The not so “real human experience” ( And Love Them?)

And Love Them? is a short story written by Thomas Glave, a black author from the Bronx, and is told from the perspective of a presumably white woman working in New York City. Throughout her narrative, the unnamed narrator details her personal experiences with black people and airs her frustration with their seemingly angry disposition, ultimately making vast racial generalizations. She uses interactions with black coworkers, a black homeless man, and a black man she dated as examples. 

This text is very loosely organized, following the natural flow of the narrator’s thoughts as she jumps from example to example in an attempt to defend her racist stereotypes. Because the text is written solely from the perspective of the white narrator, it obscures the perspective of the black people she talks about, most of whom go unnamed and are rather grouped into the vast category of “them”. 

The author’s continual repetition of the phrase “real human experience” emphasizes the narrator’s ignorance. While she claims to be compassionate, the narrator barely considers black people to be real people at all. When she finally does through one of her “real human experiences”, or amicable interactions, she is annoyed that they don’t reciprocate her same awe and enlightenment at their joint humanity. This text reminds me of Say Yes, by Tobias Wolff. The narrator’s views of black people correspond with the husband’s views, specifically his belief that white people can never truly understand black people. The narrator expresses this idea throughout the entire text by refusing to accept that she may be in the wrong and never making an effort to understand why the black people she encounters might be frustrated with her remarks or actions.