This road I've taken has unfolded as a difficult, yet vigorous process. Along the way, I have worked many jobs, far apart in both terms of distance and measure of skill. Both of my parents were of mixed race and faced an immense amount of deprivation and oppression during their lives. It was not until I reached my father's home state of Georgia, though, that I learned about this since he abandoned my siblings and I at a young age. There, I truly became a strong African American man as I learnt of the segregation and labor abuse that was present during his time in the “Deep South”.
I then came across the philosophy and spiritual presence of Buddhism. This philosophy helped me to realize the commonness of man, regardless of color while I was living in Harlem. While in France, I studied the concept of idealism under the tutelage of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. This helped me to link the French with America, and made a connection for blacks to have new opportunities and travel destinations.
Workshops that I held helped me to patent my strategies and symbolism relating blacks and whites in my work during that period. Black and white didn't have to be viewed upon as night and day, but I'd like to think that this stamp on my literature process has brought a sense of mutual feelings from other writers around me. In my literary works I have often tied my physical appearance as that of a white male, and the introverted aspect of my black culture.
Both of my marriages stirred up much scrutiny and social criticism as well, being interracial. All of these experiences I am incorporating into my novel “Cane”. I have thought of a correlation between my racial identities and the spiritual approach I see the young black youths embarking on today.
-Jean Troomer
Article written by:
Isaias Gallardo
University of Texas at Arlington
US History 1312
Feb 20 2011
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