The Blacker the Berry - Book Discussion

[ConnorD]

Discussion thread for The Blacker the Berry

[Beverly]

This is one my fav Harlem Renaissance reads.
And while this book was originally written in 1929 when I read it in the 1980s I thought how some of the issues are still the same.

Wallace Thurman is not as well known as some of the other Harlem Renaissance writers.
One reason is that he died young.
Second is he addressed issued within the black community while a lot of the other Harlem Renaissance books were written to show how blacks were just like other Americans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_...

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop]

I read and enjoyed the book years ago.

[Julia]

have to get this one as well ...

[Litsplaining]

I'm so excited you all chose these two selections! I read this and wrote an essay on it for graduate school. I'm forever talking about it on my YouTube channel. I love the dialogue that Thurman creates on the skin tone bias in the African-American culture. It was nice to see Emma Lou voice some of my thoughts on wing a dark-skinned woman in a culture that still rewards (to a certain degree) women who are light-skinned over their darker counterparts.

[Donald]

Great book and just as relevant today as it was all those years ago.
The book hits the nail on the head on color coding and prejudice in our community, particularly on how self loathing plays itself out - how we turn on each other both light skinned and dark skinned, and how the need to white-up is presented
I would say that as a whole we continue to turn on ourselves

Although practiced in our black community her in USA, other books suggest that this is not confined to our community here - see the other BOM The Sabi that shows how this happens in Africa too.
Too some extent I appreciate the frank writing that these books shine on matters that we actually have control over. They deal in uncomfortable truths about us that many of us would not rather talk about

Great book