Coils & Curls Blog

Friends,
On November 1, 2007, I will be facilitating a book club discussion on the following book:

Caucasia (by Danzy Senna)
Amazon.com Review: A young girl learns some difficult lessons in Danzy Senna’s debut novel Caucasia. Growing up in a biracial family in 1970s Boston, Birdie has seen her family disintegrate due to the increasing racial tensions. Her father and older sister move to Brazil, where they hope to find true racial equality, while Birdie and her mother drift through the country, eventually adopting new identities (Sheila and Jesse Goldman) and settling in a small New Hampshire town.
Birdie/Jesse tries to find her niche in this new world of eye shadow and gossip and boys, but she also wants to remain true to herself and find a common ground between her white and black heritage. She sets out to find her sister and reconnect with that part of her that has been lost for so long; the search takes her far from the settled, safe life she had in New Hampshire to a far more ambiguous, and unsettled, existence, one in which her own definitions of herself become muddled, and her search for her sister leads ultimately to a search for her own true identity.

I was asked by the YWCA of Boulder, CO to come in as a guest facilitator and help discussion around this book club read in the theme of “Race in America”. The goal of the YWCA is to help end all racism in America and a diverse book club is one of the steps that they are taking to open eyes and opinions. The group is made up of predominately white women, which is understandable because that is the primary population of Boulder, CO. So, I am glad they are making these steps and I am happy to support the effort.

I doubt, however, that they are ready for what I am bringing to the table. ☺

After discussion with a few of the board members, the language about the primary biracial character in this book is around her black DNA… not her white DNA. So, I am bringing the fullness of her background to the forefront … with passion!

What are your thoughts?

For those of you in CO, please come and support the effort.
Details: Thursday, November 1st from 5:30 - 7:00 pm at the Boulder Public Library Arapahoe meeting room. Food will be provided.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 11:19 am and is filed under *You... Only Natural. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.