Classless
…I had always assumed that writing Classless would be a walk in the park compared to More than a Woman and Ain’t no Black or White. Classless would be funny, full of anecdotes, irony and the whole shebang. After all, I had had the fortune of being born into relative affluence even though my father opted out of it for noble reasons. I hadn’t been part of the victim community. I hadn’t had to learn to transcend the limitations of ‘class’ in the way I had to being a ‘woman’ or being perceived as ‘black’. Moreover, the first two books, both of them critiques of the Anglo-Saxon mindset, were written from a place, I genuinely believed, of objectivity, detachment and even peace. The story of class, in the context of my life, lacked the existential struggle of the other two stories. Or so I thought.
I understand now that, actually, I had been angrier about ideas on class than any of the issues in the series. Perhaps this was because I grew up in a family and social environment in which money and social standing were used to control people. Also, I discovered when I returned to live in the country of my birth and cultural reference – the birthplace of these ideas – that money bought class and power and was prized above everything, including human life and values…
Read and Transform 