Tayari's Blog: My Post- The Color Purple Complex
Posted by TayariJones on February 19, 2008 10:16 PM
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I have a guest post up at Persephone Speaks, the blog for Kore Press. The essay stems from an recent enounter on an airplane:
A few months ago, before the media coverage of Clinton/Obama contest pressured black women to decide if we are "women" before we are "black," I sat beside a black man on an airplane. Since such close quarters lend themselves to small talk, he asked me what I do for a living.
“I’m a writer,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “What do you write? Romances?”
“Nope.”
He gave me a sideways glance. “So you have a problem with men?”
Read the rest. Leave a comment on our home blog if you like, but comments over at Persephone Speaks are welcome as well.
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There are 2 comments on "My Post- The Color Purple Complex". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.
Comment #1, by Honoree ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.tayarijones.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
Boy, Tayari, I don't know whether to be mad that this thing is happening to other Black women besides me, or to be happy I'm not crazy--well, I might be crazy, but not over this!
What you describe is the quintessential Black woman's conundrum, I guess; we love "the brothers" and we love ourselves and wonder why those two loves must be mutually exclusive. It's even more difficult for Black female creative writers, dealing with the angels/devils perched on our shoulders at 3:00Am when we're trying to develop Black male character who are both realistic and "a credit their race."
BTW, you know what would have happened if you had mentioned you were a feminst to the brother on the plane.?THEN he would have asked, "So what does that mean anyway? Define that for me." And THEN you would have had to tap dance and tell him that you really, really like Black men--again-- and let you count the ways why. And being strong doesn't mean not being feminine. And so on and so forth. Ha!
Anyway, I thought your essay was beatifully written and quite timely. You should write some more about this!
February 20, 2008 04:52 PM
Comment #2, by Alicia
The old idea of "Don't air your dirty laundry" is what I always think about with the Alice Walker and similar criticism. Lots of people in the African-American community believe it is important to present a unified front to the larger lighter skin tone world and publishing a novel like "A Color Purple" takes these issues outside of the community. Just think about Nella Larsen and Jessie Fauset who had even more censure placed on their writing because at the time they had to write "race" novels that had to exemplify and dealt with "progressing the race". Larsen went on to write novels like "Quicksand" which tackles religion and sex. Also she went head to head with the Black middle class in "Passing". And there's my favorite "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston who refused all standards. I love the essay collection "I Love Myself When I'm Laughing and Then Again When I'm Looking Mean and Impressive".
Now was the man on the plane cute? Did he have a wedding ring? And did he have on good shoes?
February 22, 2008 12:29 AM