Writing About Race: Do I Have The Right?
Writing is an intimate act. This goes without saying, but because I am self-important, I decided to say it. Anyway, the point is that I’m going to be vulnerable for a moment: I cried while watching the movie Juno. One of the biggest struggles I face as a writer is writing non-White characters. This is second only to writing about writing about non-White characters.
I spent three years as an English major, where every other class dealt with post-colonial literature. My capstone class dealt with miscegenation and mixed-race identity. In grad school, I worked to create a teacher education program that prepared White suburban teachers to teach in “urban” schools. I taught for six years in Chicago at schools that were 100% Black and Latino. I wrote a book about teaching in such a school, with major characters that are Black and Latino. I asked two Black coworkers to read some passages to vet my presentation of the characters.
Yet I unceasingly question myself and my ability to talk about race. Here’s part of the reason why: I once wrote “colored students” in a college essay. I meant students of color, but I wrote it the other way. I never knew the way I originally wrote it was considered so offensive. My professor gently corrected me. Now I know.
During a conversation about a Black rapper, who was a Muslim, I said this: “He must have converted in prison.” I know, I know. I shudder as I recount this tale from college. Again, I was quickly, sternly, yet lovingly corrected by a Black friend. It was a truly dumb comment on my part, but it was a prejudicial view I needed to get exorcised. Now I know.
I once flippantly said “si se puede” when talking with three Latino students about a problem at our school. Si se puede means ‘It can be done’ and was popularized by the famous Mexican-American civil rights leader Cesar Chavez. In the context I used it, I was minimizing the phrase, almost appropriating it, honestly. They shook their heads, and one of them said “that’s kind of offensive, Mr. B.” Fortunately, my rapport was such that they forgave me the instant I apologized. Now I know.
This brings me to the first challenge.
Challenge 1: My limitations.
I have my biases and blind spots. I see life through my own eyes, even if I can temporarily transplant others’ through literature and dialogue. There is privilege in being White (no matter how many of our uncles and their favorite pundits say otherwise), and with this recognition I question whether I have the right, as a White teacher and author, to write a story about the stories of my non-White students and peers.
If the syntax and word-choice of that previous sentence annoyed you, let me rephrase: I worry that I am just another White man writing a story that should be told by underrepresented voices. There are amazing contemporary authors that are writing incredible texts that shape the discourse around race. People like Angie Thomas, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cristina Henriquez, Zadie Smith, Sandra Cisneros, and Julia Alvarez.
So I wonder: where do I fit in and can I enter this conversation? To the second question, I felt the exigence of my experience compelling enough to wade into the waters. My novel portrays some of the microaggressions, faulty thinking, and power structures that have frayed relations in our diversifying communities. But it wasn’t easy writing, not just because I spent an hour (not exaggerating) researching and debating with myself whether I should capitalize White and Black. In the back of my mind, I understand this truth: there are people who are more powerful storytellers because of their experiences, just like there are more effective teachers because of their backgrounds.
Challenge 2: Capturing the language of my students.
My students spoke in African American Vernacular and English with Spanish sprinkled throughout. At first, I did not think twice about presenting the differences in speech pattern. I wrote the novel while teaching in Chicago, so I simply wrote the sentences I heard daily from my students. Being removed from that culture for two years now, I start to worry it will be seen as negatively representing Black and Latino teens, never mind that there are many different ways of speaking and that not all Black Americans speak in AAV, nor do all Latino students speak Spanish. But still, I fear those who do not know me will think I am writing based on a stereotype.
Here’s another language challenge: slang. It is an ever-changing jargon often based on colloquial affiliation, and the ability to present it depends on timing and audience. For example, writing “fo’ shizzle dizzle” shows a level of ignorance because, 1) That was sooo 2000s, 2) Really only Snoop Doggy Dogg Lion spoke that way, and 3) It was usually used as cultural appropriation by White suburbanites with sagging pants, backward ball caps, and bloated trust funds.
But my students often said “tweakin’” (sometimes two or three times over the course of a seventy minute class). They said “they finna” go somewhere or do something. They said things like “he blew me” (not sexual), “whatchu on” (not literally), “Aight, merch” (bet on it). I loved the language, but I knew full well it wasn’t mine to speak. But could I write it into my characters? That’s the question I struggled with, in addition to my concern about capturing the beauty and authenticity of their slang without making them into hollow caricatures.
Challenge 3: Portraying the systemic racism I may/may not be complicit in.
In my novel, the protagonist is White. This made it a little easier since the role of the protagonist in this satire is to reveal the prejudices of the staff and the racism inherent in our country’s system of education. I am writing what I know: a White teacher in a schooling system that heavily favors affluent White children. However, there’s a tension that I, through the main character, become aware of: in using the Black and Latino students to satisfy my purpose (in the novel, overthrowing the administration. In this article, justifying my novel’s socio-political importance), am I exploiting the students?
In the story, Dieter stirs the students to rebellion by pointing to the racial discrimination they face. He does this so he can become principal. As the story progresses, he realizes that, unwittingly, the students have been equipped to advocate for themselves. So does the positive outcome of student-led activism validate Dieter’s manipulation? If I wrote a story that challenges our assumptions of educational equality, but use the stories and identities of my students to do so, am I exploiting them?
And now that I’m aware of these inequalities, am I doing all I can to rectify them? Is simply writing a novel about it enough? Does the novel accurately portray the problem? Will people read it and think that I am advocating for a singular solution that may or may not actually be helping? Am I even an expert that is qualified enough to satirize the education system in America? Was I an educator that challenged this system or went along with it? Will I send my daughter to a private school? Is that betraying the public schools by supporting private education? Why am I currently teaching at a private school instead of a public school? What if my students would have been better served by a teacher of their own race? Was my place at the school hindering the hire of a qualified educator of color?
[Visualize me rocking back and forth in anxiety as I type these questions.]
[Thirty minutes later.]
Sorry, back to the original point.
Most days I’m happy with my novel, just like I was mostly content with my teaching while in Chicago. But I am also a catastrophist, and I am wont to wallow in imposter syndrome. There have been more than a few nights where I lose sleep wondering if I didn’t just write 298 pages of offensive content. It doesn’t help googling articles about whether White writers should/can accurately present Black and Latino characters. Most articles said something along the lines of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” But then I found hope in a writer from the 1940s.
Lula Carson Smith, pseudonym Carson McCullers, wrote the book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which received this review from Richard Wright:
To me the most impressive aspect of “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” is the astonishing humanity that enables a white writer, for the first time in Southern fiction, to handle Negro characters with as much ease and justice as those of her own race. This cannot be accounted for stylistically or politically; it seems to stem from an attitude toward life which enables Miss McCullers to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness.
(https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/white-writer) ← This is not MLA citation, and though I teach it, I will say that citations can suck it are annoying.
This is the dream review of any author writing a story featuring characters beyond their racial, religious, socio-economic, you-name-it experiences.
Wright’s words represent the hope that I have for my writing: that I present my students with as much justice as those from their own race; that I do not repackage their distinct individuality into tiny stereotypes; that I portray their language and realities as authentically as possible; that the sincere inequalities and discrimination my students and friends face shine through the profanity and penis jokes that comprise much of my humor.
But I can only hope. That’s why, through my novel and through this article, I am opening myself to feedback, not for my ego but for my own education.
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