Racism and Universality in Literature

As a white writer I want to speak to white feminists about the literature we read, write, print, and teach. Robert E. Hemenway, in his book, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), exposes and criticizes the assumption that ... the Black author must transcend race in order to write universally .... Even such a brilliant poet as Gwendolyn Brooks has been advised that if \u27being a Negro\u27 is her subject, then she is somehow prevented from creating great literature ... that the ultimate transcendence is to not write about Black people at all, believing for some reason that white people carry no racial identity ... (p. 307). This sounds familiar—women writers know what it\u27s like to be criticized for being trivial, not universal or humanist. Yet, how often do we fight sexism with our left hand and perpetuate racism with our right