I should really read more of her work.
I don't often feel a strong emotion when a famous person dies, but this one got me. The beauty in her books is staggering, I read them with no preconceptions (which is often hard to do with famous books) and was completely blown away. As pure literature divorced from any reality they'd still be all-time great works, and their connection to the real experience of black people in America raises them to even greater heights.
From everything I have read she was a wonderful person aside from her writing. Thoughtful and careful, influential without being loud.
I think the world will miss her, and we will always have her words.
I met Toni Morrison when I was 12. She was kinda rude to me, I wonder if it’s because I didn’t see her as anything but an accomplished author. I’ve always wondered about that moment if she intentionally was rude or was just anxious from being in the spotlight at the time. I don’t know why I thought during all these years that I would get to meet her again.. I was planning to be more adept at conversation with her. Correlate coding to historic writings.. but this post is a sobering wake up call.
Phone your mum, tell her you love her. My mom was inspired by Toni Morrison.
> Canadian writer Margaret Atwood wrote in a review for the New York Times, "Ms. Morrison's versatility and technical and emotional range appear to know no bounds. If there were any doubts about her stature as a pre-eminent American novelist, of her own or any other generation, 'Beloved' will put them to rest."
From the 1987 review of Beloved.
Sure, maybe I was a bit hyperbolic, but it is essentially unarguable that Toni Morrison is one of the most important, respected, and lauded writers in American history.
Indeed, it looks like she's only semi-famous because Oprah featured 4 of her works in her book club. Which is why I don't have any idea who she is or what she wrote, given I've never watched Oprah.
Perhaps you need to grow your bubble a bit. I would say her Nobel (or many other awards[0]) is a greater indication of the reverence given to her than the fact that you have not heard of her.
It looks like there have been 113 individuals that have won a Nobel Prize in Literature. While I'm sure it's an impressive accomplishment I don't think that necessarily means "everyone should know about this person or they are uncultured swine!"
It looks like she's mostly known because 4 of her works were featured by Oprah's book club. I generally don't base my reading list off of the recommendation of day time talk show hosts that have an intended audience of middle-aged women, largely house wives/stay at home mothers.
I mean, if you took a basic look at her Wikipedia you'll see that she had won a Pulitzer and a NOBEL PRIZE before Oprah recommended any of her books.
It's okay that you don't know who someone is, but there's no need to denigrate an artist or question their bonafides because you don't know who they are.
Think about it this way—if you came up to a random person and said "Donald Knuth is one of the most revered computer scientists in human history" and they said "well why haven't I heard of them before", would that mean Donald Knuth is a nobody, or that this person just doesn't really have any interest or background in this person's field?
I almost exclusively read fiction. I do not read a lot of (any) period African-American literature given I read for pleasure and not for tales of historically accurate racism and child molestation (The Bluest Eye apparently) in fiction (which appears to be her thing based on the 5 wiki entries I opened for her works).
> I do not read a lot of (any) period African-American literature
Guess you answered your own question, a hole in your reading preferences is a reflection of you, not society. For the record I read The Bluest Eye in college and it was pretty eye-opening.
One of those silly toxic grievance ideas, that you should only enjoy fiction when the protagonist looks like you, has the same gender and so on.
Do real world PoC even ever obsess over white female dolls with blue eyes? It was just a work of fiction, after all. Do white girls obsess over black dolls? We have a black doll, that my white wife grew up with. I don't think it disturbed her in any way.
Would you please stop taking HN threads further into ideological flamewar? It's tedious and off topic here, and amounts to vandalism. We've had to ask you this before.
Edit: actually, since you did this twice in as many days, I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future.
If it doesn't matter, then why are fantasy characters (even today, even in Harry Potter which is extremely recent) overwhelmingly white? If people enjoyed protagonists regardless of their ethnicity or gender, then why isn't fiction more diverse? Why are almost all DC and Marvel superheroes white males? Etc.
> Do real world PoC even ever obsess over white female dolls with blue eyes?
> why are fantasy characters (even today, even in Harry Potter which is extremely recent) overwhelmingly white?
I can't speak to every single case, but Harry Potter is a British franchise by origin. England is over 92% white. It does stand to reason that a fantasy novel set in England would feature mostly white characters.
Why are many characters white? Because many writers are white. Should white authors write books with non-white heroes? Wouldn't that result in an outcry about cultural appropriation and things like that? Never mind that it would presumably be difficult to credibly describe the experience of people you have not experienced yourself?
Are there many non-white authors writing books with white heroes/heroines? Maybe they should just write more books about people who "look like them"?
A lot of popular children books actually have female heroines, like Pippa Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren being one of the most popular authors of children's books. I never had a problem enjoying them, strange enough. It never occurred to me as a kid that I shouldn't be allowed to enjoy reading those books, because the protagonists have the wrong gender. Good thing today's children have better education on such issues - god forbid they could enjoy a book of the wrong identification!!!
What about Lord of the Rings, should PoC be able to enjoy that book? Should it be considered a hate crime to recommend the book to a PoC? Should the government give out a grant for someone to write an alternative to Lotr with PoC heroines?
Female Superheroes exist, but it is also only one rather silly genre (and only two publishers). Plus, there are other reasons why action heroes tend to be male: because men are expendable and therefore supposed to do the dangerous work, as in real life. Superheroes are a lie, anyway, but to tell women they could simply be action heroes would be an even greater lie.
As for the experiment: "These findings exposed internalized racism in African-American children, self-hatred that was more acute among children attending segregated schools" - that is clearly an unwarranted interpretation of the result, fueled by ideology. And wanting to play with white dolls is not "obsessing" over white dolls.
In response to your second edit, I disagree with your claim that choosing to use the term “mother” vs “momma” is neutral or symmetric. When you choose to use the common term “mother,” it implies nothing in particular. Intentionally choosing to use the word “momma” on the other hand is not a neutral decision. You specifically chose to use it to refer to Black mothers. And your statement about “denying black identity” just reinforces the argument that you associate Black people with a certain manner of speech.
I have no bias against you. I’m just trying to explain to you why some people find your original statement offensive. Instead of defending it, just try to consider how it may make your audience feel in the future.
As I said, I am not a native speaker, so I don't really know how momma is typically used (if at all). It was more of a spontaneous use on a whim. But I also haven't found any indication yet that it is a derogatory term.
Sorry I still think the "offense taken" is overblown. I am also not concerned about not offending anybody at all. Frankly I think many people who feel offended about certain things perhaps should just get over themselves. I mean in this case, is momma used in the real world? If so, then I think it should be OK to use it. I don't believe in censoring statements about the real world.
"Momma" is used much more frequently in AAVE than General American English. Your use of it in this context comes across as being mocking of black Americans. (Perhaps the missing bit of cultural context is that racists often use exaggerated AAVE to mock black Americans.)
So if it is so commonly used, why on earth should it be offensive to refer to it? In what way would you consider my statement "mocking"? I don't think it is very relevant what racists commonly do. I don't feel obliged to obtain knowledge about the lifestyle of racists, and neither should anybody else.
Even more interesting in the context of the original complaint of there not being enough books with black heroes. So if a white writer would write such a book, they wouldn't be allowed to use the word "momma" or refer to anything that PoC might do that is different from white people? You are creating an impossible world.
> I don't think it is very relevant what racists commonly do.
In an English-based discussion entirely around issues of race the ways racists commonly use the English language is very relevant. Using the word "momma" by itself is not offensive however in this context it is slightly offensive because the way you used it is exactly how a racist would use it to mock a black person.
I don't think people here are even taking a lot of offense at your use of the word so much as your extreme defensiveness over your use of it. Please take this opportunity to reflect on why you chose to be so defensive instead of taking a mea culpa (and, if you are genuinely confused by why people are offended, asking for clarification).
> So if a white writer would write such a book, they wouldn't be allowed to use the word "momma" or refer to anything that PoC might do that is different from white people?
This is, in fact, a complicated question. Generally the way to avoid being offensive in that situation is to write your characters respectfully as human beings first and foremost, to study portrayals written by members of the group you are portraying to see how they portray themselves, and to ask members of the minority group you are portraying to review your work for any unintentional offensiveness before publication.
"the way you used it is exactly how a racist would use it to mock a black person."
I still don't see what exactly is so mocking about it. Yes, I was perhaps "conjuring up" a stereotypical scenario. So what? Clearly, the stereotype exists. Even if it doesn't reflect reality, imo it would still be valid to refer to the stereotype, as the stereotype exists and is part of reality. The much celebrated Toni Morrison book also conjures a stereotype, about a black girl obsessing to become white. Somehow that is good - why?
And again, no - nobody should be forced to spend time learning about the behavior of racists. Why should they? Life is too short to spend it studying nasty people. I reject this as an attempt to control other people's life, with the power of being a minority.
"Generally the way to avoid being offensive in that situation is to write your characters respectfully as human beings, and to ask members of the minority group you are portraying to review your work for any unintentional offensiveness before publication."
Nope, and that is also why I am so defensive. I value freedom of thought and freedom of art higher than people's choice of being offended.
Of course any writer is free to make the choice to try to offend as few people as possible. But writers should also be allowed to write what they think.
I banned that account earlier, but posting like this is also a bannable offense. It's not ok to break the site guidelines, regardless of how badly another commenter did so. That way is a spiral down to hell—therefore please don't.
There are entire industries built around helping people of color look and act more white. One of the early post-abolition black businesses sold hair straightening products. Toni Morrison's writing was based on real lived experiences.
You don't know what you don't know. Now you know there are things outside your knowledge and experience. Take this as an opportunity to look deeper.
Personally, I do enjoy finally seeing more queer characters on TV and in movies who aren't stereotypes and who aren't killed off to make cisgender and heterosexual people cry. I know a lot of people of color who are ecstatic over improving representation in the same way.
> I had to consider the idea: how would those books have affected me if all characters looked nothing like me?
FWIW: Several of my role models - if you include people who are not alive, people I've only read about - are not white males.
I guess in my case it was more important to relate to their background and their skills (or lack of ;-) than who their parents were, and where they grew up.
I'm black African. And most of my role models don't look like me. Musashi, Taleb, Frederick Douglas is in there as an exception etc. But when I look at someone who has accomplished what I want to the first thing that adds to motivation is not that they look like me...this is a wildly debilitating mindset I know it exists but lets not make it out to be healthy.
> FWIW: Several of my role models - if you include people who are not alive, people I've only read about - are not white males.
But you didn't and don't lack for options.
I'm a straight white man from America. No matter what personal, family, and economic difficulties I've faced:
- I have literal decades of seeing other white men in a variety of roles. I can pick and choose from the stereotypes I want to put in high regard, emulate, or dismiss, not 3 or 4.
- growing up, there was no blanket treatment of me or people others decided I was like outside of choices I made. I could adopt "redneck" habits/dress, or "frat boy", or "nerd", or "jock", but I had control over whether I was identified as a "thug", or " aggressive", or "professional".
- Because "my" culture was broadcast everywhere (TV/movies/books/magazines), I was never regarded as "weird" or "threatening" because people weren't accustomed to anything I'd do or say or how I'd dress.
As a kid, I was freaked out by the first black person I met, because his palms were a lighter color than the rest of his skin. That's a stupid thing to be freaked out by, but it was _different_ to me because I didn't see it anywhere. It wasn't "normal" My skin color, in return, was very "normal" looking to him, because fish-belly-pale is hardly a skin color that is hard to see in any community - just turn on the TV. Growing up in a more diverse area I would have seen more and wouldn't have had that reaction - but turn on the TV and it was still monochromatic.
As a kid I regularly teased a girl in my grade (a friend!) for her hairstyle, because it wasn't "normal". Of course, it was quite normal - if you have those genes, or see anyone that does. Again, put me in a more diverse world and I'd have seen it...but what did she see on TV? in movies? on magazine covers?
And there were "black" TV shows, and "black" magazines...but everything else wasn't "white" - it was "normal". Which meant "not black".
I had, and have, the liberty of choice because "normal" includes me, and I can choose if I want to include it. But if "normal" was defined to exclude me, what kinds of choices would I have? I might become a "well-spoken" and "clean" black man!
Your comment is a powerful acknowledgement of the dominance of your group (white male) via a technique that I've only seen a few times: specifically describing some of the perquisites of your position in society.
As I've dealt with various issues throughout my life, I've had identity crises where I've had to deal with similar introspection due to being a male, which comes with a number of ... social benefits (I feel gross saying it). while I'm mostly white, the dark skin color that I had as a child set me apart, and I think prepared me for the introspection that I had to go through.
Was there a specific book or experience that aided you? I'm always hunting down challenges to what I perceive as natural, normal or inevitable.
My grandmother cries when describing the poverty they lived in when she was a child (1930s) in Newcastle (Northern England). Nobody had it easy in the past.
Well done for falling for the propaganda that racially divides people and is frequently sold by activists to people like yourself who seem to have bought it.
People of all colours and creeds will try to garner sympathy from the other group by claiming how disadvantaged they are. The reality is that there are plenty of people from all races that have made it to the top of society.
These people constantly bring up slavery that happened during the colonial period but they never mention what is currently happening in Qatar where foreign workers building the world cup stadium are effectively slaves. This is happening today not over a hundred years in the past, if they feel so strongly about slavery why aren't they shouting from the rooftops about this?
That is why I know this is done because these actors (quite rightly I believe) think it will give them political power because they will claim they have no representation while being broadcast on the very media they claim to have no representation in.
> Well done for falling for the propaganda that racially divides people and is frequently sold by activists to people like yourself who seem to have bought it.
This crosses into personal attack. That's not ok here, so please don't. Also, please don't get sucked into flamewars, regardless of how annoying another comment is; they're tedious and off topic here.
??? What does that have anything to do with the comment you replied to?
> The reality is that there are plenty of people from all races that have made it to the top of society.
And yet the people at the "top of society" disproportionately come from a just a few of those groups. :thinking-emoji:
> ... what is currently happening in Qatar ...
Classic whataboutism. We can care about multiple things at the same time.
> while being broadcast on the very media they claim to have no representation in.
Minorities have much better access and representation in media today than they did in the past but it's still far from equal, particularly on the business side which has major influence over our media because that's where decisions are made about which projects get funded and which don't.
> ??? What does that have anything to do with the comment you replied to?
Absolutely everything. This myth there hasn't been representation of minorities or women completely neglecting the fact that there has been plenty going back to mid 20th century.
> Classic whataboutism. We can care about multiple things at the same time.
Not at all. Slavery in Qatar is happening today, not in the past. The past can't be changed, but we can try to improve the future.
> Minorities have much better access and representation in media today than they did in the past but it's still far from equal, particularly on the business side which has major influence over our media because that's where decisions are made about which projects get funded and which don't.
Do white people have equal representation in Thai Cinema? What about rich white people always playing the bad guys there? This is a lie that is constantly sold to constantly sow racial division and people like you trot it out over and over again. All it does is divide people and allow both Black and White racist to whip up hatred.
> Not at all. Slavery in Qatar is happening today, not in the past. The past can't be changed, but we can try to improve the future.
The effects of American slavery linger to this day. People are allowed to care about things that impact them more than things that don't, and for most descendants of American slaves the slavery that happened 150+ years ago (and the subsequent 100 years of Jim Crow) has a more direct impact on their lives than foreign labor exploitation.
> All it does is divide people and allow both Black and White racist to whip up hatred.
Can you please provide an example of black racism and explain how it has prevented white people from achieving equality with black people.
> The effects of American slavery linger to this day.
Do they? How?
> has a more direct impact on their lives than foreign labor exploitation.
Apparently slavery that happened over 100 years ago in a first world country where there is relatively good education (a friend of mine is married to a Cambodian woman and she didn't learn how to read until she was 16) is more important than the slavery that is happening all over the world today.
Why are you trying to play the oppression olympics? We can care about multiple things at the same time.
Re: the legacy of slavery, this USA Today article is a good starting point[1].
Additionally, it's plainly obvious that black Americans today have much less wealth than white Americans. When whites settled in the US they were often given farm land or brought capital from abroad to start businesses. Black slaves had neither. When they were freed most became trapped in sharecropping arrangements (often for generations) that left them with little wealth. White Americans also benefited much more from the social programs of the early 20th century, such as New Deal work programs or subsidized home mortgages (look up "red lining"), that helped build wealth.
Also, you did not provide an example of black racism (which you have referenced in at least two posts as being equal to white racism).
> Why are you trying to play the oppression olympics? We can care about multiple things at the same time.
Right I am no longer interested in talking to you. Pretending something is whataboutism when I am trying to bring some perspective is a nonsense.
As for your stats. I've seen stats that if Black couples get married and have a household they do just as well as White couples from a similar background (not I am not going to trawl the internet to cherry pick some proof).
>A lso, you did not provide an example of black racism (which you have referenced in at least two posts as being equal to white racism).
I never claim it was equal, I never claimed to know the proportions. TBH I am getting quite fed up of someone constantly putting words into my mouth.
Your claim this isn't whataboutism is interesting based on a quick reading of your comment history. It sure doesn't appear that you actually care about these other issues or you're just trying to provide 'perspective'. Think about the ideals you associate yourself with before complaining that people are putting words in your mouth.
Whitewashing the proud boys:
> The proud boys are a strange white power group when they have prominent black members.
Claiming UKIP aren't racist because they are 'normal' people:
> Have you actually talked to many UKIP supporters? I've spoken to UKIP when they knocked on the door and they seemed like pretty normal people.
(I'm sure they're normal, but they're also racists)
Claiming apparent race-baiting:
> As for the the actual article you linked, the author herself has nice race-bait titles of work
Comparing criticisms of historic oppression in science to Nazi Germany:
> There is also ideas of "Colonial Science" or "White Science" which reminds me of movement of removing "Jewish" Science and Mathematics in preference to "Aryan Science" before World War II.'
I might not call you a racist, but you're sure carrying a lot of water for them.
Clearly everyone has had it equally difficult and there is no grouping of peoples that get systemic mistreatment, evidence and statistics be damned.
Yes, people can have it hard. And people can have it hard out of proportion with their peers. This doesn't alter provable facts about sweeping populations.
> The reality is that there are plenty of people from all races that have made it to the top of society.
And just like your grandmother disproves any systemic problem by difficulty, any success by any individual does the same, proving that they cannot be an exception to the rule.
> while being broadcast on the very media they claim to have no representation in
I think if you dig a bit you'll find a lot of things you aren't seeing. And surely just one case will prove the whole, right?
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
Also, would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is? It only leads further into hell.
> Clearly everyone has had it equally difficult and there is no grouping of peoples that get systemic mistreatment, evidence and statistics be damned.
Never claimed that.
> Yes, people can have it hard. And people can have it hard out of proportion with their peers. This doesn't alter provable facts about sweeping populations.
I didn't claim it disproved anything. I was pointing out that life wasn't fair and there was poverty that you and I can't possibly fathom and it affected everyone no matter what the colour of their skin.
> And just like your grandmother disproves any systemic problem by difficulty, any success by any individual does the same, proving that they cannot be an exception to the rule.
Never claimed that.
It is really astounding that someone can spend so much time logic chopping and fail to understand what I was actually saying.
This lie of people having to be represented by someone of their own skin in a nonsense that is sold by activists to students to make them feel bad because of the colour of their skin. The person I was replying to had bought this nonsense.
The fact is unfortunately that racists (both white and black ones) will use this to further racially divide people about what happened in the past.
> It is really astounding that someone can spend so much time logic chopping and fail to understand what I was actually saying.
Perhaps because I was interpreting it in the context of the comment you were replying to (mine).
Poverty is devastating. True...and not related at all to what I said. I didn't mention economics or finances AT ALL save to mention that my comments were true regardless of my financial background. So if your comment wasn't in relation to what I said...but it was. There's an implied connection that I gave a rebuttal to, and in the face of that rebuttal, you deny the connection. That implodes my rebuttal...but leaves your comment without contextual purpose.
> I was pointing out that life wasn't fair and there was poverty that you and I can't possibly fathom and it affected everyone no matter what the colour of their skin.
Another true statement. And also unrelated to what you were replying to, unless you were trying put in the implied connection.
> This lie of people having to be represented by someone of their own skin in a nonsense that is sold by activists to students to make them feel bad because of the colour of their skin
Citation needed - at this point you're denying misrepresentation of minorities in popular media, which is such a well-documented problem and so obviously observable that your unsupported assertions would be laughable if the issue wasn't related to tragedy. Also - I don't feel bad for the color of my skin. At all. (Except when I get a sunburn) I _do_ feel bad for supporting a system that is systemically unfair, but the solution to that is not to deny the problem, nor to assume a vast burden of guilt that you assume I (and others) have taken on. The solution is to improve the system. To modify my support.
> Citation needed - at this point you're denying misrepresentation of minorities in popular media, which is such a well-documented problem and so obviously observable that your unsupported assertions would be laughable if the issue wasn't related to tragedy.
Sorry I don't see it. All through my life (I am almost 40 years old) there has been plenty of black people on the television and in films and most of the time it has been everything from Gangstars to Action Heroes.
> I _do_ feel bad for supporting a system that is systemically unfair, but the solution to that is not to deny the problem, nor to assume a vast burden of guilt that you assume I (and others) have taken on. The solution is to improve the system. To modify my support.
It isn't systemically unfair. You keep on asserting it is.
We live in a society that only really cares about your ability to make money i.e. produce. That is capitalism.
In the UK we had a black rapper head up the largest outdoor festival in England.
It's not hard to find actual numbers on representation of minorities in the media. Our anecdotes have more to do with our own blind spots than actual real life and don't prove anything.
"In the UK we had a black rapper head up the largest outdoor festival in England."
Very famous author. She won the pulitzer prize for fiction. Her books are both beautifully written and hard to read because of their often brutal depiction of the racism African-American's experience in the U.S.
I could never get into her work, personally. I was forced to read 'Beloved' in high school, and found it dense, poorly written, and just unpleasant to read. I know she's won a ton of awards, so it's probably just me. Sorry to hear she passed though.
I had never heard of her, or any of her books - I went to primary school in the 80’s, though. Is she somebody that’s only recently been included in the curriculum in the past few decades?
Well, _Beloved_ for instance was published in 1987, and Jazz, also mentioned in this thread, in 1992. Her first novel, _The Bluest Eye_, in 1970.
But yeah, I would say she has continued to increase in popularity (popularly and in school curriculums) since the 1980s, although some high schoolers were probably reading her works in the 80s. I graduated from high school in 1983, and read Beloved in a class.
Turned out to be one of the best classes I had during those years. It was a very small group (I feel like only ten people or something) and there was a lot of really excellent discussion about the books. Jazz stood out to me as one of her best works, the focus shift in narrators throughout the novel was, I think, my first real exposure to the "unreliable narrator" concept and it made the story so powerful.