Questions for Zadie

"We feel that our voices are who we are, and that to have more than one, or to use different versions of a voice for different occasions represents, at best, a Janus-faced duplicity, and at worst, the loss of our very souls. (180)    Doesn't this completely disregard pretty much every minority in America? There are are children in this country who have parents who don't speak English and, therefore, the kid has to learn two languages to survive. You're literally saying that every immigrant child is a two-faced soulless bastard.

"How persistent this horror of the middling spot is, this dread of the interim place. It extends through the specter of the tragic mulatto to the plight of the transsexual, to our present anxiety- disguised as genteel concern- for the contemporary immigrant, tragically split, we are sure, between worlds, ideas, cultures, voices-whatever will become of them? Something's got to give- one voice must be sacrificed for the other." (182) Language is an indicator about your life and, like the way you dress, is subject to change depending upon who you interact with. It’s not duplicitous, it’s the basis of human social interactions in the modern world. We have to change the way we speak in order to interact with various contexts. Don’t you think that, by sacrifice one voice for another, it limits one’s ability to function in today’s society?

"This new president doesn't just speak for his people. He can speak them." (182)

Obama is a politician and all politicians are groomed in the same way. What makes him different from any other given candidate, aside from political alignment and the color of his skin?

"Throughout his campaign Obama was careful always to say "we." He was noticeably wary of "I." (184) Well, duh. He has to appeal to everyone. He can’t just appeal to blacks for the black vote, nor to solely the whites. When he speaks, his message is the same, but the interpretation made by different ethnicities may be different. Wouldn’t it be racist to assume his rhetoric changes when he’s speaking to blacks?

". . .and roll my eyes at anyone who insists that Obama is not the first black president but the first biracial one." (185) But he technically is biracial. His father was a black man from Africa and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. You can’t ignore the fact that he’s still part white just to prove a point about how a black man can adopt a white man’s façade and, therefore, speak in many voices. Do you really think that Obama would have stood a chance in the campaigns if it wasn’t for his Caucasian heritage? He needs to appeal to the largest ethnic groups in the United States, not just one or another.

"It's the Joyces of this world who 'talk down to black folks.' And so to avoid being Joyce, or being seen to be Joyce, you unify, you speak with one voice." (188) All Joyce is doing is acknowledging her Caucasian heritage. Aren’t you jumping to conclusions by saying that she’s ashamed of her black heritage and that mentioning her white background is a defensive mechanism to save her from scrutiny? Joyce is right-- she doesn’t need to choose one heritage over another.