Is it Racist if You're Eight Years Old? Probably
Feb 19, 2010 by rilla
The first story I ever wrote was about a plantation in the deep south. It centered on three kids who lived there and made friends with those wacky black slaves and they had wonderful adventures.
It makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.
My parents had taken me on a vacation to Louisiana and we had toured several austere, beautiful plantations. They were glamourized and anesthetized and the tour guides talked about slaves as a necessary part of plantation life, like it was no big deal. The shanties in the woods off the main grounds were romanticized. I imagined these happy communities of people camping together and singing songs and basically having a fantastic time while they did their work.
I had heard stories about whippings and murders, the continual defilement and debasement of human beings. I just couldn't process them. They didn't have a place in the gorgeous homes that I had been in. It could not actually have been so terrible because they were surrounded by wealth and luxury. Surely it must have been enjoyable, right? More like an extended family situation, instead of this owning human chattel.
I was an idiot. A romantic idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
I stumbled across my story when I was seventeen years old. I had hidden it away in a drawer in my bedroom, embarrassed of it with my little child's brain. I was embarrassed because I had dreamed of writing something at all. I was embarrassed because it didn't feel true, instead a perpetuation of a terrible lie. My seventeen year old self was a little impressed that I had written something at all, but terribly terribly ashamed that it was such racist bull shit.
That story haunts me. I worry that everything that I write will later be looked upon with revulsion, that I will allow my ignorance to show in appalling ways.
I can look for excuses to stop writing everywhere I turn. Most writers I read about will talk about the first time they wrote a story and how marvelous it was to take something that was locked in their imagination and make it just a little bit more real. Their anecdote gives them an excuse to keep going, to keep finding those treasures of their psyche and give them form and function.
I need a better story than "when I was eight I wrote about how awesome living on a slave plantation was." I need to exorcise that demon somehow.
Suggestions?
It makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.
My parents had taken me on a vacation to Louisiana and we had toured several austere, beautiful plantations. They were glamourized and anesthetized and the tour guides talked about slaves as a necessary part of plantation life, like it was no big deal. The shanties in the woods off the main grounds were romanticized. I imagined these happy communities of people camping together and singing songs and basically having a fantastic time while they did their work.I had heard stories about whippings and murders, the continual defilement and debasement of human beings. I just couldn't process them. They didn't have a place in the gorgeous homes that I had been in. It could not actually have been so terrible because they were surrounded by wealth and luxury. Surely it must have been enjoyable, right? More like an extended family situation, instead of this owning human chattel.
I was an idiot. A romantic idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
I stumbled across my story when I was seventeen years old. I had hidden it away in a drawer in my bedroom, embarrassed of it with my little child's brain. I was embarrassed because I had dreamed of writing something at all. I was embarrassed because it didn't feel true, instead a perpetuation of a terrible lie. My seventeen year old self was a little impressed that I had written something at all, but terribly terribly ashamed that it was such racist bull shit.
That story haunts me. I worry that everything that I write will later be looked upon with revulsion, that I will allow my ignorance to show in appalling ways.
I can look for excuses to stop writing everywhere I turn. Most writers I read about will talk about the first time they wrote a story and how marvelous it was to take something that was locked in their imagination and make it just a little bit more real. Their anecdote gives them an excuse to keep going, to keep finding those treasures of their psyche and give them form and function.
I need a better story than "when I was eight I wrote about how awesome living on a slave plantation was." I need to exorcise that demon somehow.
Suggestions?
Posts
I don't understand why you are embarrassed. I'd be embarrassed if you still thought plantations were like that.
We can't be held responsible for all of the things we thought as children unless we continue to believe them as we grow up. Instead, I blame parents. :)
I obviously haven't read the story, but are you sure that it was racist and not simply naïve?
If you want to exorcise the story, maybe rewrite it as an adult? Or perhaps write a story around it that incorporates it?
The hatred of any scent of racism in myself is abhorrent so I can see why this is such a demon for you.
How to forgive your eight-year-old self of having racist thoughts and ideas? I like depthless muser's thoughts on rewriting the story.
However, you may find the idea of racism abhorrent and still write from the point of view of a racist without perpetuating racism in my mind. It is a story - fiction - not real.
And realize that the eight-year-old self is part of who you are now. Without the experience of the seventeen-year-old self finding that story, would you feel as strongly against racism as you do? Would it still make you sick to your stomach? Would you take writing the story back?
In the end, you need to right the wrong you think you've committed. Yes?
Or you could just replace all instances in the story of slaves with clowns instead. :)
I say - thank goodness for the mind of a child - life is too difficult to realize all the injustice in the world, all the wrong doings, the evil... As children our world is to be beautiful... that is called innocence and protection of the mind until we are able to digest the truth as adults... even then we often change the colors to make the painting fit our understanding or desired philosophy. What is truth? justice? Ask 10 people and you will probably hear 10 different answers. C'est la vie!
Two things you must know from me, your local Antebellum America scholar:
Slavery in itself is not a racist institution. Some of the first arrivals in America were white criminals from Europe forced into slavery. For instance, one of my Quaker relatives from Salem was sentenced to slavery for not paying a debt. Similarly, being black didn't make you a slave. The South had thousands of "Free Blacks". It was the ideas of Southrons at the time that infused slavery with racism. It was unlikely, but still possible that during that period there were one or two plantation owners who had slaves but weren't racist.
I say this because the fact that you wrote something during this time period does not equal racist.
Next, it's important to mention that slavery doesn't equal murder. Yes, it is very likely that the vast majority of plantations mistreated their slaves. And yes, the cruelest of masters mutilated and murdered slaves as an example.
However, there were plantations that had humanist slaveoweners who fed and cared for their slaves well. The Southrons loved pointing to these paragons of plantation life and saying stuff like, "The best slave owners take good care of their slaves. If the Yankees force freedom on these slaves, they will have no food or shelter, roaming aimless in a hostile country. Slavery is a kindness". Yes, the vast majority of slaves lived in misery and yearned for liberty, but a small minority actually liked slavery.
I mention this because, from an artistic perspective, it is possible that your story takes place on one of these rare liberal plantations with content slaves. So, a story that takes place on a plantation doesn't even necessarily equal cruel.
Saying all that, I must remind anybody reading this that I am fully aware that slavery is a big, steaming pile of bullshit. Depriving people of liberty is not cool. Please don't mistake my above comments as saying I think slavery is keen.
I've got one more thing to say: anything you write when you're 8 is going to suck. Anything you write when you're 18 sucks. Many writers even look back on their work from five years ago with shame. Where did you get this idea that writers have a mythical childhood story which they remember with pride?
DM:It was likely very naive, but as an adult, I recognize that legitimizing slavery in any way is pretty idiotic, and that makes me embarrassed, even though I was only a child. I've been thinking about writing a poem about the whole experience, the remembering, the writing, the visiting of the plantations... I think that might help.
Suz: I think you're right, that the story did help shape me, even through my revulsion of it. Perhaps this isn't a demon that I need to kick out the door, but keep in a box and look at every now and then.
anon: Thanks for commenting. I think terms like naivity, and innocence are a nice way of glossing over ignorance, but I also think you're right that there's a time and a place to brush that innocence away. I'm glad that I don't think that way anymore, but I think I'll always hold onto my desire for the romantic in everything which I've held on to since then.
Cheruby: I did write the story from the perspective of a liberal slave-friendly plantation... but that perpetuates its own life, doesn't it. You state it nicely, "Depriving people of liberty is not cool."
As for the mythical childhood story, it seems to be a common motivator for writers. They remember the first time they were able to put form to their imagination and it was a liberating and exciting experience. Continuing to do that is an affirmation of that original action. I'm sure that whatever people write as children isn't going to be War and Peace, but the recognition that you are able to create something real out of something you just thought up, is a pretty affirming thing.
I see what you're saying about the childhood experience. If it makes you feel any better, my first real childhood story was a little number called "Teddy Ruxpin in Nazi Germany".