(no subject)
Today it has been exactly 21 years since I moved (or was moved) to Sweden. You'd think I'd be more Swedish by now.
Finished To Kill a Mockingbird the other night. I found it much less horrific than Light in August (by William Faulkner) and other novels that revolve around racial conflict in the American South. It didn't try to sell itself on shock value. Still, I am bothered by a couple of things: despite it's seemingly pacifist message that "To kill a mockingbird is wrong" (because it is "innocent" and all it ever does is sing for our pleasure), it does not follow that killing is wrong. In fact, a man is killed in the book (while he tries to harm two children) and his murder by the hand of a fourth party is considered justified. Because is he is white trash and a racist. So should all racists be shot?
Another thing that bothers me is the mockingbird metaphore, which not only implies that black people are innocents, a type of noble savages that can't held responsible for their actions because they are so simple, but also suggests that, like the mockingbird, black people are devoid of their own positive qualities, aside from that of being able to mock other people, people with real culture, morals and standards. People with their own voice.
It reminds me of a story I heard about a female western journalist who was sent to interview Yassir Arafat or some other leader in the Middle East and mistakenly bumped into him or the like. Had she been a man, she would have been executed for invading his personal space, but being a woman, his bodyguards simply laughed. In their eyes she was a harmless child that didn't know better.
Equality does not just entail recognizing a person's rights to fair treatment, but also recognizing their integrity and right not to be condescended to.
I'll get off my soapbox in a a second...
So now I'm reading a book called Where Blue Begins that is compared (on the cover) to TKAMB. It took awhile for race to come up in the book and at first I thought that the comparison might be due to its being a book about childhood. The plot line involving three children being raised by a mother with mysterious physical and psychological problems was enough to catch my interest. But then in walks the mulatto. The author uses that word. (Newsflash: no one enjoys being compared to a mule. The PC expression is "mixed").
I'm not ready to pass any sort of moral judgement on this book as of yet. But I will say it was fascinating to read an account of how mysterious this brown-skinned girl was to a new (white) members of a (predominantly white) town and how the (mentally unstable) mother immediately makes it her business to find out who the child's parents are, how they came to have a mixed child, where the black father is, etc. Because clearly one can't have children of unknown racial origin walking the streets without some sort of explanation.
Some people I have just been introduced to (at parties etc) have a tendency to ask me all sorts of personal questions, immediately after learning my name. "So where are you from?" "Where are your parents from?" "So your mother is Swedish?" "Your father is... darkthen?" "Does he live here too?" "How often do you see him?" After fifteen minutes or so they tend to be satisfied with the results of their inquiries and move on, uninterested in who I am outside of racial definitions. Meanwhile I haven't a clue who they are. One of these days I should proceed to question them "So, are you descended from Walloons or Germans?" "Ah, came with the Hansa, did they?" "Does your entire family live in Sweden now?" "Where do your parents live?" "Are they married or divorced?" Not that I am interested, but just to see if I can get them to realize how irrelevant and ridiculously personal their questions are.
But I'm too much of a wuss to do something like that. I feel sorry for them. They tend to mean well. They speak to me, after all. They make conversation about what is actually on their minds. They say "Oh, how interesting/exciting!" They shake my hand. And sometimes I make a new friend.
But I suppose what gets me is that I, personally, was not raised to be concerned about people's ethnical origins. Growing up, I couldn't care less if Anna, Maria, Beth or Joey was oriental, black, brown or Albino, as long as they liked horses. Or dogs. It would never occur to me to start an acquaintance by more or less saying "What the heck are you?!" So what makes people so concerned with these things? Where does it begin? Is it racism if they do not attach any values to what I am, but are simply preoccupied with obtaining a proper explaination of the color of my complexion?
Finished To Kill a Mockingbird the other night. I found it much less horrific than Light in August (by William Faulkner) and other novels that revolve around racial conflict in the American South. It didn't try to sell itself on shock value. Still, I am bothered by a couple of things: despite it's seemingly pacifist message that "To kill a mockingbird is wrong" (because it is "innocent" and all it ever does is sing for our pleasure), it does not follow that killing is wrong. In fact, a man is killed in the book (while he tries to harm two children) and his murder by the hand of a fourth party is considered justified. Because is he is white trash and a racist. So should all racists be shot?
Another thing that bothers me is the mockingbird metaphore, which not only implies that black people are innocents, a type of noble savages that can't held responsible for their actions because they are so simple, but also suggests that, like the mockingbird, black people are devoid of their own positive qualities, aside from that of being able to mock other people, people with real culture, morals and standards. People with their own voice.
It reminds me of a story I heard about a female western journalist who was sent to interview Yassir Arafat or some other leader in the Middle East and mistakenly bumped into him or the like. Had she been a man, she would have been executed for invading his personal space, but being a woman, his bodyguards simply laughed. In their eyes she was a harmless child that didn't know better.
Equality does not just entail recognizing a person's rights to fair treatment, but also recognizing their integrity and right not to be condescended to.
I'll get off my soapbox in a a second...
So now I'm reading a book called Where Blue Begins that is compared (on the cover) to TKAMB. It took awhile for race to come up in the book and at first I thought that the comparison might be due to its being a book about childhood. The plot line involving three children being raised by a mother with mysterious physical and psychological problems was enough to catch my interest. But then in walks the mulatto. The author uses that word. (Newsflash: no one enjoys being compared to a mule. The PC expression is "mixed").
I'm not ready to pass any sort of moral judgement on this book as of yet. But I will say it was fascinating to read an account of how mysterious this brown-skinned girl was to a new (white) members of a (predominantly white) town and how the (mentally unstable) mother immediately makes it her business to find out who the child's parents are, how they came to have a mixed child, where the black father is, etc. Because clearly one can't have children of unknown racial origin walking the streets without some sort of explanation.
Some people I have just been introduced to (at parties etc) have a tendency to ask me all sorts of personal questions, immediately after learning my name. "So where are you from?" "Where are your parents from?" "So your mother is Swedish?" "Your father is... darkthen?" "Does he live here too?" "How often do you see him?" After fifteen minutes or so they tend to be satisfied with the results of their inquiries and move on, uninterested in who I am outside of racial definitions. Meanwhile I haven't a clue who they are. One of these days I should proceed to question them "So, are you descended from Walloons or Germans?" "Ah, came with the Hansa, did they?" "Does your entire family live in Sweden now?" "Where do your parents live?" "Are they married or divorced?" Not that I am interested, but just to see if I can get them to realize how irrelevant and ridiculously personal their questions are.
But I'm too much of a wuss to do something like that. I feel sorry for them. They tend to mean well. They speak to me, after all. They make conversation about what is actually on their minds. They say "Oh, how interesting/exciting!" They shake my hand. And sometimes I make a new friend.
But I suppose what gets me is that I, personally, was not raised to be concerned about people's ethnical origins. Growing up, I couldn't care less if Anna, Maria, Beth or Joey was oriental, black, brown or Albino, as long as they liked horses. Or dogs. It would never occur to me to start an acquaintance by more or less saying "What the heck are you?!" So what makes people so concerned with these things? Where does it begin? Is it racism if they do not attach any values to what I am, but are simply preoccupied with obtaining a proper explaination of the color of my complexion?