Many readers of Huckleberry Finn enjoy laughing at Miss Watson’s approach to teaching Huck. She tries to use the Bible to scare him into good behavior, insists that he sit still, and prohibits him from smoking and drinking. Romantics that we are, we make fun of her educational philosophy and find her a hypocrite, especially […]
Tag Archives: racism
Defending Miss Watson
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Class, Education, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, slavery Comments closed
Mockingbird, Powerful but Problematic
Harper Lee National Public Radio reminded me yesterday that this summer is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I have written a couple of times about the book, once talking about its importance to me growing up in the segregated south and once examining Malcolm Gladwell’s critique of […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Harper Lee, Malcolm Gladwell, Race, To Kill a Mockingbird Comments closed
Uncomfortable Books that Help Us Grow
Streep and Kline in Sophie’s Choice A recent survey of the Tea Party movement has revealed that the movement is overwhelmingly white, educated, middle class and conservative, and people are now studying what it all means. I love this post Ta-Tehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic. As occurs in the world of the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aruhdhati Roy, Diversity, Emily Bronte, God of Small Things, Human Stain, Native Son, Philip Roth, politics, Richard Wright, Sophie's Choice, Tea Party, William Styron, Wuthering Heights Comments closed
Satirizing the Intolerant
Daniel Defoe My daughter-in-law sent me a wonderful poem by Daniel Defoe, “A True Born Englishman,” posted by Andrew Sullivan in response to a Patrick Buchanan editorial. Buchanan’s column was one of those hateful “they’re taking our country away from us” pieces, and Sullivan rightly asks who this “us” is. As Sullivan’s translates it, Buchanan is […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "True Born Englishman", Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Nationalism, Tom Jones Comments closed
A Slave Novel about Race Today
Harriet Tubman, inspiration for the heroine About our “One Maryland One Book” discussion at Leonardtown Library on Thursday, I’m sorry to report that (as expected) we didn’t pull in anyone other than our book group regulars. The good news is that that group appears as solid as ever and we had a very good conversation […]
Lifting Ev’ry Voice in Church
Let me end this series of posts concerning racism in America on an up note. This past Sunday I was singing in the Trinity Episcopal Church choir (in St. Mary’s City, Maryland) and we concluded the service with a rousing rendition of hymn 599, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the black […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Episcopalian Church, James Weldon Johnson, Lift Every Voice and Sing, segregation Comments closed
Nuanced Race Talk Savaged by a Cleaver
Given the uptick in racist language and increased enrollment in white supremacist groups since Barack Obama’s election, I’m going to devote one or two more posts to racism in America and then give the subject a rest for a bit. Today I want to return to my shift from southern race relations to northern when […]
Redemption through Interracial Friendship
I write today about the father of Andre Dubus III, whose House of Sand and Fog I looked at last week. The elder Andre Dubus, now dead, is one of my favorite short story writers, and his novella Deaths at Sea came to my aid when I felt twisted and turned by racial tension. I […]
How Racism Sullies Everything
If race has been the subject of these past two weeks of posting it is because, as a Sherrilyn Ifil article notes in the on-line publication Root, we are having a hard time talking about race this summer, what with the furor over the Sonia Sotomayor nomination and the Henry Louis Gates affair. I haven’t […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, Harper Lee, Oroonoko, slavery, To Kill a Mockingbird Comments closed
