Nora’s Comments (group member since Mar 23, 2012)

Nora’s comments from the Black and White and Read All Over group.

Hi, Rosalie. So glad you found this group. How did you come across it? I'll look for your book. I admire the idea of a panel--very smart.

Dialect! My objection to it in The Help (and others) is that the white people didn't speak in it. Or if they do, then the writer forgets to drop the g's and do odd things with spellin.

Rosalie, I'm sorry to be late picking up your comments. What an experience that must have been. Personally, I think that reconciliation is coming generation by generation. I'm 61, grew up in NC, both of my parents grew up in rural GA. They overcame the prejudices (at least the overt, expressed prejudices) of their childhood. They raised their children without poisoning us and my niece and nephews may never have heard of Jim Crow. But I am aware of the insidious bigotry that we absorb from culture, unawares. Not denying it. Yet I think we are getting there. And then Sarah Palin says POTUS shucks and jives. Oy.

Thanks, Hamilton. I'd really like to get some good discussions going here. If you have friends who might like to participate, would you please make them aware of the group? Cheers.

It does, Hamilton. Another thought: we have to get over putting people into that category, "them," or "those people." We may not be able to comprehend Hitler or murders, but we'd better not refuse to call them human.

A reliable friend recommended--no, insisted that I read--Wolf Whistle. It's a novel based on the Emmett Till murder. A white man, Lewis Nordan, wrote it. I bought the book. It sat in plain sight on the top of my "to read" pile for months. I'd take the next book down, but was afraid to touch it. Finally, I yanked myself up and opened the book. It's brilliant, in my opinion. Here's the thing: it makes the murders comprehensible. They're horrible, but they're human. Is that a bad thing? Suppose Hitler was humanized?

I am a fiction writer, a white woman, and I have black characters. What does it take for a reader to believe in an other-race character?