Jerry Goure
EWRT-2
Reading Notes - Seeing A Color-Blind Future
CHAPTER 1
The Emperor's New Clothes
• The author's son refusal to acknowledge
the color of anything is used to illustrate
the larger problem, which is society's
frequent refusal to admit race is an issue.
(p. 4)
• The author's experience taking her son to
day-care is used to illustrate how blackness
is branded upon people, often by white
people who themselves never defined race
as in personal terms. (p.7)
• The author uses the example of the people
of Tierra del Fuego to illustrate the power
of the public secret, then applies the
concept to race in the U.S. It is an
appropriate way of interpreting the
attitudes of many people, who claim that
race does not enter into their world-view at
all.(pp. 11-12)
• The author own experience during the train
ride from NY to DC is striking. Though
somewhat of a diversion from her earlier
topic – the problems of ignoring the legacy
of slavery and colonialism when discussing
race – it makes clear the pervasive and
persistent nature of prejudiced thinking.
(pp. 14-15)
CHAPTER 2
The Pantomime of Race
• O.J. mania as the ultimate in sublimated
racial debate. The author contends that a
lot of racial tension is rooted in the
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spectacle, which utterly fails to portray
“ordinary black life.” (p. 18)
• The author cites the examples of Alex
Kelly and John DuPont as counterpoint to
the Simpson trial. Here, the white
defendants were not in any way set up as
examples of white people. (p. 19)
• The author generalizes the issue to cultural
voyeurism, discussing the tours to
churches in Harlem. She cites a personal
account for emphasis. (pp. 21-22 [-25,
really])
• Anatole Broyard's experience passing in
order “to be a writer, not a black writer”
highlights the nature of race. (pp. 29-30)
CHAPTER 3
The Distribution of Distress
• The author recounts another personal tale,
in a juice bar some years past, to show that
“the revolving door of revulsions is one of
the trickiest mechanisms contributing to
the enduring nature of prejudice.” (p. 31)
• “...our 'isms' are no less insidious when
beautifully polished and terribly refined”
(p. 33)
• Fact: “for a supposedly classless society,
the United States nevertheless suffers the
greatest gap of any industrialized nation
between its richest and poorest citizens.”
What are the statistics, exactly? (p. 34)
• The author tries to connect the race-class
issue to race-accent issue. She appeals to
her academic colleague's research to
 Jerry Goure

illustrate the role race plays in our CHAPTER 5

understanding of a person's speech, or lack
thereof. I take this to mean that race in An Ordinary Brilliance: Parting the
general, including such particulars as Waters, Closing the Wounds
accent, alters the context of any interaction. • Summary: Race is not a cipher for poverty,
(p. 36) disease, bestiality, or for the whole of life.
• The author's house-buying experience, and (pp. 62-63)
her childhood experience as her • The “seesawing” between fatalism about
neighborhood became all-black illustrate racism and “frenetically applied” quick
the fear white people have of blacks and fixes only makes matters worse (p. 64)
“the silent trade in black worth” (pp. 38-
43)
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CHAPTER 4 ——————————————————
The War Between the Worlds ——————————————————
• Good literary device, using the overheard ——————————————————
argument as a jumping-off point for the ——————————————————
loaded remarks used in the race debate.
(pp. 47-48) ——————————————————
• Pseudoscience is at issue here, because it is ——————————————————
so hard to disprove, and continues to be the ——————————————————
basis for prejudice over and over again.
(pp. 49- ——————————————————

• “Black people seem to be emerging as a ——————————————————

kind of great global surplus, now that we ——————————————————
are no longer chattels and in demand as
such.” The example is the expansion of the ——————————————————
prison system in the U.S. (p. 57) ——————————————————
• Reiterate the pervasiveness of “blackness” ——————————————————
vs. the invisibility of “whiteness” with the
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example of the supermodels who were
“whited up” to make race “disappear”, as ——————————————————
one observer noted. (p. 59)
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