|
|
Post by hannahlewman on Apr 16, 2014 23:14:42 GMT
Hello lovely group! Let's discuss privilege and place in July's People.
|
|
|
|
Post by hannahlewman on Apr 16, 2014 23:28:25 GMT
When I saw this prompt, and even when I read this novel, something was playing over and over in my head. This poem by Adam Falker is so perfectly fitting and so important even in the larger social context, I really think you all should watch it (jump to a minute in, you don't have to hear his intro if you don't want to): www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BodYLppLk#aid=P8UZmrPdTMAIn many ways the Smales are just like Falker. They aren't racist per say but not thinking about race, feeling no need to shake the ant farm that lets them thrive, that is their privilege. Not questioning why she had someone to carry her things, that is Maureen's privilege. Never questioning the power dynamic between themselves and July until that power dynamic is flipped on its head, that is the Smales' privilege. To reference place, place reinforces privilege and privilege reinforces place. They have a symbiotic relationship, they feed each other. But when place changes, as it does in this novel, the relationship crumbles and the very skeleton of the power dynamic is exposed. |
|
alice
New Member
Posts: 30 
|
Post by alice on Apr 17, 2014 2:15:29 GMT
That's a great piece. Rival only to it's following youtube comment, "Unreal poem swag".
I think the difference between the Smales and Falker is that he sort of tried to become and experience the other side of privilege whereas the Smales retained more of their sense of privilege. They too fully accepted their privilege (not that they realized others could be above them) so when it switched, they were stunned and naked of their past comforts.
Their new place reflects this nakedness that they're feeling as well as it serves as a place they are completely unfamiliar. July, however, is familiar with both the Smales' locale as well as his own; with this he has another upper hand.
|
|
|
|
Post by clairem on Apr 17, 2014 4:49:25 GMT
Wow that poem is amazing. This whole idea of privilege and race and Falkner's struggle with race remind me of Zora Neal Hurston's book, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" in which the main character, Janie, doesn't realize she has black skin until she is about nine years old when people started to treat her differently. It is truly a privilege, as the Smales prove and Falkner reveals to "not have to think about something." The Smales were definitely caught off guard when the dynamic in their lives changed and made them question their superiority and the extent of their privileges.
|
|
|
|
Post by Anna M. on Apr 17, 2014 20:02:53 GMT
Like your groups convo about privilege. I totally agree that the Smales are privileged because they were able to live day to day without questioning why they had a place above the Africans in their days to day lives. Maureen always assumed that July was content working for them. There is a quote somewhere near the end of the book where she mentions that she believes July would have grown old with her and Bam if they didn't have to run. She doesn't consider that July might have a ambition to do and be something else. Her privilege allows her to give July a place in her community. Throughout the book it is clear that the Smales struggle with no longer having the same level of place and privilege. I will elaborate more tonight I can't find the specific quote i'm looking for  |
|
|
|
Post by racheladele on Apr 19, 2014 21:27:43 GMT
Going to Haiti last week made me think a lot about privilege, and brought up some questions in my mind about the way we live our lives. I also noticed quite a few parallels between my experience and that of the Smales. It’s going to a new and very different place, where people live in much simpler ways with fewer material possessions. This does not mean, however, that they are unhappy or live pathetic, unorganized lives. We read of the women going to the fields to harvest, and the men hunting boars, and then they use what they have. It’s very different from going to the grocery store, but it’s structure. I saw the same thing in Haiti, when the people raise cows and goats, and I could see people planting/ harvesting crops on the mountainsides. It is a privilege here in America for us to have cars and be able to go to the grocery store and hand the cashier a plastic card, or piece of paper, in exchange for provisions. It’s a privilege we are born into.
My first worry as we drove through Port-au-Prince was that the locals would resent us, the only white people on the street (obviously American), for our money and our lives. I had to tell myself to remember that people have no control over the situation they are born into. In the novel, the Smales didn't choose to be well-off, and they, like July's family, can only make the best of the situation they have been given. They don’t exactly do this, because they are not consciously appreciative or grateful for what they have before they lose it all.
In my opinion, we in Lake Oswego are very privileged, but I also think that privilege is subjective. For the Haitians, there are levels of being well-off that are much different than ours. For example, a man walked past us up the mountain one day and he had four goats and a cow on "leashes" made of rope. That is considered one level of wealth in Haiti; owning animals. My group questioned a girl who moved from Portland to Haiti 6 months ago, asking if there was a number of animals that represented a higher social class, and she replied that animals are food, and you're considered wealthy if you've been to America.
In July's village, there are varying levels of privilege. We see that in the simple fact that they have a chief; someone separate and higher. When the Bakkie and the gun are brought to the village - signs of wealth and advancement - people who use them suddenly gain a higher place.
It must have been very odd for July, changing back and forth between two very different lives for so many years. He speaks to his wife about his circumstance at the residence of the Smales when he worked for them. (I remember reading this part but I’ve looked through the book a couple times and I can’t find it.) This also brings up the question of race/class, because although July gets functional, private living quarters (which is something no one in his village has access to), it is separate from the family. Again, the subjectivity and levels of privilege.
|
|
joelk
New Member
Posts: 36 
|
Post by joelk on Apr 20, 2014 19:38:35 GMT
To extend the ideas we've got so far, I think that it seems we agree privilege is not questioning one's place. In essence, then, privilege is the ignorance of a defined or malleable class structure. And if we are/were willing to connect privilege to ignorance, then I'd take that one step further and connect it to childhood.
It seems that the most privileged characters in the novel are the children, regardless of race. They find contentment and happiness wherever they may be. Even at the very end of the novel, after Gina and Victor and Royce have been without the comforts they used to know for so long, they seem to be happy. In the final chapter, Gordimer writes, "The little girls [Gina and Nyiko] smile and don't speak before the others; their friendship is too deep and secret for that," and "The two boys squeeze the scrapings of the mealie-meal pot into dirty balls and bait the hooks…they murmur in the harmony of their absorption…Royce does (still) his little boy's dance of excitement….Victor is seen to clap his hands…" (Gordimer 157). Gordimer also mentions what seems to be this happy ignorance of childhood when Maureen revisits the bakkie, "[Maureen] scraped crust with the aimless satisfaction of childhood, when there is nothing to do but what presents itself" (93).
Similarly, we see childhood compared to privilege when Bam goes hunting for warthogs. Gordimer writes, "All the old games, the titillation with killing-and-not-killing, the honour of shooting only on the wing, the pretence of hide-and-seek invented to make killing a pleasure, were in another kind of childhood he had been living in to the age of forty, back there" (77).
If the novel is about culture and racism and what happens when you flip such a strict social pyramid upside down, then I think privilege and place does two things. First, it imparts the themes and characterizations of Bam and Maureen's new life to the reader in the sort of archetypal/understandable method of a "coming of age" story. Bam and Maureen are adults, but they live in privileged unquestioning routine until this point in their lives. Second, or perhaps still a part of that first impact, the contrast between the adults Smales' lost privilege and the continuation, largely, of the children's happiness suggests that the unhappiness of Bam and Maureen with their new situation is rooted in their past. Maybe, had they lived their childhoods in July's village, they would not just take pity on the seemingly less fortunate and themselves—they'd be just as content as any other villager (though that doesn't necessarily mean happy all of the time. After all, it seems that their children have adjusted better.
|
|
|
|
Post by chrisb on Jun 4, 2014 7:18:06 GMT
joelk bakes this cake to perfection and adds his homemade vanilla frosting (because he doesn't like chocolate). Quartler employs a unique brand of geometric imagery, explaining the cultural implications of "[flipping] such a strict social pyramid upside down." An inverted pyramid, provided the object is constructed with consistent mass distribution, acts as spinning-top. This image conveys the role of "controlled chaos," so to speak. The top makes an entropical descent towards complete submission to gravity's reign, yet each spin succeeds the last in a gradual, predictable pattern.
|
|
