Black Water Rising

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Somehow I thought this book was a mystery. But the real mystery is Jay Porter...why he doesn't connect with his wife whom he loves, who loves him, and on whom he hangs his whole future.

There is that mysterious rescue of a woman from drowning in the bayou; a young man gets beat up by union guys who supposedly support the strike; oil seepage in the back yard of a kook who did a a one-man march on Washington; why is somebody following Jay or is he just paranoid from his "militant" days in the 70's.

But somehow I connected with Jay because I lived through the turbulent 60's and 70's. Although I never had a platform, my husband and I associated with people who were known as "militant," we had our phone bugged, and I often found myself spouting the rhetoric, "by any means necessary." (Ms. Locke uses the term "militant" only once in the whole book, in referring to Stokely Carmichael.)

Jay Porter was like so many people I knew from "The Movement," so I couldn't put this book down. I was transported back in time to those days when we had to be doing something relevant. It was a troubling story that will stay with me for a long time.



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For Colored Girls...

If anybody went to see "For Colored Girls" expecting to see Madea, they were sadly disappointed. I have to give Tyler Perry his "propers." He made millions giving (some) people what they want, now he's giving the people what he thinks they need. The credits for the movie list Tyler Perry as screen writer....based on the play by Ntozake Shange "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf."


I never had the opportunity to see Ntozake Shange's choreopoem, as it is called, performed, but I have read the 20 poems that make up the performance. In the original, seven women are known by the colors of the rainbow that they represent. TP uses the words of those poems and assembles them into a story, adding transitional scenes and men who don't appear at all in the original. They are the men whom the women are talking about, or talking to in the original.


I thought the screenplay was well constructed, sometimes moving quickly from one issue to the next, so there was no point where the story dragged. The scenes are emotionally draining, covering the worst experiences women can live through. The poem about rape was originally performed by several women, in the movie it becomes a monologue by the victim in closeup. (Spoiler alert!) This was an outstanding performance by Anika Noni Rose. I also loved Loretta Divine, Kimberly Elise, and Thandie Newton.


I have seen mixed reviews for "For Colored Girls." I give it four stars. I think it's Oscar material for somebody in the cast. I would vote for Anika Noni Rose.

The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


When I first heard about this book, I felt some apprehension about reading it as I often do with books about black people, written by a white person. I tried to avoid it, but then the nice (white) ladies in my exercise class started buzzing about it, so I knew I had to read it. Then my book club made it our selection for November.

I will say that I enjoyed the book, loved the characters, especially Minny and Celia. I laughed and cried and got anxious along with Skeeter and Aibilene when their book came out. It's a story of bravery of a group of women in Mississippi in the 60's, from different backgrounds coming together to bring about a change.

BUT...and this is where my apprehension comes in as with many books about black people written by white people...sometimes the heroine is too wise, too perfect, and the white people in the story are one extreme or the other, either too patronizing or too evil. The black person's whole purpose in the story becomes solving the life issues of the white heroine.

The black hero/heroine starts to fit the stereotype of the "Mystical Magical Negro" that Spike Lee talked about in his lectures on film. Aibilene becomes another Boatwright sister from the Secret Life of Bees. You have to also consider Sydney Poitier's character in the Defiant Ones, Michael Clarke Duncan's character in the Green Mile, Whoopi Goldberg's character in Ghost. There are many others.

OK, it makes a good story, enjoyable cinema. When they make The Help into a movie, it will provide work for a lot of black actors. And I'll be there in the theater opening week, booing and hissing Hilly Holbrook.

I was going to excuse Kathryn Stockett's patronizing until I read her Postscript. She said she wished she had asked her family's maid before she died what it was like to be black in Mississippi. I remember the 60's when I attended a mostly white college in New Jersey after growing up in the Jim Crow South. One of my classmates asked me what it was like to be black. My response was, "Compared to what?"



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How many Degrees of Separation before you don't give

It always warms my heart when I see the kindness of friends on the internet. People I never met in person will respond to a need from someone they know only through me.

We saw an outpouring of help for our friends in New Orleans, just because they needed help. When I made an appeal for a kidney donor for a young man I never met, the response came from a friend of Rose's sister's daughter. (How many degrees is that?) And some of my friends who don't know Pat, responded with YU-GI-OH cards for her grandson in Hospice.

I'm asking again. My friend Deb Zacher is my muscle coach, the one I call Brunhilda, as in "that woman hurt me." Her friend Brenda Brown needs a cancer treatment that her insurance won't approve. Read Deb's blog here http://headspinsfast.wordpress.com/ and do what internet friends do.