Monday, January 31, 2011

Eula Biss

You can read your homework (due Friday) "Relations" by Eula Biss by clicking here.

2 comments:

  1. Just to start off this essay was very interesting and made me think back to my childhood to when I played with barbie dolls. As a child I played with all kinds of barbie dolls. When it came down to who I rather play with I could never decide because I did not see race as a factor. As I got older my mother started buying me the black collectible barbies. In Biss' essay "Relations" she goes from a story dealing with real scenarios and then goes into her childhood and goes back and forth. The start of the essay is about a white couple that gave birth to one white boy and the other was a black boy. If I was in their shoes I would freak out and wonder what went wrong at the fertility clinic we went to. The way the mother was able to give the black child to its real mother was great until when they had visitation together she wanted the child to call her "mother" and was speaking to the child with the name she originally gave him. I felt that went overboard. I understand that she did carry the child to term and had a connection with the child but when it turned not to be hers she could of at least brought up the idea to the child's mother about what she wanted to do and see how the mother felt about that. If I was in the black mother's shoes I would of not let the child see her anymore until she understood that having my child call you mom was not going to happen because you are not the mother. That could have affected me since I did not get the chance to carry my own child, I just got to raise it. I enjoyed how Biss went back and forth with a true story not including her and then go into something that does have to with her. Biss is a writer that I can connect to. Those are the best writers in my opinion.
    -Sweets92

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Biss essay was one that described the complicated issue of race through her lyric style of wrstiting. She began by telling of her child hood and the doll she had as a kid known to her as only the "black doll". This alone just shows that the issue of race is one that goes far beyond the scope of adults and is felt by children. Then she goes sinto a dission of a study conducted in the 50's with both white and black children choosing between a black or white doll. She continues this lyric style through out her essay continuing to peel back the layers of both her life and clinical studies.
    If a friend of mine that was from a froiegn country wanted to learn of racial issues in amreica i would not recomend this essay. My reason is simply because for a person not familair with our countries past of racial issues the esaay would not make sense. they find them self asking what is the big deal if she called the doll the "Back Doll" if that was the color of the doll? Also I feel it would confuse them to read it without knowing of our countries racial tendencies.

    ReplyDelete