Oh, hey. I have a question about identity, minority, and majority. I just read:
"I grew up reading a generation of American and English people like [Saul] Bellow, [John] Updike or [Martin] Amis. Everybody’s neutral unless they’re black — then you hear about it: the black man, the black woman, the black person. Of course, if you happen to be black the world doesn’t look that way to you. I just wanted to try and create perhaps a sense of alienation and otherness in this person, the white reader, to remind them that they are not neutral to other people." Zadie Smith, discussing how she never mentions the race of any of the characters in her new novel, NW, unless they are white
The assumption here seems to be that white people don't mention race of white people. I can't work out if it is also that black people don't mention race of black people. How do Asian people deal? Are they in the book?
I'll probably tell you everyone's race or no one's, but unless it's a sooper sekrit NAACP meeting, probably not just the one.
So I'm wondering if her book is supposed to echo my experience or it's just supposed to mirror an experience for us of reading white-as-default books.
I keep remembering people realising the race of the protagonist in Anansi Boys because they only mention race when white, but that's not my black experience, so it confused me.
I have not read any of her books, but I thought one of her books featured a biracial person.
Shouldn't she just name everyone's race? I don't get any kind of naming/not naming if you aim to be progressive.
I'm confused. I'm pretty sure that Obama has made millions in the past years. His last tax return shows he made $789,000ish in 2011 with most of that coming from book royalties. So probably over the course of two years he's made at least a million. Good on him for spending some of it. He's keeping our economy going.
eta
I looked it up because he has released enough returns. In 2010 he made $1,795,614, with only $395,188 from his presidential salary the rest from his royalties. So yes, he's made millions.
The assumption here seems to be that white people don't mention race of white people.
It is my experience that in books written by white people, only white people's race isn't mentioned, generally. If that was your question.
Also, in real life, I have found that black people mention either race or shade, but white people mention nothing. It is actually pretty funny to watch someone try to describe a black person without mentioning they are black. But teh black people I know will say "Oh, Katie, she's white, has red hair". "Oh Jessie, the light skinned one, not the dark skinned one.". Meanwhile the white people are all like "Jessie-- she has brown hair and eyes, kinda short..."
I'm not going to lie, I have made a point of describing people of white.
So I was talking to one of my students who is a White woman. She married a Filipino and many of his family flew to Pennsylvania where she is from for the wedding.
She is from a small town with little diversity and apparently many of the townspeople thought her groom and his family were Black! I guess they hadn't met too many Black people either.
I screamed with laughter! I couldn't help myself.
I think people are not that observant. I grew up in a small town with one black family, and it would seem kind of rude to single out their kids and say OH, you mean the BLACK kids. However, once I met a more diverse population and heard them speaking, I now use white, black, etc as a descriptor because it it actually seems sort of rude not to, like it is somehow this big shameful secret!
Weekend Update skit that didn't make it to air. It's faux!Guy Fieri responding to the review of his restaurant. I guess they taped the rehearsal.
