Thursday, November 01, 2007

Race and Family Secrets

One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life, Bliss Broyard, Little Brown

Weeks before his death, reknown literary critic Anatole Broyard revealed to his children that he was a black man. While reading One Drop I wondered how many people are “passing” for one ethnicity or another in these times?

In Broyard’s case, her father chose to live without reference to ethnicity.  Of the many issues brought to the forefront of Bliss Broyard’s life, once his secret was revealed, the most challenging of them all was whether or not her father rejected his blackness.

Did he abandon his family and roots in favor of passing as white?  The next most challenging issue was whether or not she herself could truly accomodate her newly discovered “blackness.”

Her father had his own way of seeing himself in the world, he thought that blacks could best “authenticate themselves” by proving that they were “fundamentally different only in appearance.” Anatole Broyard knew, what most blacks know, that darker skin color is a liability for blacks.

Because he was perceived as white, he made use of the priviledges of whiteness for himself and his family. However, his rejection of his blackness is evident in the fact that not even his children knew he was black.  Bliss Broyard was 24 when she was told the family secret.

After seeking out her father’s family and researching the history of New Orleans Creoles, Bliss Broyard painstakingly consumes, but does not assimilate the information she gathers.  She has not really brought herself any closer to answering her own questions of race and identity.

She takes the easy way out.  “I may never be able to answer the question What am I? yet the fault lies not in me, but in the question itself.  And with that realization, that letting go, I can finally say goodbye.”

Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 11/01 at 12:00 PM
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Sunday, October 07, 2007

New Reviews For October 2007

Be on the lookout for new reviews this month:

One Drop: A True Story of Family, Race and Secrets by Bliss Broyard.

Two months before he died of cancer, Bliss Broyard’s father, literary critic Anatole Broyard revealed to his son and daughter that he was black.

Now Bliss Broyard is forced to face her own beliefs and thoughts on racial identity.

The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade by William St Clair

A fascinating look into the castle on the Ghana coastline that served as the slave-trading headquarters for the British empire for 150 years.

Cion by Zakes Mda

The South African author of The Madonna of Excelsior, The Heart of Redness, among others, brings one of his most memorable characters Toloki, from his novel Ways of Dying to Athens, Ohio. Toloki is a professional mourner. He has tired of the sameness of death in his own country. This is Mda’s first novel set in America.

Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 10/07 at 05:23 PM
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Children’s Book News

Carole Boston Weatherford’s book, “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom,” released in September by Jump at the Sun press, is the winner of an NAACP image award; a Caldecott Honor book awarded by The American Library Association; a Coretta Scott King award for illustration.

Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 03/14 at 09:10 AM
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Kansas House Obscenity Bill

Some Kansas legislators want to pass House Bill No. 2200 to censor book choices for Kansas teachers. A Kansas parent group Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools has sought for two years to get the Blue Valley school district to remove 14 books from its curriculum. Some of the titles include “Black Boy,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Song of Solomon.”There’s fear that teachers will censor book choices for classes to avoid legal problems if the bill becomes law.

Posted by Dorothy Ferebee on 03/06 at 08:07 PM
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