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March 30, 2007
Cultural Consciousness
So Toni Morrison's work "Black Matters" raised some questions for me. The first question that immediately came to mind concerns the fact that there are many demographics (African Americans, Native American, the homeless, the poor, etc) who are used "functionally" and "stereotypically" in literature to further/explore a seperate point.
However, as I continued to read and think about her thesis (that Americans' largely naive cultural conciousness of "blackness" enables certain elements of fiction) I began to see that this essay is largely an affront to "modern rascism". Like we talked about in class and Hannah wrote in her blog from a while back, notions and stereotypes - be they directly oppressive or seemingly harmless - pervade our culture. If we could reach the objective of no longer stereotyping and racially profiling African Americans in society, then Morrison's observation would become outdated.
In essence, Morrison addresses the negative aspects of cultural mindset in a way that was new to me. I am looking forward to our class discussion in hopes that we will further the conversation of what it means to stereotype.
One question just to throw out there: Is it ever appropriate to rely on knowlingly rely on cultural perceptions and stereotypes in a literature to prove or explore a theme?
*Also - speaking of cultural conciousness, Bill Gates (being the rich rich man he is) is buying up a very large portion of the nation's potographs to perserve them in a limestone cave that he built under a mountain in Pennslyvannia. (NO JOKE!) This is interesting, I think, because his goal is to "perserve" our society's memories by insuring that the photographs are not destroyed by time. However, these photographs used to be in libraries where anyone could access and see them. Now, in order to see the photographs one must look online and then, if he/she wishes, pruchase a copy. Interesting, I think. Anyway here's the link if anyone is interested in seeing the archives so far: http://pro.corbis.com
Posted by premonp at March 30, 2007 05:57 PM