Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 13:44:59 -0400 From: Barron <gebarron-AT-InfoAve.Net> Subject: Re: PLC: Fairness to Faulkner On 8/9/00 8:37 AM Howard Hastings wrote: > Blacks can be identified by a distinct odor. If > whites can, still they are not. Yes they are. ....McCaslin with a lamp entered the back room where Boon slept-the little, tight, airless room with the smell of Boon's rank unwashed body.... >And we can imagine how black readers > might feel in reading such passages in the work of a great American > novelists. How does it make white people feel? Finally, and to get away from the smell subject, I do feel that Faulkner was a racist as determined by today's standards. I feel that his racism is often magnified by the realism of his black and racist characters though. What seems interesting to me, however, is that because he was a white southerner we don't seem to look at his treatment of his white characters as a racial group. I am widely read in Faulkner and reflecting back on his white characters there are very few who warrant any admiration. They are often heroic and epic, tragic and larger than life, but very few are admirable. Most are despicable, greedy, ignorant, brutal, ambitious, racist, rapists arrogant, petty, pitiable and deeply flawed. Why do these white protagonists and antagonists usually stand in the criticism as examples on "mankind" or "humanity" and not just whites? Why are their characterisitics so often shared with all men and not attributed simply to their race as caucasians? Whereas a black character who is lazy is an indictment of all blacks? Or a black woman who simple perseveres is just an example of the author's paternalistic pride? Is it purely because Faulkner is white? Why don't critics examine Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston's work for racism against whites? Why isn't a black man's scent in _Their Eyes Were Watching God_ and example of racism? Hurston and Ernest Gaines both have very stereotypical white characters. When Morrison writes about white brutaility against blacks we accept it like we would a slave narrative but when Faulkner does it it exposes his racism. I think the truth is that all of these authors have racist tendancies, some are just villainized more than others. I often feel some authors are villainized in academia simply because they are white and canonized. Is this possible? Am I way off base here? -- Barron --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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