Tyson recounts the story of his own family heritage in the context of the broader history of the “other South,” his presentation of evidence that even among whites there had been more substantial resistance to both secession and later segregation than is normally recognized.
How much more is a family tree than just how a name gets passed along? Think about your own personal characteristics, and then like Tyson reflect on how many of them you see also in a grandparent, parent, uncle, aunt, or cousin.
Stereotypes are characterizations that put a lot of different people into one oversimplified box, often in ways that are dismissive or hurtful. The thrust of Tyson’s book is to challenge stereotypes about whites, blacks, Christians, southerners, to name a few. On occasion, however, he himself seems to buy into stereotypes: “Free Will Baptists displayed more emotion in church than Methodists and would have made an Episcopalian squirm, but did not ‘speak in tongues’ and cavort like Pentecostal holy rollers.” (p. 174) How do you feel about the “frozen chosen” stereotype often applied to Episcopalians? How do you think Pentecostals feel about their religion being so often reduced to the cavorting [often “with snakes”], tongue-speaking, holy roller image?
No comments:
Post a Comment