African American Literature

So upon reading a post linked by blogspot Mixed Race America, I starting thinking. HMMMMM!



The article posted on website Matador Change (link should be attached in this article), the writer has an epiphany about white privilege when walking into a bookstore and noticing an 'African American Literature' section. From this point on she asks question about the implications behind having one's own section and what it says about white privilege. While I commend her for finally realizing her privilege and challenging others to do so. I am not impressed.

I mean after years of probably going to a bookstore you now notice a section titled 'African American Literature'. The question she should have posted is, "what took me so long to notice?"

Now the question she post can be easily answered by any person of color. For instance, to the question--"Does it mean that the experience of African American is not relevant to the typical, white fiction reader?"
Of course its not, Writing is often about one's own personal expierneces and readership comes when people can relate to that expiernece. PoC have different experiences which are based on, in some cases, how close they appear in whiteness. A light skin black person, Hispanic person or less ethnic Asian that can pass as white will not come across the same kind of discrimination as their racial counterpart of a darker complexion or more ethnic look, however the essence of discrimination is understandable. There is no one "African American experience" nor one singular experience for any person, for that matter, but there is a solidarity in similar experiences. So for the white reader in either cases the experiences are not relative, and furthermore is not relevant and therefore is often ignored.

This writer also puts to question if having this type of display a luxury?
I do not believe that being singled out of the mainstream is a luxury, however it has evolved into a well-known genre of its own. When African American writers first began publishing, they were probably denied the "luxury" of having their books sit beside Hemingway and Plath. So they had to do what PoC often have to do, create their own space. Out of this space sprung a genre that is very popular, and often easy to find if your looking for it.

So just look! There is so much out there.
I realize that this blog is directed at those WP's that are oblivious to white privilege who are willing to have their eyes open. But I think the final message of the article is that they have the choice to shut their eyes. They have a choice which many of us do not have.