We Are Not LikeThem

 Book club discussion question: Riley tells Jen "It's a privilege to never think about race." 

How has privilege affected you life? How has the absence of privilege affected your life?  Discuss an event where you recognized that privileges affected the outcome. 

White privilege is a fairly new term. Maybe black families used the term for many years. 

A 2014 study found that three our of four white people have no nonwhite friends. Are you surprised by this statistic? How does where you grew up affect the friends you make into adulthood?

No the statistic does not surprise me. 

If you grew up in Jim Crow south or fly Confederate flags in 2022, chances are you would not find many black/white friendships. If you grew up in what I used to call "lily white Pocono Mountains" or nearby KKK territory, it is doubtful that you would have black/white friendships. 

I do know a man who grew up racist due to the absence of blacks in his California neighborhood. He changed when he joined the Marines and got to know blacks/browns on a personal level. I would not say they were friends so much as combat buddies. In later years he was considered an honorary Puerto Rican, due to his sister-in-law marrying into a close knit Puerto Rican family. Even though he divorced he still maintains a long-distance relationship with the many Puerto Rican/Americans he associated with for many years. A few of them are black skinned!

I grew up in a northern integrated school. I did not have many close friends. In 7th grade a girl befriended me. Linda, Faye and Me was a story I wrote somewhere. The 3 homeroom class outcasts. We were not allowed to wear stockings, or makeup and wore undershirts not bras. I was quite shy. Every friend I have had in life, befriended me. Like Linda. She died shortly after COVID and I am sad that I never thought to ask her why she liked me.

I can relate to Jenn in that we three never talked about race. Well, Faye would share Chinese customs to us. In high school Linda was College Prep, I was Office Practice and we only waved when we passed in hallways. Years passed and Linda worked with my Mother. Linda still in or near our hometown, me in a different state. We corresponded by letters. Later, e-mails. Later still on Facebook.Way adult we now discussed race. Linda was never my "black friend," she was just Linda.

I liked her because she wrote me notes, made me laugh and showed me how to "paint" my fingernails with pencil. She gave me her phone number. When I called it was answered by one of those prayer phone lines. We laughed the next day and she confessed she did not have a telephone. She, her sister and mother lived in "the projects." She gave me her grandmother's phone number. She lived in an apartment upstairs, and Linda often spent time there. 

We not only did not talk about race we did not talk about our parents. What happened to her father/ Where did her mother work? My mom was SAHM at that time. My father was a Mason Contractor who owned his own business or worked with Union jobs when he did not have any of his own. I do not think we talked about boys or other preteen/teen subjects. She never came to my house. I would not have been allowed to take the bus to go to visit her.

Ironically she married a brother of one of my co-workers. He and I were sort of work friends. He did a pencil sketch of me. He was trying to teach me a super fast dance that I never mastered. I think we bonded due to both of us having a brother who was arrested, names in local newspaper and many siblings. Linda and her husband divorced. I think he wanted children and she could not get pregnant. 

We Are Not Like Them

 We Are Not Like Them is a contemporary novel co-written by Jo Piazza and Christine Pride. 

At novel's end author's conversation included these answers:

It's hard to have a friend of another race in America.

It was important to us that both Black women and white women be able to relate to our characters. 

We were aware that it risked lending itself to a good guy/bad guy dichotomy, we wanted to avoid that at all costs. 

...we had to be careful that our audience didn't "side" with any one woman over the other.

It was important to us that each character earned and deserved both sympathy and frustration in equal measure.

Sorry ladies, I did "side" with Riley. Jenn had blinders on, self-absorbed, self-centered, making demands on Riley. The only fault I saw with Riley, she did not tell Jenn that her boss forbid her to associate with her friend during the investigation. Jenn should have realized that Riley's job as a journalist could suffer through that association. Whine, "but I need you." "Whose side are you on?" Rather than understanding Riley's need for journalistic integrity. 

I dislike being considered white, but society puts that label upon me. My father was born in Italy. When his father brought him, to the U.S.A. the kids called his brother 'tar baby" due to his dark skin. The white classmates harassed my father which may be why the Negro students befriended him, teaching him English and so on.

My mother's family came from Germany; she was born in the U.S.A. If one traces my Italian heritage back far enough, you will find black Africans. There was a time when Italian and Irish immigrants were not considered white. I look at this Blogger screen ~ my skin is not white like the page. I have only known a few black people. Most Black people are shades of brown. 

I hate the labels. One race, the human race. 

We Are Not Like Them

 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5065135694

Goodreads Review: We Are Not Like Them

I wrote a comment on my  review. I just reread the prologue and the 2nd Chapter where Kevin tells his wife that they chased a suspect in car, then when the runner turned into an alley, they chased the suspect on foot. The boy Justin saw a star in the sky, thus I was correct in thinking this happened after dark.

What I missed or forgot was that the two cops arrived at the scene of the convenience store robbery, saw someone running and followed him. Later in the story people view a surveillance video camera of the alley where the boy was shot.Someone commented that the blur must have been the runner (suspect.) 

Page 185: Uncle Rod's giant RV towers over all of them. I have no idea what RV towers are. Oh, I see: Rod's giant RV, towers over... I wonder if I would have read it correctly if there had been that comma after RV. Or "Uncle Rod's giant RV sits in the yard. It towers over all the other cars (dirt, weeds, gravel?) 

page 166: When other people walk away from danger our men walk towards it. And we have their six.

Is six a typo,or some cop lingo I have never heard? 

page 203: so I guess tomorrow will be our last Christmas there house.

At their house? Or just last Christmas there? 

There were a few other times that I had to stop reading trying to make sense of a sentence, but I did not make note of all of them. 

Quotes from Where The Crawdad Sings

 "A lesser male needs to shour to be heard." 

(I learned that others become afraid of people yelling at them. Early on an abusive person yells to frighten and take control. That bully, abuser, or narcissistic needs control to feel powerful. Or is actually a lesser male.They can not win against an alpha male, thus seek out smaller, weaker prey.)

"...life also taught her that ancient genes for survival still persist in undesirable forms among the twists and turns of man's genetic codes." 

(Many readers who commented on the book at Good Reads, thought Kya was not capable of doing what she did to survive future rape/abuse. Yet told readers she could do what it took to survive.)

"Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in whatever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn't be here. We still store those instincts in our genes and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we wrem what we had to be to survive---way back yonder. "

Kya whispered an Amanda Hamilton verse:

"never underrate

the heart,

Capable of deeds,

  The mind cannot conceive.

How else can you explain

The path I have taken.

Thay you have taken.

The long way through the pass."

(I can not figure out how to get rid of double spaces between lines of poem, so...)

 

Where The Crawdads Sing

 Novel by author Delia Owens, Where The Crawdads Sing.

I enjoyed reading the story although I got bored a few times. Kya was abandoned by her mother when she was six-years-old. Her only remaining sibling fled soon after leaving her alone with her drunken, abusive father who was often gone for days at a time.

Thus begins the tale of Kya learning to survive in the marsh where their shack is located. Some of it seems improbable for a child to do things. Was she tall enough to use the old fashion wood stove to cook? Strong enough to pump well water? Little things. She sat in the outhouse once when father was on a rampage, but little mention of her daily treks. I never thought about children growing up using an outhouse. Seems there would be a danger of small children falling into the hole while trying to mount it. 

The novel spans her years with nary a mention of toothaches. Perhaps she had perfect teeth due to not eating sweets? 

SPOILER ALERT: If you plan to read the book, do not read the rest of this post.

The ending seemed improbable. It would have been nice if the author had added a chapter with Kya recalling how she felt riding the bus to Greenville; how she knew to wipe away possible evidence, such as fingerprints, how she felt when the bus was delayed 45 minutes. Did she panic, thinking her well-laid out plan was doomed to fail?