A Book: "The Color of Water"
Nov. 20th, 2016 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI just finished reading a book called The Color of Water.
Wow.
Also how do those white nationalists talk about an America that is a safe space for those of European ancestry without realizing that an awful lot of people of color *have* European ancestry? I mean, I knew this intellectually before--one of my favorite series is the Free Man of Color series by Barbara Hambly, set in pre-Civil War New Orleans, and that is basically the background of the book--but "The Color of Water" is a memoir of a black man interleaved with the memoir of his white mother and his investigations into her past, and the people he meets as a consequence. Somehow it highlights the issue more for me, I guess. In part it may be that his mother's ethnic identity is (for me, anyway) at least as strong as African American. It doesn't make sense that I think of most white ethnic identities as being weaksauce--I am of Dutch descent, for example, and I honor that, but it doesn't affect my daily life much (aside from learning Dutch, I suppose)--but I kind of do.
Anyway, I guess I am rambling.
Books. They can expand your world. My world is under expansion; please excuse the sawdust.
Wow.
Also how do those white nationalists talk about an America that is a safe space for those of European ancestry without realizing that an awful lot of people of color *have* European ancestry? I mean, I knew this intellectually before--one of my favorite series is the Free Man of Color series by Barbara Hambly, set in pre-Civil War New Orleans, and that is basically the background of the book--but "The Color of Water" is a memoir of a black man interleaved with the memoir of his white mother and his investigations into her past, and the people he meets as a consequence. Somehow it highlights the issue more for me, I guess. In part it may be that his mother's ethnic identity is (for me, anyway) at least as strong as African American. It doesn't make sense that I think of most white ethnic identities as being weaksauce--I am of Dutch descent, for example, and I honor that, but it doesn't affect my daily life much (aside from learning Dutch, I suppose)--but I kind of do.
Anyway, I guess I am rambling.
Books. They can expand your world. My world is under expansion; please excuse the sawdust.
