white men

I'm taking a writing class at the college where I work and had my mind blown this week by an insight of the teacher's. We read two pieces: one from the beginning of "Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise" by Michelle Cliff, a Jamaican-American writer who was educated in New York City and London. The other an introduction to the book "Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson, an American writer.

Cliff's piece starts as a series of fragments about camouflage: how a ground lizard blends into its background and how they would startle her when they made their presence known. She says "...this camouflage exists for its protection. I am not what I seem to be."

Then she goes into fragmented memories from Jamaica: her childhood - poor, being told by her mom that she was lucky to be light-skinned, that she didn't need to be telling anyone otherwise. That "passing" was the ideal. That no one needed to know about her dark-skinned great grandfather.

This is the start of her story: background information. Pages of it.

The beginning of Johnson's story jumps right into it: he and his two friends had completed a robbery. One friend got hurt, and the other two dropped him off at the hospital anonymously. Because of this, the friend was busted while the other two got away.

Both very compelling introductions. The teacher asked us what was different about them, and we came up with things like...one was fragmented, one was narrative. One was background, one was a story.

"Who is the narrator of Jesus' Son?" he asked.

Long pause...was it a trick question?

Finally, I said, a bit hesitantly, "Denis Cooper, right?"

"Right," he said. "And who is Denis Cooper?"

No one said anything.

"He's a white man." He looked out at us. "And you all assumed he was a white man, right?"

My jaw dropped, and I nodded...and the rest of the class, a fairly diverse group, nodded too.

Point being, Michelle Cliff didn't have the luxury of jumping straight into the narrative. She had to explain herself, everything about herself, because her story is not the one we hear over and over again to the point that it becomes engrained.

My lifetime of training was exposed...and I think it is going to really change the way I read and write. I suppose if there were a hierarchy, straight white men are at the top, followed by straight white women, followed by the rest of the world. In what order, I don't know, but at least I'll be paying attention now. Hurray for education!