Posted by kip on 6/1/2005, 5:33 am, in reply to ""Their Eyes were Watching God"" Link: http://i.am/zora
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she was writing from an explicitly Black perspective. it works because the town was, in reality, 100% african-american. notice that there were non-blacks (seminoles) and White people are repeatedly mentioned, if not present. through these allusions she does recognize the racist society that surrounded her little "eden" (which quickly is shown to be corrupt and misogynist) of Eatonville.
the claim that Hurston ignored race has been disproven many times. she always considered and wrote about race -- in her own manner. not with the inflammatory language of Richard Wright. Hurston was striving for a realistic portrayal of humans with a specific, vibrant culture -- of the African-American South. the critique of racism is that White supremacists denied these human beings even the right to live in peace (nevermind succeed in life). if the 1930s readers gained empathy for such characters as populate eatonville, the racists' arguments (that Blacks were sub-human, incapable of intellectual complexity, etc.) became laughable. on race, Hurston didn't frighten people like Wright did. but she got into their heads more.
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