I wanted to like this book. Really, I did.
I am so weary of articles in the popular press that paint a picture of dysfunction in black romantic relationships and, increasingly, in male-female romantic relationships generally. Most of the tired articles make the same mistake: they generalize from a few anecdotes to broad conclusions. For instance, a reporter interviews Stephanie, a well-educated black woman who is not satisfied with her love life. The reporter then generalizes and says that well-educated black women cannot have satisfying relationships, for the same reasons that Stephanie can't find satisfaction. The problem is that Stephanie's issues alone do not tell us enough to draw conclusions about the entire population of black women. Stepahanie's issues might be interesting and worth reading in their own right, but it's folly to think that she can speak for all black women.
I have been looking for something that discusses relationships without falling into this tired trap. I thought The Conversation by Hill Harper might fill the bill. I got a lot of hope from his introduction. In his very first sentence the author declares that "I am in no way representing myself as an expert in relationships, but rather as a man on a journey." I perked up a bit. After all, the author has a law degree from Harvard and a degree from the Kennedy School of Government; he is now an actor. There is nothing to suggest that he is qualified to tell us anything about relationships generally, either from a sociological or a psychological perspective. But he is eminently qualified to speak to his experience. The book seemed to hold promise, especially if he stuck to describing his experience and his conversations with others without attempting to use his experience as a basis for broad conclusions.
So far the book has been quite interesting and touching when the author sticks to his personal experience. It was quite eye-opening for me when he stated that he has not viewed his lovers as friends. I found it astonishing that anyone could claim to be in a relationship with someone without considering her to be a friend. I've considered my long-term partners to be amongst my very best friends, and I think no romance is worth having if my lover is not also a close friend. Indeed, the main reason for my growing dissatisfaction with my last relationship was the distressing breakdown of all intimate communication between my girlfriend and me. I felt that we did not talk and that we were not friends. Apparently Mr. Harper has frequently been involved with women that he does not even consider himself to be friends with! This experience is foreign and shocking to me.
Unfortunately, the author does not just stick to his own personal experiences in this book. Instead, the book starts reading like another tired, stereotype-ridden Washington Post or New York Times article very early on. Chapter 4 is presumptuously titled "What Brothers Want." Of course, Mr. Harper did not perform any sort of rigorous analysis to determine what brothers want. Instead, he deploys one stereotype after another: "Men are better able to compartmentalize than women," or "men want to be with someone they can provide for, someone they can protect." The only evidence he provides to back these assertions are his conversations with a few self-selected people--and even this evidence is scant in his text. Amusingly, the author says "I don't want you to take my word for everything--so I enlisted the opinions of a few of the regulars at my job, barbershop, church, and university to get their thoughts about what men want." It never occurs to him that the men at his barbershop and university cannot tell him what MEN want. They can tell him what THEY want, specifically. For instance, "Jared" tells us that "Women need to know when to be quiet!" So I'm supposed to think that this is what MEN want just because that's what "Jared" wants?
I'm such a stickler for evidence because I don't want to read a pile of stereotypes and preconceived notions. I can get that in the Washington Post. I would like insight. Insight can come from personal analysis. If Mr. Harper would stick to his personal story, maybe I would find personal truths of my own in it. Alternatively, insight could come from rigorous analysis with carefully drawn conclusions--Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is a sterling example of this. Insight could even come from simply recounting the personal experiences of many individuals, without making the tired mistake of assuming that these experiences can be extrapolated to cover huge, diverse populations. This book on Christian-Jewish intermarriage is a great example of that: it tells stories, but it does not purport to say that "couple x experienced this, so it must be true for all couples."
As it stands now, it looks like The Conversation will offer little insight and will instead be filled with the same old stereotypical crap. I can't decide whether I should continue reading the book so I can extract the nuggets of personal wisdom that are buried beneath the thinly-supported assertions that he uses to support his dubious assertions about what "brothers [or sisters] want" or what "the language of men" is or (oh no, not this tired old thing yet again) "crossing the color line."
My quest for truly interesting reading on the topic of black romance continues.
posted at: 21:19 | path: / | permanent link to this entry
