When I was in England studying for my degree in Women’s
Studies, I decided to take a class about autobiographies written by women. I
thought it would be a great way to learn more about the art of autobiography
within a literary context, especially as my thesis would expound on this
genre. I excitedly looked over the class
syllabus and anticipated the discussions we’d be having over works by Maxine
Hong Kingston, Maya Angelou, and Margery Kempe to name a few. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when
class began and my classmates declared that they couldn’t relate to I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and therefore felt that they couldn’t
contribute to the discussion.
It didn’t
make any sense to me why they didn’t want to dissect this book; after all, we
were English majors and that was what we did.
The penny finally dropped when someone admitted that being “white” and
“British” precluded them from talking about a book written by an
African-American woman. Race was the
issue. I couldn’t believe it. Since when did you have to be
African-American to understand a book by an African-American author? Did this mean that my interpretation of Pride
and Prejudice was invalid because I was Latina and not British? Suffice it to say, that day in class was
eye-opening for me. Not only did I
realize how my classmates perceived me as being “other” and “different”, but I
quickly surmised how much they lacked in their understanding of the need for
diversity in books.
Authors of color are
integral in helping to provide us with an array of opinions and perspectives
about different cultures, races, and religions.
We need to read diversely in order to learn more about the world around
us. How else are we going to begin to
relate to one another, if we can’t even connect on a literary level? Books are the perfect means for encouraging
and promoting diversity. After all,
isn’t the point of reading to escape from our own insular world and read about
someone else’s?
So true, books are colorblind. They don't discriminate against readers so why should readers discriminate against a book written by an author of a different race? I love reading about other cultures and as an Indian American, I'm a bit flabergasted like you were at your fellow students responses about not being able to comment on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
ReplyDeleteI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings can make people uncomfortable, but that is a good thing in my opinion. We need to know about those "other" worlds out there. We need to know that life is not all rainbows and puppies; that bad things happen. The more we know, the more we can understand differences and not be scared by it. We simply need more diverse books! Thanks for sharing this story!
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