Expanding the Limits: The Intersection of Race and Region
1988; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoIn a recent newspaper interview, distinguished historian John Hope Franklin discussed origins of his classic study, From Slavery to Freedom (1947), now in its sixth edition. He talked about need for text in 1940s and of writing it while also teaching five classes at Durham's segregated North Carolina College. In pointing to phenomenal success of paperback edition during 1960s, Franklin remarked, haven't taught [black history] in thirty years ... I teach history of South. (1) Though historical presence of in actual or imagined South has forwarded more than one idea of region, that presence is perhaps more problematical today when there is an ongoing attempt to link region to concepts more in keeping with slick media image of Sunbelt. Downplaying presence of may be a way of simultaneously asserting changed conditions in region and denying one significant catalyst for those changes. Though there are sociologists of South who choose to write only about white in isolation from matters of race by referring to them as an ethnic group or entity, that tendency implies a fresh attempt to define region and its culture without one of major components. matter of race is undermined, dismissed as somehow applicable only to and inapplicable to new considerations of tendency toward exclusion has not remained applicable only to individuals, but has become one of primary ways of defining region and its culture, not only for cultural insiders but for outsiders as well. (Slavery and a slave-based economy historically provided a primary means for cultural outsiders to define region, and for cultural insiders to justify both self-perception and social order.) Presumption of racial affinity, commonality in dominant view of South as a region has meant that difference, not diversity, is at issue. One result has been curious: whites in South became simply Southerners without a racial designation, but in South became simply blacks without a regional designation. There are still manifestations of this phenomenon today, as suggested by John Hope Franklin's reference to teaching history of South as opposed to history of blacks, or more particularly by labeling of those scholars who study slaves as working in field of black history and culture, whereas those who study owners are characterized as working in field of southern history and culture. In same way, those who study roots of blues and jazz are seen as working in black musicology, while those who study roots of country and bluegrass as working in southern musicology. More invidious is carefully reasoned, nonpartisan scholarly work reexamining idea of South by emphasizing memory and process of remembering as crucial to understanding region--but which suffers itself from a severe lapse of memory. For example, Richard Gray in Writing South: Ideas of an American Region 1986) states: The main aim of this book is to [present] ... various ways in which people from below Mason-Dixon line have tried to forge uncreated conscience of their region. (2) He then adds that his three hundred-plus page book offers no more than a series of notes towards a definition of Southern idea. Yet, in entire book there is only one mention of a black writer: a listing of Charles Chesnutt's name as example of an interest in the idea of `tragic mulatto' that predates William Faulkner's. (3) Gray's approach is an example not only of continued omission of black Southerners, but also of more serious misreading of culture and its artifacts that explains omission. He ends his discussion of Walker Percy with following: Perhaps last word should be given to Percy's black characters, however, since occupy margins of his stories, just as they do in traditional Southern writing. …
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