The Blanche White mysteries by Barbara Neely are really enjoyable. Blanche is smart, perceptive, and resourceful but she often jumps to conclusions and has blind spots (and prejudices) which put her in danger. She is also "eggplant black,” middle-aged, plus-sized, and a domestic worker, who cooks, cleans, and serves in various wealthy households. I wish there had been more than just these four volumes.
Barbara Neely has some home truths to tell and the mysteries are always human and never quite neat.
———————
NY: Penguin Books, 1992
ISBN 0 14 01.7439 7
(page 39) Blanche was unimpressed by the tears, and Grace’s Mammy-save-me eyes. Mammy-savers regularly peeped out at her from the faces of some white women for whom she worked, and lately, in this age of the touchy-feely model of manhood, an occasional white man. It happened when an employer was struck by family disaster or too compulsive about owning everything, too overwrought, or downright frightened by who annd what they were. She never ceased to be amazed at how many white people longed for Aunt Jemima.
(48-49) Blanche had never suffered from what she called Darkies’ Disease….. Loving the people for whom you worked might make it easier to wipe old Mr Stanley’s shitty behind and take young Edna’s smart-ass, rich kid remarks. And, of course, it was hard not to love children, or to overlook the failings of the old and infirm. They were not yet responsible in the first case and beyond it in the other. What she didn’t understand was how you convinced yourself that you were actually loved by people who paid you the lowest possible wages… It seemed to her that this was the real danger in looking at customers through love-tinted glasses. You had to pretend that obvious facts - facts that were like fences around your relationship - were not true.
_Blanche Among the Talented Tenth_ by Barbara Neely
Leawood, KS: Brash Books, 1994, 2014
ISBN 1941298478
(70) Well, I guess I really hadn’t thought about what kind of person, not woman, but person, I wanted to be until I read her book. She made me see that a lot of what we’re told makes a good woman is not what makes you a good person. You know what I mean?
(73) "I don’t think any of us is ever all grown up. No matter how old we get, life’s always got a lesson for you. Most likely one you’ve learned ten times before,” she chuckled. “That’s all growing up means, you know, acting like you know what you’ve learned."
(124) She’d learned long ago that the best way to communicate with crazy people was in their world.
(128-129) Lots of times when women say love, we mean somebody to take care of us, or to make our lives seem, worthwhile - things we ought to be doing for oursleves. Sometimes when men say love, they seem to mean they want to own you, or lock you in the kitchen and maternity ward or tell you what to think.
(144) Maybe part of what happened when you had more than most people was that you fooled yourself into thinking you were independent.
(154) When you hired someone to do something basic for you, did you automatically turn them into someone not to be taken as seriously as yourself?
(157) Ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ interested in people. No better way to learn what not to do in life. And you don’t exactly stop listening when I start telling you what’s happening up here.
(162) This wasn’t the first time she'd been attacked. She’d been raped and mugged. She was too familiar with the feeling of separation from herself that came with having been rendered defenseless, but she wasn’t taking responsibility for shit that wasn’t her fault.
Leawood, KS: Brash Books, 1994, 2014
ISBN 1941298478
(70) Well, I guess I really hadn’t thought about what kind of person, not woman, but person, I wanted to be until I read her book. She made me see that a lot of what we’re told makes a good woman is not what makes you a good person. You know what I mean?
(73) "I don’t think any of us is ever all grown up. No matter how old we get, life’s always got a lesson for you. Most likely one you’ve learned ten times before,” she chuckled. “That’s all growing up means, you know, acting like you know what you’ve learned."
(124) She’d learned long ago that the best way to communicate with crazy people was in their world.
(128-129) Lots of times when women say love, we mean somebody to take care of us, or to make our lives seem, worthwhile - things we ought to be doing for oursleves. Sometimes when men say love, they seem to mean they want to own you, or lock you in the kitchen and maternity ward or tell you what to think.
(144) Maybe part of what happened when you had more than most people was that you fooled yourself into thinking you were independent.
(154) When you hired someone to do something basic for you, did you automatically turn them into someone not to be taken as seriously as yourself?
(157) Ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ interested in people. No better way to learn what not to do in life. And you don’t exactly stop listening when I start telling you what’s happening up here.
(162) This wasn’t the first time she'd been attacked. She’d been raped and mugged. She was too familiar with the feeling of separation from herself that came with having been rendered defenseless, but she wasn’t taking responsibility for shit that wasn’t her fault.
NB: That feeling of separation from self is key and often overlooked.
(191) We women would be wise to remember that we have always done all the important things, grow food, raise children, develop social groups, all the things that sustain human life. In my new book, I try to understand and explain why it is that we won’t accept the power and ascendency this gives us.
… We don’t need other people to know our power, we need ourselves, ourselves.
(192) I can’t imagine what it will take to make men feel it's all right to be human before they're male or black.
(191) We women would be wise to remember that we have always done all the important things, grow food, raise children, develop social groups, all the things that sustain human life. In my new book, I try to understand and explain why it is that we won’t accept the power and ascendency this gives us.
… We don’t need other people to know our power, we need ourselves, ourselves.
(192) I can’t imagine what it will take to make men feel it's all right to be human before they're male or black.
_Blanche Cleans Up_ by Barbara Neely
NY: Penguin Books, 1998
ISBN 0 14 02.7747 1
(39) Most of the time she remembered the cost of childhood to the child and tried to act accordingly, but it didn’t always work.
(99) astreperious - Asterperious, is one of four bomb squadrons of the 90th Bombardment Group Heavy. The 319th Bomb Squadron made history in New Guinea from 1943 Through 1944 in many critical battle campaigns including Wewak, Biak Island, and Rabaul; astorperious: (US, slang, dated, rare, AAVE) stuck up; haughty
(129) wolf tickets - To speak aggressively to someone without intending to back it up with violence.
(138) Old folks say the dead need our tears to get where they got to go.
NY: Penguin Books, 1998
ISBN 0 14 02.7747 1
(39) Most of the time she remembered the cost of childhood to the child and tried to act accordingly, but it didn’t always work.
(99) astreperious - Asterperious, is one of four bomb squadrons of the 90th Bombardment Group Heavy. The 319th Bomb Squadron made history in New Guinea from 1943 Through 1944 in many critical battle campaigns including Wewak, Biak Island, and Rabaul; astorperious: (US, slang, dated, rare, AAVE) stuck up; haughty
(129) wolf tickets - To speak aggressively to someone without intending to back it up with violence.
(138) Old folks say the dead need our tears to get where they got to go.
NB: I say the only thing our dead want from us is to be remembered.
from _You Can't Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat_ by Gene Lees
Lincoln, NE: Univ of NE Press, 2001
ISBN 0-8032-8034-3
(xvi) from the preface by Nat Hentoff: [James] Loewen writes: I have found useful a distinction societies make in east and central Africa. According to John Mbiti, Kisawahili speakers divide the deceased into two categories: sasha and zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living dead. They are not wholly dead, for they live on in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead...
(149) … and if you were lucky enough to be loved, you weren’t always lucky enough to be loved in the way you needed.
(264) “Well, you know what it’s like tendin’ bar; people talk to you like listenin’s what you get paid to do. When they ain’t talkin’ to you, they talk in front of you like you can’t hear.”
(276) She took me to a friend of hers, a nurse or a midwife. But first Cousin Murphy made me pray for what would not have a chance to become a full baby born to me, made me thank it for giving me my life back. Made me promise to give of myself to some child already in the world. Atonement, she called it.
(282) She wondered if men thought they were responsible for things they couldn’t control, or was this a woman thing?
Editorial Comment: a sexist comment. See above about “prejudice"
Lincoln, NE: Univ of NE Press, 2001
ISBN 0-8032-8034-3
(xvi) from the preface by Nat Hentoff: [James] Loewen writes: I have found useful a distinction societies make in east and central Africa. According to John Mbiti, Kisawahili speakers divide the deceased into two categories: sasha and zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living dead. They are not wholly dead, for they live on in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead...
(149) … and if you were lucky enough to be loved, you weren’t always lucky enough to be loved in the way you needed.
(264) “Well, you know what it’s like tendin’ bar; people talk to you like listenin’s what you get paid to do. When they ain’t talkin’ to you, they talk in front of you like you can’t hear.”
(276) She took me to a friend of hers, a nurse or a midwife. But first Cousin Murphy made me pray for what would not have a chance to become a full baby born to me, made me thank it for giving me my life back. Made me promise to give of myself to some child already in the world. Atonement, she called it.
(282) She wondered if men thought they were responsible for things they couldn’t control, or was this a woman thing?
Editorial Comment: a sexist comment. See above about “prejudice"
_Blanche Passes Go_ by Barbara Neely
NY: Penguin Books, 2000
ISBN 0 14 10.0197 6
(5) It was easier to rush off to who you were becoming than it was to walk back to where you’d left a part of yourself and try to revive it. Life was a forward-moving thing. Trying to go back was like swimming upstream with rocks in your pockets.
(18) The New South is where they capitalize Nigger.
(128) Blanche pursed her lips to keep from laughing. There’d been a time when Karen’s Klanette attitude would have depressed her for days. That was before she was old enough to understand that both race and racism were invented by white people and didn’t have a thing to do with her. However, she did like to remind them of the cost of their stupidity when she got a chance.
(129) She had a feeling it was the rare white person who could both see prejudice in those he cared about and speak on it.
… She couldn't tell him she thought Karen was fine for him, as though being a racist wasn’t something that seeped through your whole life like the stench of sewer water rising in the basement.
(137) Daisy wasn’t colored, but she sure as hell wasn’t white in the way the people they both worked for were.
(142-143) Blanche recognized one of the dancing black men as a member of what she called the Andy Young Fools Club: civil-rights and other leaders and celebrities she read about who were foolish enough to go on those fact-finding trips for outfits like Nike and Kathy Whatherhame. They always came back grinning about how happy those Asian workers were, and how much they loved being underpaid. Did those so-called fact-finders really believe that what they saw in those factories was what went on when they weren’t around? Everybody cleans house when company’s coming.
(261) I met lots of Americans. Blind as bats, most of them. Only looking at the world for how it is for them, not for other people, but…
(289) A person had to feel powerful someplace, even the wrong place. Maybe being a black man - the most hated human being in the country - and mostly working jobs where somebody else had all the say had something to do with wanting exclusive ownership of a woman’s life.
(305-306) Yes, Blanche thought, and for the same reason: the shame of the wounded. What was it that the rapists, the batterers, and torturers did to make women they hurt feel ashamed of what was done to them, to suspect, at least for a moment, that they deserved to be raped, maimed, and bruised?
NY: Penguin Books, 2000
ISBN 0 14 10.0197 6
(5) It was easier to rush off to who you were becoming than it was to walk back to where you’d left a part of yourself and try to revive it. Life was a forward-moving thing. Trying to go back was like swimming upstream with rocks in your pockets.
(18) The New South is where they capitalize Nigger.
(128) Blanche pursed her lips to keep from laughing. There’d been a time when Karen’s Klanette attitude would have depressed her for days. That was before she was old enough to understand that both race and racism were invented by white people and didn’t have a thing to do with her. However, she did like to remind them of the cost of their stupidity when she got a chance.
(129) She had a feeling it was the rare white person who could both see prejudice in those he cared about and speak on it.
… She couldn't tell him she thought Karen was fine for him, as though being a racist wasn’t something that seeped through your whole life like the stench of sewer water rising in the basement.
(137) Daisy wasn’t colored, but she sure as hell wasn’t white in the way the people they both worked for were.
(142-143) Blanche recognized one of the dancing black men as a member of what she called the Andy Young Fools Club: civil-rights and other leaders and celebrities she read about who were foolish enough to go on those fact-finding trips for outfits like Nike and Kathy Whatherhame. They always came back grinning about how happy those Asian workers were, and how much they loved being underpaid. Did those so-called fact-finders really believe that what they saw in those factories was what went on when they weren’t around? Everybody cleans house when company’s coming.
(261) I met lots of Americans. Blind as bats, most of them. Only looking at the world for how it is for them, not for other people, but…
(289) A person had to feel powerful someplace, even the wrong place. Maybe being a black man - the most hated human being in the country - and mostly working jobs where somebody else had all the say had something to do with wanting exclusive ownership of a woman’s life.
(305-306) Yes, Blanche thought, and for the same reason: the shame of the wounded. What was it that the rapists, the batterers, and torturers did to make women they hurt feel ashamed of what was done to them, to suspect, at least for a moment, that they deserved to be raped, maimed, and bruised?
NB: Ties in with the separation of self
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