Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 23:24:17 -0800
From: Amy Lyn Gerbrandt <algerbrandt-AT-ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: black british writers


Considering the points you bring up here, perhaps their ambiguous physical
characteristics/genotypes are precisely a reason to include them.  Is the
point to reinscribe stereotypes or problematize them?  Regardless, both
categorization and the consternation it inspired below suggest that your
students will have much to discuss.  It may be that "poco" terminology's
tendency to circulate around such terms or understand itself to be
transparent is part of the problem.

>I'm intrigued by your inclusion of Rushdie and Kureishi as "black" British
>writers. I'm not an academician, so I'm not familiar with po-co
>terminology, and if black experince is supposed to mean non-white or
>non-establishment, "other" experience, perhaps the rest of this message is
>meaningless. But with his Kashmiri heritage, Rushdie is as "white" as
>whites go; and with his half-Caucasian background, Kureishi, too, can't be
>termed black! Once when I interviewed Rushdie, I asked him if his
>"whiteness" distances him from the larger south Asian community in Britain.
>His reply was, no, it protects him (presumably from skinheads? We were
>talking in early 1980s, the same period as the Brixton/Toxteth riots).
>I don't want to attach too much importance to dermatological discussions
>here, but I'd imagine a discussion on black writing in Britain to deal with
>writers with a Carribean/west African heritage - Emechita, Philips, Okri,
>etc. Possibly you have a sound reason for the inclusion of Rushdie and
>Kureishi.
>
>salil
>
>
>
>
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