Barbara Beckwith

Several years ago, when I sat on the diversity committee of the National Writers Union, we asked anyone attending our caucus to introduce him or herself as either a “person of color,” an LGBT person, a person with a disability — or an ally of one or all of the above.

I happily introduced myself as white, straight, “temporarily able-bodied,” and as an ally to all three of what we called “target groups.” But our in-group language turned some people off. Several refused to label themselves: they wanted to just sit and observe. Our caucus organizers insisted. Those otherwise sympathetic attendees never came to another meeting. Accusations of “nomenclature puritanism” and “oppression competitivness” followed. Mutual respect went down the drain. Ever since, I’ve been leery of jargon. [...]

Here I am, trying to move past my white-bread mindset, in hope of being able to listen with an open mind to the perspectives of people of color.  At the same time, I think of Shakespeare’s “To thine own self be true, and thou canst not be false to any man” and I wonder: how do I keep an open mind and my integrity, knowing how deeply flawed my “honest” reactions may be? [...]

When I became determined to free myself of group stereotypes based on ignorance, I first tried a shortcut, reading book with titles like Everything You Need to Know About Latino History, Everything You Need to Know About Asian American History, 100 Things Everyone Should Know about African Americans, or The Arab-American Handbook.

As for Native Americans, I’d read Tony Hillerman mysteries set on Southwestern reservations and thereby thought myself in the know about Navaho and Hopi cultures.

So when I made a date to speak to the head of Harvard’s Native studies center, I readied myself to shake hands with respectful limpness, as Hillerman’s Native characters did , and to speak in a soft, unmodulated voice to the person I expected to be soft-spoken, and pictured as wearing long braids and turquoise jewelry. [...]

Last week, after working at my computer for three straight hours, I took a mid-morning walk but found myself detouring, on the way back, to my neighborhood bakery, where I bought a butter walnut concoction coated with rich, dark chocolate that I intended to be my end-of-the day reward.

But halfway between bakery and home, my hand dove into the paper bag, plucked out its contents, and – long before a.m. was over – I devoured my p.m. snack in two impulsive bites. [...]

Here are the best fiction and non-fiction books I’ve read recently, most during one of our “reading weekends,” when Jon and I went away to read, this time in a sweet little B & B, Acorn’s Hope,Great Barrington (MA).  

 Try to Remember, by Iris Gomez (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group, 2010). This novel “grabbed” me from the very beginning: I read it straight through. The main character is a Columbian immigrant girl whose father loses jobs, obsessively composes demand letters and forces his daughter to type them, has violent and paranoid rages. [...]