Azizi,

NO, I do NOT think Hurston's statement is dated. I would not have posted it if I did not find it completely relevant to the situation so many white folks find themselves in, in their interracial relations.

I think Hurston describes very well how far too many interracial "friendships" actually ARE, of which the white folks in them are painfuly unaware and which I believe their Black "friends" would describe much as Hurston did.... It's exactly this that causes so many well-intentioned white folks to claim, fatuously, that "some of my best friends are Black."

I also do not think the AA people I know IRL are "dated" when they share similar perspectives... I wish we were further along than we are, but IMO we are not, in far too many settings and relationships.

I think it's very clear from the context what Hurston means when she describes people as shy. Her ability to elicit the folk tales she elicited happens not because she simply asks for stories, but because she has relationships in that town that allow her to be among them, close to them, when the stories flow and that the trust people have towards her creates a willingness to "outdo" one another in the tales.

Hurston's description, BTW, is even MORE apt when in addition to the "color line" there is also a "class line" that people are trying to cross. Put a white raised-middle-class person into contact with a raised-poor Black person and nine times out of ten I would bet big bucks you will still see, today, exactly what Hurston describes.

Make the two parties of similar class and yes, it may look differently....

But does that mean, no matter how good that progress may feel to the parties involved, that anything really has changed?

And from which end does that dynamic need to change? The white end.

And who has to do their homework to bring about that change? The white person.

And who is waiting for it, still? Look around.

~Susan