It’s awesome that
two of the books we have read this semester in a class about The Hero’s Journey
have been centered around race conflicts. The intersection between racism and
what it means to be a hero is one filled with ideas that merit meaningful
discussion. Often books written about race are overlooked unless one is in a
class that is designed specifically to discuss them. The applicability of those
books we read to more than just conflicts regarding race is important to
discuss: Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying and
Mansbach’s Angry Black White Boy both
involve idea that definitely go beyond the scope a class just about, for
instance, African-American Literature. Unfortunately, seeing books about race in
classes that do not have race as a focus is even rarer outside Uni. If you were
to look up ‘best writers’ on google, the proportion of black writers is
miniscule next to the proportion of white writers. Mr. Mitchell is vastly
enriching our perception of the world of literature by introducing us to black writers,
and allows us to have conversations that change our understanding of the world.
Last semester I
took African-American Literature. It was an amazing class that opened my eyes
to a diverse range of books that I likely would not have picked up on my own,
and I think I am a better and more informed person for it. However, looking at
books like Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying and
Mansbach’s Angry Black White Boy from
the perspective of analysis regarding a hero’s journey, I have realized
something that I missed before. My African-American Literature blog post
way back in November argued that although Hurston may have been conveying an
accurate depiction of life of African-Americans in the south, her book may
serve to promote racial stereotypes rather than to change them. However, I now realize
that what I found so strange then was that her book was the only book by a
black author I had read that didn’t focus on race. Race played a subtler role
in the book, and it wasn’t huge and in your face like the other books by black
writers. I now think maybe that was her point: to create a book that broke the
norm of black writers writing about race.
Then the question
is, why don’t we see more black writers following the path of writing books
that do not focus on race? Well, that isn’t that hard to answer: not only are
the problems regarding race interesting to talk about, they affect almost
everyone, even white people. Also, inspiration for writing often comes from a
personal connection to an idea, which is defiantly true for any person who experiences
the effects of entrenched oppression daily. Because topics about race are so
interesting and important to discuss, they end up becoming the core of novels
written by black writers.
And this is where
I see a problem. Themes about race outcompete others for discussion. In our
classes while we were reading Gaines’ A
Lesson Before Dying or Mansbach’s Angry
Black White Boy were completely dominated by discussion about race rather
than discussion about the hero’s journey. Yes, we did talk about the hero’s
journey regarding Mansbach’s Angry Black
White Boy, but we spent a much greater proportion of the time on talking
about race. Most of the days spent on Mansbach’s Angry Black White Boy were more reminiscent of my African-American
Literature class than one about the Hero’s Journey. That is not to say that
those books are only about race: Angry Black White Boy is an amazing
satire of the hero’s journey that merits weeks rather than days of discussion. But
though we did talk more about the hero’s journey when discussing Angry Black White Boy than A Lesson Before Dying, through no fault
of our own, we ended up mainly talking about race. Isn’t ironic that other than
the book that purposely breaks the mold, Mansbach’s Angry Black White Boy is the only one on race that is written by a
white person? I think this dynamic can be generalized to in part explain the lack
of black writers in classrooms or on ‘best writer’ lists. Books by black
authors are almost solely talked about in terms of race, so they are sort of
set aside in their own category.
What do you think
(if you made it this far)? Are most books by black writers only discussed in
terms of their comments about race? Is there an invisible veil that blinds us
to topics other than racism? Are there invisible chains that bind black writers
to the topics of racism?
