# A few words about Alice Walker. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 24, 2001, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245 "2001-10-24T03:30:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sirjamesp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@sirjamesp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sirjamesp)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/21 "2001-10-24T14:14:31Z")
God, who _is_ this woman with her “only I understand the world, and it loves me for it” attitudes. I have read ONE article by her and I despise her shallow ways already. From the link posted by **saudade** > [@](#): > > The compassionate gesture humanized the president and the White House for me, and made it possible for me to feel a connection that I would not otherwise have felt. As **Ben** says - _zwoooooong_. > [@](#): > > I travel to Cuba whenever I can to take medicine and the small, perhaps insignificant **comfort of my presence** , to those whose courage and tenderness have inspired me practically my entire life. > _bolding by sirjamesp_ Bloody hell, woman! They don’t give a flying fuck about you! > [@](#): > > One endearing quality I’ve found in the Cubans I have met is that they can listen with as much heart as they speak. Ahh, bless, do the little people have an endearing quality? How sweet of you to say so YOU PATRONISING GOAT. > [@](#): > > In 1962 I also went to Russia. What a shame you came back. > [@](#): > > I voted for you for President, even though I personally want compassionate feminine leadership in the world, at least for the next hundred years or so For those who missed it, that was meant to be a bit of feminism inserted at a random point. > [@](#): > > I often disagree with you - your treatment of black women Unless, it seems, they are “tit women”, who just love working for peanuts. > [@](#): > > Whenever you hurt them, or help them, please think of me. I tell you what, darling, I would hurt anyone a hell of a lot more if I was thinking of you at the time. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. **Ben** - you have ruined my life with a crazy hatred for a woman I have never met. ---
**Author:** ![rushtopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e47774/32.png) [@rushtopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rushtopher)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/22 "2001-10-24T14:44:36Z")
Is it just me, or is Walker’s English sometimes very poor for someone who has one the Pulitzer prize? I mean her diction, not that she isn’t a native speaker. For example, in the open letter to Clinton posted below: > [@](#): > > The compassionate gesture humanized the president and the White House for me, and made it possible for me to feel a connection that I would not otherwise have felt. When President Kennedy was assassinated, and my whole school wept, it was of those warming sips of coffee that I thought. This is very awkward, couldn’t she have said “When President kennidy was assassinated, and my whole school wept, I thought of those warming sips of coffee,” or is that just not pretentious sounding enough. Maybe it is just me, and I am likely falling victim to **Gaudere’s** law here. ---
**Author:** ![rushtopher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e47774/32.png) [@rushtopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rushtopher)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/23 "2001-10-24T14:50:11Z")
Yup sure did. Maybe that’s hick for Kennedy. sheesh. Gosh, and who has **won** the Pulitzer prize. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/24 "2001-10-24T15:05:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Like I said, I stopped reading Ms. over the Walker-esque groupthink The question we should ask ourselves is not, “Is Alice Walker an appallingly bad writer?” (she is), nor, “Can you look a chicken in both eyes at the same time?” (you can’t). The question we should be asking is why any guy would read _Ms._? Hell, I’m a card-carrying gay guy, and I read _Sports Illustrated_ or _Maxim_ over that New York liberal, Radcliffe grad, anti-male crapfest. **Ben** , just tell us you don’t read Oprah or Rosie’s magazines. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/25 "2001-10-25T02:00:30Z")
I’d also like to point out I have only seen a picture of Dworkin once, a long time ago-although I do remember she just looked like a slob. No, I just blame her because she makes us feminists look bad, so every guy assumes that I’m a male hating non-shaving pig. Dammit! (Well, that and I have to blame SOMEONE!) ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/26 "2001-10-25T02:26:16Z")
Male disliking non shaving piglet checking in. But this crap sickens ME, which is pretty hard to do. Thanks for the advance warning. Now I’ll know what to expect if I encounter Walker’s stuff in the next few years. ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/27 "2001-10-25T02:28:14Z")
Male disliking non shaving piglet checking in. But this crap sickens ME, which is pretty hard to do. Thanks for the advance warning. Now I’ll know what to expect if I encounter Walker’s stuff in the next few years. I do remember reading a book in which the author complained about how only the best-looking feminists seem to get taken seriously. The comment was something like “Gloria Steinem, in her youth, could have been Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. No one ever thought much of mousy wallflower Andrea Dworkin’s ideas. “She just needs some big black cock,” seemed to be the prevailing opinion.”" 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2001, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/28 "2001-10-25T05:53:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daowajan \* > \*\* “She just needs some big black cock,” seemed to be the prevailing opinion."" 😃 \*\* Yeah, I totally agree that that’s what he needs. Wait- you were talking about Dworkin? Sorry, I thought we were discussing Al Gore. -Ben ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/29 "2001-10-26T23:11:03Z")
BTW, I just wanted to recommend Trey Ellis’ _Platitudes_. The first chapter is about a nerdy, well-to-do Black teenager and his trials and tribulations in a Manhattan high school. The second chapter starts with an angry letter from an Alice Walker-esque writer ranting about how his first chapter reeks of sexism, but she’s willing to re-educate him by rewriting chapter 1 the way it should have been written. What follows is her version of chapter 1, in which the characters have mysteriously become sharecroppers, and modern-day Manhattan has become the reconstruction-era South. From there on out the chapters alternate between the novel set in Manhattan and the Walker character’s rewrites about the sharecroppers. I, for one, found it to be a laugh-out-loud funny parody. -Ben ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/30 "2001-10-26T23:21:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Daowajan \* > > \*\* “She just needs some big black cock,” seemed to be the prevailing opinion."" 😃 \*\* > > Yeah, I totally agree that that’s what he needs. Wait- you were talking about Dworkin? Sorry, I thought we were discussing Al Gore. > > -Ben \*\* I think everybody could use some big black cock. ---
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2001, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/31 "2001-10-26T23:52:09Z")
Yeah! I love that song! “Let’s all go Down to Alice Walker! Let’s all go Down to Alice Walker! I’ll get a hamburger, fries And a bottle of Skeet Drink it on down With my baby and me!” (or something like that) [sub]Huh? What? It’s Doomis\*\* Walker? D’OH![/sub] Heh, heh… never mind! Esprix ---
**Author:** ![jane\_says](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jane\_says](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jane_says)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/32 "2001-10-27T02:09:17Z")
[nitpick]Doomis Walker’s serves slawburgers, not hamburgers. [/nitpick] My mother forces me to listen to the country station whenever we’re in the car together. Be sure to file that in your mental Rolodex, m’kay? And yeah, Alice Walker’s quite the maroon. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/33 "2001-10-27T11:53:44Z")
Alice Walker - proof you that you don’t have to be white to be a patronizing, ethnocentric, ugly American-type tourist :rolleyes: I read _Warrior Marks_, or rather about 1/3 of it, and found it to be more about Alice Walker than about female circumcism. In the few areas she does talk about what is supposedly the subject of the book she comes across as “me educated Westerner here to save you, you uneducated savages ensalved to dark traditions and customs” I’m sorry, Ms. Walker, just because your skin is dark and your ancestors came from Africa _does not_ mean you have anything in common with the women of today’s Africa. Your ancestory and skin color _do not_ change the fact that culturally you are a middle-class liberal American. The accident of your exterior appearance does not somehow entitle you to be an authority on African women nor does it give you the right to show up in their villages, criticize their way of life, disrupt their rituals, then profit off the experience by writing a book and (apparently) making a documentary. You’re just as exploitive as an abusive husband. Every attempt to simply outlaw female circumcism has only resulted in the practice becoming more extreme and more entrenched. I highly recommend _The Female Circumcism Controversy, an Anthropological Perspective_ by Ellen Gruenbaum from University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Now _that_ is a discussion of the practice, its variations, and cultural factors involved both in maintaining the practice and also in its diminishing in certain areas, written by a woman who didn’t just fly in for a visit but has actually lived and worked in Africa for years. But, of course, writing such a work requires thought, work, and some self-reassessing. It’s not nearly as easy as a work of fiction where the people do what you want them to, to prove the points you want them to prove, and sticking to the facts is not required. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/34 "2001-10-27T17:57:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daowajan \* > \*\*Male disliking non shaving piglet checking in. But this crap sickens ME, which is pretty hard to do. > > Thanks for the advance warning. Now I’ll know what to expect if I encounter Walker’s stuff in the next few years. \*\* Oh, I didn’t mean it THAT way. I’m sorry-I guess I mean, they assume I’m a stereotype. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/35 "2001-10-27T18:39:20Z")
Way, way back then, when I was a desperately sincere young Radical, I was working in a collective, the whole nine yards. My main squeeze (she’s long gone, I can say what I want) at the time insisted that I read _Purple_ on pain of…well, lets call it excommunication. OK, so I knuckled under. And I tried, Lord, I tried. But my ignorance kept getting in the way. I mean, I had no idea that lesbian relations were so common in the rural Black culture of the 30’s. Nor had I any notion that black men were so utterly dominant in thier relations with women, I kinda thought those “She done me wrong, she threw my ass out” blues songs were about real stuff, I had no notion they were just sly fantasys. Boy, they sure fooled me, they sounded so sincere! I was born and raised in Texas. I have considered calling my Aunt Ophelia and telling her she lives in a male-dominated culture. I’m a thousand miles away, she can’t take a switch to me. Well, to sum up: I know its old-fashioned, but I _like_ effeminate women. Nothing melts my heart quicker than watching a woman paint her toe-nails. ---
**Author:** ![xanadu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c4cdca/32.png) [@xanadu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xanadu)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2001, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/36 "2001-10-28T00:30:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by delphica \* > What is Alice Walker _thinking_? \*\* She’s not. What a load of BS. She sounds like the poster child for hypocracy. ---
**Author:** ![bagkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ab992/32.png) [@bagkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bagkitty)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2001, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/37 "2001-10-28T08:04:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > **…And I tried, Lord, I tried. But my ignorance kept getting in the way. I mean, I had no idea that lesbian relations were so common in the rural Black culture of the 30’s.** Back to my originial point… neither did Spielberg. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2001, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/38 "2001-10-28T23:53:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by delphica \* > \*\*\*\*Ben, \*\* that was a very nice rant and all, but Lord help me, I couldn’t really focus on most of it because I was distracted by the question “How can a person look into the eyes of a chicken from a moving car?” > > I mean, a chicken is pretty low to the ground, and its eyes are about the size of peas (small peas). Also, while I live in NYC, I have seen chickens, and to the best of my recollection, their eyes are more or less on either side of their heads, so it would be difficult at best to look into both of its eyes at the same time, unless both you and the chicken took some time to arrange yourselves with the precision and care usually reserved for Tantric sex so that you could find the one angle that allows you to gaze into both eyes at once. But again, I am a city girl so I could be wrong about this.\*\* Maybe it was Babs or Ginger from **Chicken Run**. I’m going to go on a tangent here. The remark about “all men being potential rapists” reminds me of dialogue from an absolute gem of a film called **Life is Sweet** , directed by Mike Leigh. The following exchange took place between Jane Horrocks and Claire Skinner (Jane Horrocks, if you remember, was also the voice of Babs). Horrocks (as Nicola) All men are bastards! Skinner (as Natalie) _What?!_ Nicola: They’re all potential rapists! Natalie: That’s a bit sweeping! Nicola: All men have got the ability to rape. Natalie: Well, they don’t all do it, do they! Nicola: Well, they’ve got the ability; they’ve got the desire. Natalie: That’s paranoid rubbish! Nicola: What d’you know about paranoia. Natalie: Well, not as much as you do; I’ll give you that. ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/39 "2001-10-29T01:06:00Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\* > Oh, I didn’t mean it THAT way. I’m sorry-I guess I mean, they assume I’m a stereotype._\* Naw, I knew what you meant. 🙂 I was just building off your post. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245/40 "2001-10-29T01:29:14Z")
Doesn’t anyone around here like Ms. Walker or her work? I liked _The Color Purple_, both the book and movie, but frankly I don’t know enough about her or her other works to make an informed opinion one way or the other. But she must have some redeeming qualities, no? I mean, are her accolades, awards and achievements just a fluke? There must be some fans out there, right? [echoing into the abyss] Anybody? Anybody? [/echoing into the abyss] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-words-about-alice-walker/89245.md?page=3)