Zadie Smith on Class & Creativity
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- Опубликовано: 25 сен 2016
- "The educational system is rigged"
English novelist, Zadie Smith, discusses the intersection of class & race in nurturing literary creativity in working class minorities.
Credit to NYU
What she’s saying is spot on! 💜 Zadie is such an inspiration and will always be.
She's right. In England, you make headway if you're upper class. Working class people need better schools, like she said.
I don’t know if you’re reply is simply agreeing with Smith’s statement about lack of diversity amongst writers in the uk alone or speaking from personal experience… but correct me if I’m wrong: one makes headway if theyre upperclass in any field at any point in time, from any location on the planet.
@@Sk8rboy420 I realize some working class make it to the middle class. The middle class is basically comfortable. I agree, the upper classes do well around the world.
@@London_miss234 Thanks for the clarification. I see you’re English now. In the US I’ve observed a lot of class conflict between everyone, each class feeling as though they have it worse than the other. College is universally encouraged in public school, but becoming less and less realistic / affordable. Rich folks feel that don’t have the advantage because social programs neglect them (seeing as they can probably afford college tuition). Some college grads (like my parents) discourage their kids from attending university because their “pointless” degrees (like English, history, philosophy) have gotten them no leverage financially and in deep debt. I think we both agree.
I’m British Jamaican. We lived fairly middle class in England in a town in Ashford, Kent. I moved to the states when young. I went to a great high school and college. Made a decent living. College is still important but not the end all be all. Many millionaires dropped out of college or never attended.
@@London_miss234 I see. I assume you have good insight into class and race in both cultures then.
She's right in a lot of things she says about class. She's bright.
Wow she dropped a major truth bomb! The distinction she makes between music and literature (I'd add others too) is so well put, really helpful and clarifying!
You need education to produce great literature. When i say education, i don't necessarily mean university but at least, you need to read a lot, which is a form of education. You need time and means for that. If you are from a struggling class, odds are you won't have the time and means.
Thank you for making these points. Even wealth that isn’t spent on the obvious world travel or consumerism, is still a considerable advantage when an individual has free time not having to work. They have the opportunity to perfect a craft like writing or painting, which many working, poor, or even middle class individuals simply do not have.
In the UK the big division between people is based on class, not race.
I’m not from the UK, but I understand racism does exist there. I think Zadie Smith has addressed this in previous interviews where I believe she talks about the illusion of racial equality in the UK which shrouds peoples actual genuine discomfort with immigrants / new comers/ people of different races. You could say it’s cause immigrants can come from poor countries with high crime, but race does play a factor too. This is especially true in White Teeth. Maybe I’m being presumptive assuming you’re denying the existence of racism in the UK… if that’s the case I apologize. My point being: in Zadie Smith’s work I’ve read, class and race are divisive factors in UK society.
WOW
Resource depletion is an aggregate of disenfranchising/dis-empowering the opportunities available to the targets of social distancing (racism). Well said!
does anyone else hear that high pitched beeping?
Regrettably, the US is moving more in the direction of the UK, in the sense that increasingly those who pursue advanced degrees in Eng. lit and creative writing come from upper middle class or wealthy backgrounds. Higher ed is far more expensive than it used to be, so if someone comes from a working-class background, they're far more likely to pursue a degree in a field that provides greater job/financial opportunities, Consequently, the humanities and writing programs are disproportionately filled w/ students from similar economic backgrounds--i.e., relatively wealthy--and it follows that these are the people who are likely to become professional and/or established writers. I don't think race is nearly as much of a factor, and Zadie Smith is right that in the US writers of color are doing quite well, though again, these are POC overwhelmingly from upper class backgrounds.
To be a writer, you need a pencil, paper, and some encouragement to write all sorts of crap! Start with a rude poem about the boys or girls at school you don't like or about the stray cat that hangs outside your bedroom window. Simply engaging in your child's learning at an early age (ie, reading, talking, fund raising, organising something) will go some way to encouraging the learning experience and maybe even the writing profession...now this doesn't need a lot of money...just a different mindset
You need education to produce great literature. When i say education, i don't necessarily mean university but at least, you need to read a lot, which is a form of education. You need time and means for that. If you are from a struggling class, odds are you won't have the time and means.
Lovely. When you're dead we'll find it in your bottom drawer. Meanwhile in the real world, we NEED to PUBLISH the stories of every subtext and subculture, to see our world reflected. And it's published writers we're talking about. It's 2021 now. We need to change both directions and we need to stop the Etonesques from bolting the gates behind them. Education wouldn't have become elite if it wasn't so damn powerful at changing everything.
so to be a writer you have to go through university and have an elite education? maybe its not the system's fault but the fact that most people can't be bothered/ dont see the point of going through the long and arduous process of writing because they dont read much of anything and dont value literature
Or write and work like many others. Bukowski used to get up before work and write, come back from work and write, send off short stories constantly. When he was getting more popular and found out that young people were reading his work, he apparently said something like 'those deadbeats, they haven't worked a day in their life!'
she is saying the working class writer, Jack Kerouac?, is one in a million
I see what you're saying, and it's true that some people simply can't be bothered or don't see literature as important. Some people are frankly too lazy to become writers. But being working class means not having the luxury of time or the education to write. Being a writer, like being a musician or scientist, requires years of disciplined practice which some people can't have, because they're too busy doing manual labour or working as minors to provide for their families.
Exactly you don't have to be have graduated from oxford or cambridge to write a novel. Let alone, be a creative and literate individual, if there is no interest in writing then it won't be done. It's that simple
@@KT-qo9uh You're right. Earning a diploma has nothing to do with writing. Writers write because it's nearly impossible not to. But, if you're working two or three jobs and stressed out, trying to make ends meet, don't have ANY connections at all to the literary or publishing field, it's understandable the challenges of writing AND being published that exist for working class individuals.
lol WHY is white guy there
randacita I'm still trying to find the black writer. Is she behind that white chick with the turbin?
Unnecessary. Are we really going to deny a mixed-race woman with a Jamaican mother her blackness? Get out of here. P.S. Her *turban* is fabulous.
That's Jeffrey Eugenides, and he's the best writer in this video.
Why are you here and commenting on a video that features two writers when you obviously don't read literature?
That's Eugenides. He's got skills. Put some respect on his name.
@@zazinha3810 Are you denying Smith's Whiteness? Her father was an Englishman.
The thing about black writing that will not sell or become huge is that most black writers only write about issues of class and race instead of stringing together an exciting story. It will trend, but will never become a classic or masterpiece.
Wuthering Heights is not hailed as a good read because it talks about important issues, neither is war and peace, moby dick, lolita, don quixote, les miserables, even though they all encompass human insight and discuss issues of class and race, at its barebones, these are good stories that are fun to read.
Pushkin was black, eugene onegin is famous for its story and no one cares about the race of its author.
I wish i had energy to respond to this, but all i can say is you're wrong. Beloved is a classic, the colour purple is a classic, and im sure if i was older and habe read more i could say more.
An exciting story? James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Richard Wright, and what about Tayari Jones and Chimamanda Ngoze Adichie and Yaa Gyasi and Angie Thomas? And all those electric young make BAME writers in the UK, the guardian did that feature on- not exciting? I could not stop reading. I feel so sorry for you, ignoramus. You haven't even attempted to read them, you assume and reduce all POC writers to your ignorant stereotype. Never become a masterpiece - have you never heard of Achebe? Damn dare you to read POC and BAME writers for a year. Your sorry ignorant ass can only improve.
The schools don't have to change, The Black working class have too.
Got your little buttons pushed, hon?
@@lizziebkennedy7505 It takes education & know-how to push buttons, along with creating the algorithm that allows you to hit the comment button.
A little aggressive at the end there Zadie...a little aggressive.
Uhm she has EVERY right to be. What she's talking about is a very violent system/reality. WHY do white men expect people to NOT respond with aggression to things that ARE aggressive & WARRANT an aggressive response?
I guess I was "triggered" by violent. However, you are saying that it is aggressive for the taxpayers not to provide free college to whoever qualifies.
she's correct not aggressive
THAT is aggressive? Blimey...get out a little more. Frightening.
@@stevenlee2484 An eye for an eye and the whole world will go blind.