Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

What Book Am I Reading and Would I Recommend It?

What book are you reading? Would you recommend it? Week Six for Welcome to My Reality.

Right this very second or within a tiny reach I am reading Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

I have always wanted to read this book and I finally went and bought it. It has taken me a bit to get into it, but I have persisted and I am glad I have. I admire this writer - Maya Angelou - and I wanted to know more about her. She is a strong Black woman born at a time when the American South was deep and the racial lines ran like a river. It is one of her autobiographies and I would have to say it is well written.

I find myself squirming at the bits and pieces of her life and what she went through. Can you imagine being put on a train in California at the age of three with your brother only a year older than you and sent across to Stamps Arkansas with a note attached to you. The divorced parents that did this asked the conductor to watch out for their children, but he got off in Arizona. That got to me right there. No one in their right mind would do that now, but in the 1930's it was quite common in black families. It boggles my mind.

The racial edge to this book also cuts at me. She lives with her Grandmother Henderson (funny, because that was my original name before I got married and I am white and Scottish descent). This Grandmother is very religious and strict. They run a mercantile general store in the black part of town. They don't associate with whites and those that do come by are the 'powhitetrash' that see themselves as above Maya's family, but yet are the ones renting the land from her Grandmother. The disrespect this Grandmother is shown from them makes me cringe. I want to slap the white off them.

I like to believe we are all equal and all have gifts to share - watching the Grammy's last night help balance out this view as I strongly believe we are a much better society if we are open to the gifts and talents of others regardless of a person's background, colour, race, gender, religion and anything else people want to deem as 'different'. When it gets right down to it, we all bleed and we all feel. We are more alike than we are different and we only suffer if we try to impose walls and barriers around each other. I feel quite passionate about that.

Religion rings a bell in this book as well - though I find it screwed by the racial elements evident in her day. I can see where she comes from and where her Grandmother is in her strict religious zeal, but I see the weaknesses in thinking that she believes the blacks will make it into heaven because they have suffered and the whites will not because they are living lavishly in the here and now. The thing is - this is her point of view as a small child without the benefit of seeing life beyond the Mason-Dixon Line.

Compared to them, maybe the whites did live more lavishly, but would not say we don't deserve to go into heaven.

Anyway, another thing that wracked me was that fact that Marguerite Johnson - now Maya Angelou - was raped at the age of eight by a man her mother was involved with and living with. This was disturbing. Having had my own bit of experience of this in my own life, I was intrigued by how she handled the writing of it. Facts as facts but also emotion at the level of a child not knowing or understanding the full extend of the situation. When Mr. Freeman was let out of having to do any time, he was found dead before the day was out. My suspicion is Maya's Uncle's took justice into their own hands - and a part of me applauds them for that. But Maya thinks Mr. Freeman died because she told a lie on the stand by refusing to tell anyone the rape was not the first time Mr. Freeman had touched her.

That child - like voice and mind hangs within the telling of this tale. Children are very black and white in their thinking - the grey regions do not materialize until later, but it makes for a stark journey. Not so bleak, but not sunshine and roses either. At times I just want to reach in and rescue this poor soul, but I am not in her place or time. Acceptance of help from a white person would not be appreciated. I wonder what her views are now, though I know she is more open than she was or that her Grandmother ever would be.

At this point, I am only half way through the book and expect to have it done by the end of the week.

I would recommend this book. If nothing, but to open our eyes to what was and what we do not want for any child.