I was recently in the mood for a good horror novella or novel, and I saw “Nothing But Blackened Teeth” recommended. It sounded promising, so I gave it a try.
I will start by saying that Cassandra Khaw’s imagery is rich and her voice is lyrical. But when I write poems, I write them for anyone. White, black, hispanic, asian, male, female, it doesn’t matter to me. But Cassandra Khaw really hates white men, and she wants you to know it. She wrote in a character named Philip so that she could vent her spleen repeatedly about her loathing for white men. The first time I ignored it because the author is entitled to her lousy opinions, and bashing white men is pretty popular (and not at all original) these days. But she brought up her loathing for her rich white male character for his rich white maleness over and over again.
White men? White men like my husband? Like my father or my father in law? All good men who have done good in the world and are not racists. Men who I love and respect. Men who are not rich, but you get the vibe that white and male are enough to damn someone in Khaw’s eyes.
Let me be clear. I do not like racism from anyone. I will not read racist crap by a white person in which characters are used to denigrate black people or asian people or men or women or anyone else. But I will also not read racist crap from a brown person in which characters are used to bludgeon white people or men or women. Racism is racism. If you wrote a novel in which you made the kind of comments about asian women, like Khaw, that Khaw does about white men, it would not be published, let alone get good reviews. If I talked about how much I didn’t like any given variety of people group besides white people, I’d expect to get panned. But evidently, racism is fine if you have enough melanin in your skin. It’s apparently not that bad to be a racist person – you just need to be able to get a tan while you’re out there sucking.
I am DNFing the book. Ultimately, it’s difficult to enjoy a story when the author uses one of the characters as a vehicle to talk about how much she doesn’t like people I love. I just don’t enjoy reading that. Racism is racism.
Life at Home 