Danzy Senna Writes Herself (And Other Mixed-Race People) Into Existence

丹齐·塞纳 (Danzy Senna) 将自己(和其他混血儿)写入存在

Fresh Air

2024-09-04

44 分钟
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Novelist Danzy Senna spoke with Terry Gross about racial identity, growing up with a Black father and white mother in an era when "mixed-race" wasn't a thing. "Just merely existing as a family was a radical statement at that time," she says. Her new book is Colored Television. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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  • This is fresh air.

  • I am Terry Gross.

  • Remember when Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris of suddenly turning black and he said, so?

  • I dont know, is she indian or is she black?

  • The confusion and suspicion biracial people are confronted with is a theme of the novels and the memoir by my guest Danzi Senna.

  • She also writes about what it means to be biracial and the meaning of race itself.

  • Her mother, who is white, is from an eminent Boston family.

  • Her father, who is black, grew up in an orphanage in a small Alabama town.

  • Her parents married in 1968, the year the Supreme Court overturned all existing state laws that banned in interracial marriage.

  • She was born in 1970 and grew up during the black power movement.

  • Her new novel, colored television, is both heartfelt and satirical.

  • Its about a writer whos devastated when the novel shes been working on for ten years, a novel about how the meaning of being biracial has changed over generations, is rejected by her publisher.

  • If she cant publish that, she cant get tenure at the university where she teaches, which means not having enough money to get by.

  • Her husband is an artist whose work doesn't sell.

  • They have two children.

  • She's discovering that some of her son's traits that she thought made him unique and interesting may be signs that he's on the autism spectrum.

  • The family lives in LA, which they can't afford, so they've been living in an expensive home of a friend, a screenwriter, while he's working abroad.