OLDER WHITE MAN: I love literature.
ME: I do too. I don't normally do this but I feel like when ppl say they love literature it's always white male writers so...could you name one book by a POC or woman that you enjoyed?
OWM:....um....
ME: ...take your time.
OWM: I don't know. I really like....Hemingway.
ME: Yes, I love the SUN ALSO RISES, OLD MAN AND THE SEA, MOVEABLE FEAST. Not feeling FAREWELL TO ARMS. But anyway, POC or a woman?
OWM: ....hmm.....
ME: Like Alice Munro, she won a Nobel Prize...or Toni Morrison or James Baldwin...Gabriel Garcia Marquez...August Wilson ...just...poetry, Audre Lorde....anything?
OWM: Oh...THE SOUL OF BLACK FOLK.
ME: Ok...ok...WEB DuBois...you know....ok.
-part of me feels like it's rude to ask people who love something to name a POC in their field...and then the other part of me feels like 'fuck that, I know your shit and my shit.' Most POCs are forced to know a wide scope of culture, study Shakespeare, etc. If you claim to love an entire art form, is it weird to only know white people or to struggle to name one POC or woman in a field as huge as literature, tv, film, or theatre?
ME: I do too. I don't normally do this but I feel like when ppl say they love literature it's always white male writers so...could you name one book by a POC or woman that you enjoyed?
OWM:....um....
ME: ...take your time.
OWM: I don't know. I really like....Hemingway.
ME: Yes, I love the SUN ALSO RISES, OLD MAN AND THE SEA, MOVEABLE FEAST. Not feeling FAREWELL TO ARMS. But anyway, POC or a woman?
OWM: ....hmm.....
ME: Like Alice Munro, she won a Nobel Prize...or Toni Morrison or James Baldwin...Gabriel Garcia Marquez...August Wilson ...just...poetry, Audre Lorde....anything?
OWM: Oh...THE SOUL OF BLACK FOLK.
ME: Ok...ok...WEB DuBois...you know....ok.
-part of me feels like it's rude to ask people who love something to name a POC in their field...and then the other part of me feels like 'fuck that, I know your shit and my shit.' Most POCs are forced to know a wide scope of culture, study Shakespeare, etc. If you claim to love an entire art form, is it weird to only know white people or to struggle to name one POC or woman in a field as huge as literature, tv, film, or theatre?
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