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A review by archytas
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
"Civil rights. The New Left. Black Power. Feminism. Gay rights. To be remade so many times in one generation is surely a blessing. So I won’t trap myself into quantifying which matters more, race, or gender, or class. Race, gender, and class are basic elements of one’s living. Basic as utensils and clothing; always in use; always needing repairs and updates. Basic as body and breath, justice and reason, passion and imagination. So the question isn’t “Which matters most?,” it’s “How does each matter?” Gender, race, class; class, race, gender—your three in one and one in three."
In this memoir of growing up in the Black 'aspirational' classes in the 1950s and 1960s, Jefferson explores the very personal and yet very political topic of what it feels like to be at the intersection.
"There are days when I still want to dismantle this constructed self of mine. You did it so badly, I think. You lost so much time. And then I tell myself, so what? So what? Go on."
Jefferson's book brims with anecdotes, searching through her own memory for analysis. She covers the pain and the exhaustion of navigating white friendships, or needing to perform whiteness - which is a kind of class sensibility here. She writes also of the disappointment of discovering sexism in her heroes, Baldwin's majestic scorn for silly lady novelists. But Jefferson never makes her experiences feel as if trapped between - her Negroland girls experiences are rich, whole, of themselves.
In this memoir of growing up in the Black 'aspirational' classes in the 1950s and 1960s, Jefferson explores the very personal and yet very political topic of what it feels like to be at the intersection.
"There are days when I still want to dismantle this constructed self of mine. You did it so badly, I think. You lost so much time. And then I tell myself, so what? So what? Go on."
Jefferson's book brims with anecdotes, searching through her own memory for analysis. She covers the pain and the exhaustion of navigating white friendships, or needing to perform whiteness - which is a kind of class sensibility here. She writes also of the disappointment of discovering sexism in her heroes, Baldwin's majestic scorn for silly lady novelists. But Jefferson never makes her experiences feel as if trapped between - her Negroland girls experiences are rich, whole, of themselves.