Condoleezza Rice was approached by a professor of English and asked to recommend a book by a black woman, to round out the racially and sexually sensitive curriculum. Rice said, “How about my The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948–1983?”
The other woman was, of course, nonplussed, for (if an explanation is required) she did not want a book by a black woman, but a book by same about being a black woman: that Rice had other interests and excellences was moot; she was to be admired not as a writer, but as a prop.
We have long suffered through the mantra that “we need to have a dialogue about race,” in literature. Such (or a dialogue about “gender,” whatever that may be) must necessarily be written by a member of one and only one of the two groups in question.
Should that debar the writer from having opinions?
Are the opinions of one of the momentarily petted groups to be accepted only on the subject of their (supposed, arguable, or actual) oppression? Are women, for example, to be ignored (no matter how great their talent) for writing about something other than their “plight”? Does possession of a “plight” exempt authors from the traditional requirements of skill, clarity, novelty, or insight?
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