Sigh.
I just finally got to the end of Valmiki's Daughter, by Shani Mootoo, who I adore.
I am sad.
Blame it on forgetting to take my mood meds for 2 days, or blame it on me being an overly-invested reader with high demands for an ending that makes me feel better about the world, but I'm freakin' sad. Yelling "WHY? Why Snoofy, WHYYY?" from my room is not helping the logical conclusion of the book to stop stinging my soul.
After work yesterday I was a bit of an open wound, and I thought I could maybe retreat into the book and hope Viveka (one of the main characters) could be an extension of me in the fictional world and maybe something great would happen to her.
Spoiler alert:
not so much.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Monday, April 12, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
mix! intertwine! blend! combine!
I want to collect up a kind of fountainous list of writings, art, storytelling, performance and poetry coming from the experiences of mixed race folks. I read ravenously, write with my guts akimbo, paint wildly and don't often enough bump into created characters whose experiences of their identities come from often dichotomized places, mishmashes, mixtures of so many experiences but also entirely new ones.
Bein' mixy: there is no single way to describe "the" experience of being mixed, even though I have been asked to, and then been seen as difficult for not being able to answer. A close friend once asked me something about my understanding of myself as a mixed race person as a child, and when I said I guess I never even got a glimpse of the concept until I was older. I just knew I was "different" from everybody else, but there were lots of things that made me different, so how was I supposed to unpack that bundle? Unless they, too, come from mixed ancestry, parents don't often sit their li'l mixy kids down and say things like "mmmkay. So you're 'mixed race' and sometimes people might not get that. People can be racist, colourist, snobby, bring up Tiger Woods a lot, ask you 'what you are', ask you 'where you're from' as a way to mean 'why are you the colour you are', claim you aren't _____ enough, claim you're too ________, and they may frequently dis' your wild hair! But you know what? Fuck 'em, you rock just they way you are." (Although I might give my future little mixy kid(s) a pep talk of that nature, but with more practical tools and less swearing some day in the future when they exist)
At present, my mixy list is fairly wee, but here it is. If you have things to add, please post them in a comment, I would love to check out new stuff!
Caucasia by Danzy Senna
Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo
Colonize This! (An anthology)
Consensual Genocide by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Fireweed Mixed Race Issue
Double Agent - (song!) by Amanda Marshall
...And there has to be more, as these are just things here in my room!
(Goodness, my room! what a great segue into a closing statement of "I need to tidy my room, post haste, if I ever in good conscience want anybody other than my cat to be interested in hanging out in it with me.")
Bein' mixy: there is no single way to describe "the" experience of being mixed, even though I have been asked to, and then been seen as difficult for not being able to answer. A close friend once asked me something about my understanding of myself as a mixed race person as a child, and when I said I guess I never even got a glimpse of the concept until I was older. I just knew I was "different" from everybody else, but there were lots of things that made me different, so how was I supposed to unpack that bundle? Unless they, too, come from mixed ancestry, parents don't often sit their li'l mixy kids down and say things like "mmmkay. So you're 'mixed race' and sometimes people might not get that. People can be racist, colourist, snobby, bring up Tiger Woods a lot, ask you 'what you are', ask you 'where you're from' as a way to mean 'why are you the colour you are', claim you aren't _____ enough, claim you're too ________, and they may frequently dis' your wild hair! But you know what? Fuck 'em, you rock just they way you are." (Although I might give my future little mixy kid(s) a pep talk of that nature, but with more practical tools and less swearing some day in the future when they exist)
At present, my mixy list is fairly wee, but here it is. If you have things to add, please post them in a comment, I would love to check out new stuff!
Caucasia by Danzy Senna
Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo
Colonize This! (An anthology)
Consensual Genocide by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Fireweed Mixed Race Issue
Double Agent - (song!) by Amanda Marshall
...And there has to be more, as these are just things here in my room!
(Goodness, my room! what a great segue into a closing statement of "I need to tidy my room, post haste, if I ever in good conscience want anybody other than my cat to be interested in hanging out in it with me.")
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