Adventures of a Girl Janitor: Finishing The Hunger Games: initial scattered thoughts. [Spoilers or something, I suppose?]

girljanitor:

blackraincloud:

blackraincloud:

girljanitor:

blackraincloud:

Racialized place. Lightness is clearly indicative of higher class standing, but there are no ethnic or race terms. Just the districts.

Rue and Thresh:

• It seems to me Collins has problems seeing Black people as people as well. She…

Oh, I didnt take your reply as saying my feelings were wrong. I thought you were just giving me more context of Rue’s place in the series. But I appreciate your self awareness about it. I’d love to hear your opinions on Katniss’ ethnicity and the rest of district 12 though. Are they mixed, Native and poor whites? I’m still confused about how race, ethnicity, and class work in this world. I might just read summaries of the other two books just so I can get more pieces to the puzzle.

Katniss and the people of The Seam, I always assumed were based on the Melungeon people of Appalachia. It makes perfect sense, especially when you consider the Melungeon people’s history of coal mining, and rather specific remarks the author has made about the Seam characters being mixed race. They’ve been ostracized from the white population for a long time, so it just kind of falls in with the townsfolk-vs.-Seam resident class separation thing. Maybe it’s just me giving people too much credit again, but I figured the author at least knew she was giving a more or less exact description of a Melungeon person. Here are some photos of Melungeon women:

(Brent Kennedy’s mother)

(Libby Killebrew, a geneticist and Melungeon historian)

I’ll be honest, on a personal level, the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss was basically a slap in my face. I remember when I first read the books, I was really, really excited by a dystopian trilogy that had main characters that looked like me.

I’m extremely, extremely bitter about the whitewashing.

I mean one of the ways to read race in literature is through differentiation-and Katniss can tell someone from the seam from someone from the town immediately, by their appearance.

The movie is utterly horrifying and awful for many other reasons, too. Including giving the exact opposite message of the books.