Feminism and Diversity

The book was in the class of Mudbound by Hillary Jordan, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I think the book is meant for bad book groups who have nothing better to do.

I keep a list of all the books I read. Here's all the books I've read with black people in them, or dealing with black stereotypes, within the last 7 years:

The Bluest eye by Toni Morrison
The Green Mile by Stephen King
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper lee
I'm Down by Mishna Wolff
Tim & Tom by Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen, et al.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
(The beginning of Roots by Alex Haley, haven't finished it.)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Equiano, the African by Vincent Carretta <----The only non-narrative non-fiction.

This is actually a very pitiful number of books compared to the number of how many books I have read overall. I've read The Color Purple before, and when I was much, much younger, American Girl books. Besides movies, that's about it. I only mention this, because the kicker is that I don't think a lot of other people have read much on it either, in fact, a lot of people simply don't read... People grow up in neighborhoods that aren't always diversified. White is as much of a default in our culture as men are, and it's bound to always show up in books and film.

To be quite honest, instinctively, standing in front of the African-American section in Barnes and Nobles, is as bad as standing in front of the gay sex section. It's not as though you're not interested, but did they have to make it so viewable? The thought process is, "I hope homophobes or racists don't attack me while I'm looking." Total paranoia, but it happens every time. Someone comes by the isle and the thought is, "Ooooh, look at how interesting the Civil war section is." The person passes, then I feel stupid and think, "Well it's not my business to pry when I don't have any black friends (or I don't have gay sex) anyways." I'm pretty damn sure a lot of people who has grown up in pure bred white neighborhoods (at least in the south) are like that. Of course later, I wonder why there has to be a section for it anyways.

So, that's pretty much why when people said The Help is racist, I was surprised. I think that was first book that made me aware of the Jim Crow laws. I was surprised when I heard the Green Mile was racist too. But I can see the theme they're talking about. It's just... subtle racism to some people. It's not like when my grandpa asked me if I enjoyed watching that n*gger when I was watching Chris Rock stand-up. That's a little more blunt. Someone in the south could be talking about some place being a 'bad neighborhood' and you could go along for a very long time before you figure out s/he just means a neighborhood with black people in it.

So here's my question: How do you know that she didn't know that she was being racist? If she didn't know enough and was dumb enough to write about racism? I mean, white people still learn certain rules about race and racism and how to act. And sometimes it deals HEAVILY on being guilt ridden and sensitive enough to tip toe around the subject. You meet a black person and you like the person, and you never know if it's okay to bring the topic up. It's not necessarily because you want to bring it up either. It's just there and more bluntly there because you're in a very white community. It's always out in the open because people have made it that way. Then you realize, you really don't want to seem like you're trying to ask that person to represent every single black person on earth. At that point of the realization, you simply don't bring the topic up.

You hear about the racism of this, and the racism of that, and how racist that so many black people are portrayed in the media, or in jail, or about how rap culture is ruining black culture, or hearing about what they do to their hair and how horrible it is, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, you can't go around roaming black neighborhoods to meet black people just to feel like you're finally communicating with 'them' as if they're much different anyways. It's made into such a sensitive issue, that it's almost like there's still a dividing line because of it.

That's pretty much as honest I can get. Now I just post this and hope I didn't accidentally say anything racist.