Comments on: More on culture and literature

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:19:54 +0000

““White” is generally understood to mean “anyone who is not of color.” It stands for absence. It stands above the need to understand oneself.”

I think that in America, the use of the term “white” only as absence or as one w/no need for self-understanding is ignoring our history. While the norm is white (male), and others are identified against that norm, whiteness has meant so much more to our country since the first Europeans arrived. I’d encourage people not only to explore their “other” roots, but to consider what it has meant to be white in America over the last 400 years.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:37:04 +0000

It’s been a great festival, bella, and the weather has been nearly perfect.

Wistar, Question Guy is welcome to come here and defend himself! Let’s have it out with him!

By: bellascribe

bellascribe — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:17:52 +0000

Sounds like you all are having a great time; wish I was there. Elizabeth, you’re right about the need to differentiate what kind of American “mutt” one is. Quite obviously, the sort you are will mean, for example, that you can’t write Sarabeth’s stories any more than she can write yours, and so on. Shining the light on, or bringing into one’s own awareness of what informs one’s world view is, at minimum, one more tool for the writer’s toolbox. Some argue the most important one, actually. Can you *really* get to what is universal with any real depth if you don’t understand differences, or at least have a sense of your own?

By: Wistar

Wistar — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:46:59 +0000

I feel sort of bad for picking on that question guy. I hope he doesn’t read our blogs. He should be pleased that he started such a great blogversation though. We blogged the hell out of him.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:26:26 +0000

What does it mean to be simply American, though? We all come from a particular time and place. My America (born in 1961, grew up in southern Indiana, family from southwest Virginia, now living in central Virginia) is not the same as Cassidy’s America or your America.

Similarly, I think to say that a writer is a “Jewish writer” or a “black writer” or an “Indian writer” or an “African writer” is to obscure a lot of distinctions that are rich and important.

I don’t know, I’m kind of groping here, thinking out loud. I wonder if I had been at the same Book Festival session as Selvi and Wistar, if I would have had the same impression of the question they found controversial. They’ve got me to thinking.

By: Sarabeth

Sarabeth — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:01:30 +0000

Daniel Cassidy’s plea interests me because I am one of those American mutts. I claim no one heritage as my own. As I did digging into my past, branches of my family have inhabited these shores since close to the beginning of the European conquest of North America. From there, English, Scottish, German, Cherokee, French, and who knows what else have combined to make me. Can I make a simple statement that I am American, letting that guide the listener?