My Problem With Paste and Why I'm Jealous as Hell

I've wanted to write this post for about a month or so, but haven't figured out the best way to combat the issue at hand. I'm aware....maybe too aware of the ramifications of writing a whiny, rambling post that essentially, has no direction and maybe doesn't need to be. I'll start off trying to set the scene:

I'm coming home from South By SouthWest(SXSW), tired and wired from four days of fun. As mentioned previously, I went to hype my upcoming book and in all honesty, can't really say that it was a 100% success. I also can't say that I wasn't surprised at some of the challenging things that happened. For me as a Canadian, it was really interesting to be in the States during a time when there was heightened racial tension over Obama and the health care bill and that people who I'm assuming voted Republican if they even voted at all were "showing their ass," as a friend of mine would say. It was weird, I felt a bit uncomfortable. So I'm on the plane, staring at the back of a musician's head whose hair is filthy and matted - I saw a lot of that - and decide to delve into a few of the free magazines I got in my SXSW registrant bag.

I actually liked Paste magazine, which I discovered way back in 2006 when I attended SXSW for the Interactive portion. I liked the fact that they cover a variance of music, well, primarily non-extreme metal ones, but I do have a fascination with alt-country and a very small handful of indie rockers. I love Neko Case for instance, and they also do some great coverage of older, classic rock bands. Usually it is well written, and I spent an hour or so reading the articles and enjoying them....until I got to the review on Heidi W. Durrow's latest book, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky: 

This first novel won the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize fiction that addresses issues of social injustice.Durrow, a Portland, Ore., native, tackles a Great American Problem—race. It’s a subject worth any number of books, now more than ever.

Our story: Rachel, a young woman with a Danish mother and an African-American father, survives a tragedy that kills all the family she knows. She moves in with a strict African-American grandmother and experiences the world of black Americans for the first time. With her blue eyes and light skin, she learns what so many others have—it’s not easy to grow up betwixt and between.

Durrow herself is biracial, and she writes capably on this subject. Still, she doesn’t always succeed in making you feel for her characters or believe her plot. Or perhaps I failed to more completely identify because I’m a white man. Other readers may be more powerfully moved, feeling to the bone the slights, grievances and complications that escape me.

Huh? It was given a 63 out of 100.

Look, I understand that perhaps it is hard to relate to the protagonist because most often, their experiences are usually always a bit more melodramatic that our real-life experiences - that is why these characters are fiction. It would be like me trying to relate to a character from a Stephen King novel. Sometimes the point in fiction is to imagine and not to necessarily relate. That is the fun of reading - to imagine and ponder what it would be like to live in someone else's shoes.

In terms of the rating, I surfed around a bit and the rating actually isn't that bad, but I wonder how much this comment had to do with it:  Or perhaps I failed to more completely identify because I'm a white man.

What does that mean? Can he not sympathize because he is not allowing himself to imagine what it would be like to be a young biracial woman?

Or is he saying that the experiences of biracial women are not relevant because they do not fall within his (myopic) perspectives and lived experiences?

That the stories of biracial women (the award-winning author is biracial - and writes "quite capably" on that subject, thank you very much, kind sir) are essentially not relevant? Both in terms of reading the fictionalized accounts and in real life? That the author does not deserve to be properly reviewed (and this was a shitty review, btw,) because it is beyond his comprehension?

I don't get it. But before I get more into that, here is another troubling sentence: Others might be more powerfully moved, feeling to the bone the slights, grievances and complications that escape me.So I get that because the author, who essentially is "showing his ass" in relation to his white male privilege does not feel that these slights, grievances and complications,is dismissal of the book is warranted? Again, he chose not to do his job as a reader and a reviewer because he refused to be objective and stop gazing at his own navel. It also alludes to the fact that if people's experiences are not in any way similar to his, than there 'issues' must be illusions and not valid. He really should have not written about the book if he felt that way. Pass it on to someone else. I wondered why Paste would even publish this non-review. 

Yes I'm being a bit sensitive, I admit it.

BUT let me tell you why. I just finished writing a book. While I was lucky and had the support of some great friends and writing colleagues, because it is on black women in metal, hardcore and punk, I also received a lot of glazed, deer-in-the-headlights looks. Some people wondered why I didn't do it on "women" and not just "black women," like I was being discriminatory. Some alluded to "well, good luck on that" like they assumed that no one will read it. Including the majority of my family members. I did not do it to make money, I did it because I am passionate about it. But I also wanted to write and to produce something that came from a perspective of a collection of people whose voices are commonly silenced in mainstream media.

I don't think I am really that strange, but as an adult and a voracious reader I was tired of reading magazines and books (feminist, in particular) that in theory, I was in the demographic of their readers, but as a black person / woman my experiences and perspectives were completely ignored. During the research phase of writing my book, I was surprised to read so many "women in rock" books that did not acknowledge the contributions of blues women like Memphis Minnie or Big Mama Thornton, punk singer Polly Styrene or hell, The Labelles' Nona Hendryx, or Tina Turner in their pages - and there were plenty more. In addition, I have met many young black kids who are ashamed of being into the music and musical scenes they like because they felt that no one else was into it - because there have been no recorded accounts of people ( besides Jimi and Lenny and Slash - when he feels like admitting he's part black), they felt that they were alone and weird.

Now fine, negroes do not make up a large percentage of the population in North America, but when I read bullshit like the above review and this recent article from Paste where the young, white writer uses her middle-class white-girl existence as an excuse not to get into Hip-Hop (which I felt was more of a nod to ironic hipster-ism than anything relevant) I think that the magazine editors really believe that their readers live lives and more importantly, look exactly like they do, come from the same economic level and think the same way as they do, it's sad.

 And it makes me really jealous. I'd love to be able to write that blatantly ignorant, self-absorbed bullshit and get paid for it (no i'm not getting paid on this blog!)

On the other hand, I cannot really relate to the "black-oriented" publications, either. I'm Canadian ( hee hee). And not desperate enough to find a brother at a strip club. I guess I'm whining here because I want to have the freedom to read and perhaps write / create a publication that is accessible and recognizes everyone, regardless of ethnicity or social class or status. Sure, it would be geared towards extreme musical genres and cultures, but hey, if you are into it, you're in. Fair enough?  

Comments

[Kathy]

I'm white, close enough to middle-class, and listen to lots of indie rock and alt-country. I am Paste's target audience, and everything you just mentioned has been bothering me about their magazine, and others like it (well, the ones still in publication) for a while now.

[Happybrowngirl]

You nailed it completely! Some white folks are just beyond the pale with this sort of thing, lol! Just because one takes a brief moment to "name" the privilege or allude to it doesn't excuse laziness or make one immune from going right ahead and further invoking that privilege!

Was it Sonia who said, "you can either be white or you can be human?" Before, I thought that was right harsh, but it certainly makes sense applied to your two examples in your post!