Race

First up; I have read 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett.  Seconded up; I have not watched the film.  Third up; I am fed up of reading reviews that miss several extremely important points of the book.

For example, a quote from the Mslexia article 'Point of View' in the current issue (Mar/Apr/May 2013):



"It's fair to say that writer Roxane Gay was unimpressed when she read 'The Help'.

Kathryn Stockett's bestselling novel, which became a successful film, is set in 1960s

Mississippi and focuses on an affluent young white woman who befriends some of the

local black maids and then writes a book about the racism they suffer.  Critics and

historians claim it contains lazy stereotypes about African Americans and dislike the fact

the maids are 'saved' by a young white woman during a period when the Civil Rights

movement was being led by the black community. Gay also thinks the film relies

heavily on the trope of the 'magical negro' - a black character who is only there to

'bestow upon the protagonist the wisdom they need to move forward'."

First off I take umbrage at the words "affluent young white woman".  Well Miss Skeeter maybe white and she maybe young but she is not affluent.  Yes, her family maybe rich but Miss Skeeter is trapped at home at twenty three because her mother refuses to give her the money she needs after coming home from college to moved out:

"What I needed to do was find an apartment in town, the kind of building where single,

plain girls lived, spinsters, secretaries, teachers. But the one time I had mentioned using

money from my trust fund, Mother had cried - real tears."

I don't know about you but that doesn't sound like an affluent woman to me.  It sounds more like one who is trapped in an almost emotional abusive relationship with her mother i.e. she's the one being abused by her mother.  Yes, Miss Skeeter does befriend two of the maids - Aibileen and Minny - but the book she writes is not just about the racism they suffer but also that gives them the hope and the strength to face one more day:

"When I ask for a raise they gave it to me.  When I needed a house, they bought me

one.  Doctor Tucker came over to my house himself and picked a bullet out my

husband's arm because he was afraid Henry'd catch something at the coloured

hospital. I have worked for Doctor Tucker and Miss Sissy for forty-four years.

They have been so good to me."

As for the critics and the historians that claim it contains lazy stereotypes - are any of them black?  Are any of them coloured?  Where any of them alive in the 1960s?  Have any of them bothered to go and talk to the black women who were maids in that time?  Kathryn Stockett grew up in that time, the family black maid practically brought her up: "Demetrie knew it and took my hand and told me I was fine".  The only way she could have had a closer knowledge of that time would to have been an adult then.  A stereotype is not a stereotype if it is the truth.

Also what is this whole nonsense about the maids being 'saved' by Miss Skeeter?  Miss Skeeter doesn't 'save' them, in fact she admits that she's put them in more danger.  She never professes to having saved them:

"And while I'd never lie and tell myself I actually changed the minds of people like

Hilly and Elizabeth, at least I don't have to pretend I agree with them anymore."

As for the whole bit about the Civil Rights movement being lead by the black community in the 1960s?  I agree with it whole heartedly but there were white people who recognised that segregation was wrong and did their best with what they had to put it right by helping those they could.  Or do people forget that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is the true story of a white lawyer sticking his neck out (nearly into a lynch mob noose at one point) for a black man (cross reference with the part of the autobiography 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' when the white sheriff comes round to tell her grandmother to hide her Uncle because a black man has 'raped' a white girl and the mobs will be out that night)?  What is more 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is set in the 1930s.  Think about that, thirty years before the time of 'The Help' there were white people willing to go out on a limb for black.

Also one more thing.  The author of the Mslexia article has revealed her own bias with the line "lazy stereotypes about African Americans".  There are some black Americans who find the term "Africa American" highly offencive!   For example Whoopi Goldberg writes in 'Book':

"Call me an asshole, call me a blowhard, but don't call me an African American.

Please.  It divides us, as a nation and as a people and it kind a pisses me off.

It diminishes everything I've accomplished and everything every other black person

accomplished on American soil.  It means I'm not entitled to everything plain old regular

Americans are entitled to."

Who better to pass judgement on the subject than a black American?

Workshop

Alright!  Next up I am running a workshop for the Norwich Writers' Circle on Tuesday the Second of April on writing science fiction.

It is my first time running a workshop, in fact, it's my first time running any form of workshop, talk or writing group, so I'm fairly nervous about the whole thing.  Add to that the fact the science fiction is not and has never been a really popular subject and I'm beginning to become a little stressed about the whole thing.  I guess the main problem is that the general opinion is that science fiction is a subject for geeks.

I have to admit I would like to know why?  I will admit that some fans take it entirely too far, however that is true of any subject, any story, any art.  Some fans are more than worrying fanatics.  Isn't that the story of all religious problems?  There are some people who, for some reason best only know to themselves, will take their intellectual interest entirely too far. It's almost as though they become addicted.

However for the rest of us science fiction is an interesting mental exercise in 'what if'.  What if there was an energy field some beings could tap into?  What if mankind could travel beyonds our solar system and meet other species of beings?  What if some humans developed powers beyond the ordinary?  So why does this make science fiction fans automatically a bunch of geeks?

We enjoy using our minds to discuss intellectual ideas and possibilities.  We can use stories to illustrate political and social problems.  We can tackle what is wrong with society in a way that makes people think, without having the radicals up in arms about what we say.  As Terry Pratchett said, "If I wrote about white people hating black people or black people hating white people, people would go up in arms but if I write about dwarfs hating trolls or trolls hating dwarfs that's alright because it's only fantasy."

However the underlying message so how stupid racism is remains and those that can be reached will hear it and those who don't hear it, well, they probably won't get it even if you beat them over the head with it.

So how does that make us geeks?  Perhaps its because we actually use our brains to think with?  Maybe it's a myth spread by the ones who hear the messages against social wrongs hidden in the stories and don't like what they hear because to change the social wrongs would be to change their attitudes.

When it comes to the workshop, I'm not going to be trying to teach how to write science fiction because, as far as I'm concerned there are no hard and fast rules to write science fiction.  Instead, I'm going to be suggesting ways and means, different story ideas and different styles.  If any one is interested, the workshop is at:

7.30pm

The Assemble House

Theatre Street

Norwich

Norfolk

NR2 1RQ

Crazy Weather

O.K. try this one on for size.

March came in sunny, warm for this time of year and promising of an early spring.  Then, Saturday the ninth, it started snowing.  Yes, that is right, in Norfolk, it started snowing in March.  What is more, it didn't fully melt until the following Thursday.  Then to add insult to injury it snowed again last night (17th - 18th).  Granted, it had all melted by this morning but even so!  Snow in March!  I've heard of March 'In like a lion, out like the lamb' but I'm not sure of 'in like a lamb, out like a lion.'  I'm not sure whether that was part of it.

I suppose that some people maybe confused as to why I'm surprised that it has snowed in March.  There are probably places in the world where snow in March is quite normal, however, Norfolk is not one of them.

Let me explain.

When I was in Middle school if enough snow fell on the last day of the Christmas term to make a light smattering on the grass for three hours then we'd had a white winter.  Even when I was in High School we rarely if ever had snow that lasted for more than a week.  There certainly was never enough to close the High School for a day (more's the pity).

The first really snowy winter we had in my memory was 2009.  We had more snow in the two weeks just after Christmas day then we'd had in my life up to then.  It was especially interesting as my sister had gone out to Oman to see our father for the first time in ages and her flight home made it to the airport in Holland and then very nearly didn't make it home to England.  She was meant to touch down in Norwich airport at half nine in the morning.  The flight didn't make it until twenty five past eleven that night and that was only just because the sweepers had been out clearing the runway like crazy.

2010 was also very snowy and cold, with bouts of snow lasting on until January.

2011 bucked the trend with hardly any snowfall.

Then we had last year, which again had hardly any snowfall over the Christmas and New Year period.  Personally I think it was saving it up for January where it very nearly made me have to pull out of the panto because I very nearly didn't make it to Great Ellingham to perform in it.  Thankfully having a director/producer who owns a bed and breakfast saved the day.

The weather had calmed down a little over February but it seems to be considering coming back for one last try.

And politicians will still tell you that human industry isn't effecting the climate.

Health Issues

First up I'm sorry to all those who came along on Tuesday to the Norwich Writers' Circle to buy 'Leave My Bed Untidy' by Michelle Proby.  I was unavoidable detained.  I guess the best way to fill you in is to go to the beginning.

The third week of February my Mother was diagnosed with cancer.

That statement alone is enough to send my mind into absolute free fall.  How do you process that your Mother, your full time carer, has the most feared condition in the western world?  How do you cope with that?

I'm not entirely sure I'm still sane.

Most of the time I feel O.K.  I feel positive and O.K. with the fact that Mother has cancer, after all, it's more treatable now, she's been on the Salvestrols for years so the tumour can't be that big, if anything there's a chance she started bleeding because the tumour started dying and being shed (the human body is lazy and will take the easiest route to dispose of unwanted tissue).  All great, all the stuff she needs to be surrounded by to get out of this alive.

However, I am suddenly on a hairpin trigger where it comes to anger and frustration.  The slightest thing has me snarling and snapping, wanting to throw things and break things, yell at everybody and anybody in the area.  I've had a back ground headache for weeks that just won't go away and my eczema hasn't been this bad since I left High School.  After all I'm used to it playing up every winter, I had the creams I need to rub in and normally it just stays as a patch on the back of my wrists.  No problem to one who is used to it.  This year it has suddenly flared up so bad it's from my wrists all the way down to the second knuckle of my fingers.  I've also had an acne flare up like nothing else, which isn't helping.

As I said, part of me is wondering if I'm entirely sane any more, especially as the slightest thing puts my bladder next to my eye and I start snivelling like a leaky tap.

To add insult to injury last Friday was the due date for my fourth blood donation.  Now I don't like doing my blood donation for the simple fact that I'm afraid of needles.  I have been afraid of needles since Mr Evans, my head teacher down in Wales, had to tell us about a boy who found a syringe on a building site, decide to play around with it, injected an air bubble into a vein and was dead an hour later.  I mean, you would kind of expect something like that to put an eight year old off needles for the rest of their life.  However, as a matter of principle I go to do my donation.  Mother comes along with me, holds my hand and blabber away with me so I don't concentrate on what the nurse is doing.  It has worked, half of the time.  The first time I was very nervous and I told the staff about my phobia.  They were brilliant and it barely hurt.  The second time, they had to jab around to find the vein.  The third time was even better than the first time.

This time they totally missed.  They were busy jabbing away, I was yelling 'OW' and when the second nurse came along and said something about 'bruising around the catheter' I really started freaking out.  Great isn't it?  Turning into a great blubbering, hiccuping mess on the couch in front of all the nurses and everybody else.  Just blooming brilliant!  Now I'm going to have to get over my fear of needles, I'm also going to have to try and get round my memories of going to pieces on the couch in front of the nurses.  Just great.


PS.  I made a mistake on 'Leave My Bed Untidy'.  Michelle is not schizophrenic, although the doctors did consider that at the time when the police picked her up.  She has been told since then that she doesn't have schizophrenic but lack of sleep brings on similar symptoms.  The last time she had an episode, the doctors had played around with her meds and she hadn't slept for four days straight.  I imagine that would start anybody seeing things, not at least an autistic.