Status Updates From Mazywood

I have been so wrapped up in this book I’m like what, why and now who?

Trying so hard to get this arc in before publication date! It is off to a GREAT start, very excited to see where it heads!

Mazelle tells an interviewer that her childhood ended when she was 9 bc of what happened to Aunt Ruby and bc she realized producers thought of her as “a darky” (making her more and more like a minstrel performer)

It’s not enough to change Mazelle’s hair. Now Mr. Lorenzo wants her to work with a white dialect coach to sound more like what he thinks Black people should sound like in films and less like a “prep school student.”

Mr. Lorenzo creates stereotypical and racist presentation of Mazelle and probably other Black actors. He wants her hair messy, “nappy.” Her mother makes it look intentionally neglected. Mazelle is humiliated by it

Mr. Norman thinks Scout (the dog) would make it in films/Hollywood but not Mazelle bc she’s Black

At just 9 years old, Mazelle becomes the key source of income for her family and “learned to spot white men who hated Negroes and white men who loved to do business with Negroes.”