Exploring the oddity of books spare moment by another spare moment...also, a lot of ellipses...

Saturday, March 26, 2011

28: Night of the Quarter Moon




Guess the year time! An accepted San Francisco society couple come under attack when it is suggested/discovered that the woman of the duo is of mixed racial heritage. She's part black they say while physically, yes physically, attacking them and throwing bricks through their window. Later, the woman who is light skinned, strips down (showin the nudey bits in other words) in court to prove that she is white. Also, surely a book about the then sensitivity to the mixing of ethnicities would not utilize a title that heavily suggests a racial slur regarding someone who has mostly but not all white ancestry. Nope. "Quarter Moon" is ever so delightfully just far enough away to give great big heaps of plausible deniability while doing nothing more than whispering "quadroon" over your should, into your ear and touching your mind with its dirty little raycess* fingers. It turns out that the woman actually did have a black grandmother (proud African-American they call her of course as that will make up all the difference) so not only did she dare mix in inappropriate circles, but she lied to them, too!
So, the year? 1917? Uh uh. 1925? Nope? Surely, not after WWII? How about all the way in 1959. Sometimes, though I want to hold firm, I wonder whether it is better to remember the worst of the past or simply wash it away. Oh, inconsequential note, this tied into the movie of the same title starring Drew Barrymore's dad which is his name now.

*Raycess is of course the more phonetically pleasing form of racist.

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