Photo of Ralph Ellison
I thought you'd all be interested in this article from Sunday's NYTimes Book Review section entitled "Do Not Pass." As you'll remember, we talked about passing when we read James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. Click here to read this great article by Toure, which references several other key works in the history of passing literature.
That is an interesting article, and it was nice to see Auto-Ex mentioned in something so modern and "hip" as the NY times. However, that being said, is race emphasized too much, even today? I am usually extremely uncomfortable talking about race, just because I try not to put definitions on anyone, and I do consider race to be a definition. So therefore, by saying in today's world that we still have characters, white and black, struggling with who they are, kind of ignore the new ideal that we're all equal? Shouldn't we be color blind? And in that sense, are we still ashamed to admit we're white or black or even polka-dot, just because the trend throughout the decades has been to be?
ReplyDeleteStill, I am interested to read Toure's new book, and see more of his opinions.