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Make/ and Toning the Sweep
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From: jeanne whitehouse <jwhouse>
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 20:18:24 -0600
Hello. Brenda Bowen's questions: What is the race of the characters? and Does race matter (in these books)? are powerful. I've enjoyed the responses. Because of all this I have gone back to read _Toning the Sweep_ by Angela Johnson, the Coretta Scott King award winner, 1994. As a result of my re-reading I'd like to suggest that, in our current discussion, we ponder the genre, or type books Wolff is writing. Are they inter-group (about the struggles between groups). or are they 'family chronicles' (taking family to mean community of like minded supporters with common goals and so forth who are coming together in 'life's dance.").
I wanted to reread _Toning the Sweep- because, while the back-story is black/ white hatred or tensions, Johnson refrains from mentioning skin color in her descriptions of people living in the Arizona desert community. Her main character, Emmie, (about 14) needs to support her grandmother through cancer, to understand her mother's tension with the past, to let the stories of her grandfather go, to feel the need her grandmother had to flee Alabama and a (1964) past filled with racial conflict. However, the author does not build the story to ponder 'inter-group' tensions. Her only reference to "black-white" are more metaphorical than realistic:( p. 34):
"All the photos I've seen of my mother's father
are in black and white--so that's how I see him, my grandfather
in black and white." Emmy, the main character, notes: (p.7) "Grandmama Ola picked us up---She'd grown dreadlocks. When she wrapped her arms around me--I almost smell the desert."
Of her grandmother's best friend Martha Jackson (who has foster kids from all sorts of families/ races), she writes: (P. 18) "Martha Jackson's hair is the color coal and she must be about my grandmama's age. She cuts her hair short and sometimes it sticks straight up.... She stretches and she's about seven feet tall...."(P.22).
Of David Two Star, Emmy's best friend, one of Martha's foster kids: (p. 24). "His hair is down to his waist, and he has one blue eye and one brown eye."
And that's it. Healing has occured in a desert which contains all kinds of people, described by small details: action, dress, dance. There are no further descriptions of hair or eye color. And never of skin. At the end I remember lemon yellow fabric, dusty air, sky.........So what's important in _Toning the Sweep_ is the community, the pulling together to survive, to heal past sorrows, at the edge of death, to celebrate life (as in _Scooter_ by Vera B. Williams). _Toning the Sweep_ is an "intra/ within the group" story. I'm curious if Wolff's writing has a similar thrust? It's been a long time since I read _Make Lemonade_ but will return to it and go on to _True Believer_ with the questions of "inter/ intra" group tensions in mind.. Thanks for keeping the thinking alive. Jeanne Whitehouse (Peterson)
Received on Sun 15 Jul 2001 09:18:24 PM CDT
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 20:18:24 -0600
Hello. Brenda Bowen's questions: What is the race of the characters? and Does race matter (in these books)? are powerful. I've enjoyed the responses. Because of all this I have gone back to read _Toning the Sweep_ by Angela Johnson, the Coretta Scott King award winner, 1994. As a result of my re-reading I'd like to suggest that, in our current discussion, we ponder the genre, or type books Wolff is writing. Are they inter-group (about the struggles between groups). or are they 'family chronicles' (taking family to mean community of like minded supporters with common goals and so forth who are coming together in 'life's dance.").
I wanted to reread _Toning the Sweep- because, while the back-story is black/ white hatred or tensions, Johnson refrains from mentioning skin color in her descriptions of people living in the Arizona desert community. Her main character, Emmie, (about 14) needs to support her grandmother through cancer, to understand her mother's tension with the past, to let the stories of her grandfather go, to feel the need her grandmother had to flee Alabama and a (1964) past filled with racial conflict. However, the author does not build the story to ponder 'inter-group' tensions. Her only reference to "black-white" are more metaphorical than realistic:( p. 34):
"All the photos I've seen of my mother's father
are in black and white--so that's how I see him, my grandfather
in black and white." Emmy, the main character, notes: (p.7) "Grandmama Ola picked us up---She'd grown dreadlocks. When she wrapped her arms around me--I almost smell the desert."
Of her grandmother's best friend Martha Jackson (who has foster kids from all sorts of families/ races), she writes: (P. 18) "Martha Jackson's hair is the color coal and she must be about my grandmama's age. She cuts her hair short and sometimes it sticks straight up.... She stretches and she's about seven feet tall...."(P.22).
Of David Two Star, Emmy's best friend, one of Martha's foster kids: (p. 24). "His hair is down to his waist, and he has one blue eye and one brown eye."
And that's it. Healing has occured in a desert which contains all kinds of people, described by small details: action, dress, dance. There are no further descriptions of hair or eye color. And never of skin. At the end I remember lemon yellow fabric, dusty air, sky.........So what's important in _Toning the Sweep_ is the community, the pulling together to survive, to heal past sorrows, at the edge of death, to celebrate life (as in _Scooter_ by Vera B. Williams). _Toning the Sweep_ is an "intra/ within the group" story. I'm curious if Wolff's writing has a similar thrust? It's been a long time since I read _Make Lemonade_ but will return to it and go on to _True Believer_ with the questions of "inter/ intra" group tensions in mind.. Thanks for keeping the thinking alive. Jeanne Whitehouse (Peterson)
Received on Sun 15 Jul 2001 09:18:24 PM CDT
