Dear Matthew Jacobson and Toni Morrison,

I am so grateful to know that my novel and film Gentleman’s Agreement, has reached a wide audience. I made the film because I felt passionately about the anti-Semitic movement in the US and its role as a stepping-stone in moving towards the kind of society that Ma envisions, one in which all people get a long. I want to engage with some of your thoughts and arguments in order to explore just how we might strategize such an advancement and healing of our culture surrounding identities.

I have to say that I am a bit disheartened to reflect on what my novel seems to have become in the narrative of racial identities in American history. Jacobson, you criticize my work (albeit with some forgiveness) for a few things: “leaving intact that which divides ‘Caucasian’ from ‘Negroid’ from ‘Mongoloid’”, an “unconscious endorsement of the color line,” and providing “no moral syntax for commenting upon antiblack racism at all” (128). I can’t say that I whole-heartedly disagree with the veracity of these claims. No, I did not deconstruct all notions of difference. This was not unconscious, however. If it were really unconscious, why would I have included the notion that the ultimate goal is to “get decent” with everyone everywhere as Ma suggests? Rather, I did not think it feasible to deconstruct all of difference in one film, so I tackled what I could. I think you accurately characterize the shift in concepts of racial difference in American culture, but I would urge you not to assign my work agency in establishing this new concept but rather to understand that it is limited by exactly this concept.

Ms. Morrison, if you don’t mind me putting words in your mouth, I would suspect you would criticize my novel one step further in that not only did I omit the multiplicity of racial differences in America but also I left unsaid the fact that the ability for anti-Semitism to fade out was enabled by the perpetuated existence of otherness in the white-black division of race. This is a great point that quite confounds me, for it seems quite logical to me to tackle such a big problem as racial injustice with small stepping-stones. While theoretically preferable to address all racial injustices (and why not all injustices everwhere) in one complete and systematic framework, that is simply not a reality. So how do I balance being action oriented while also being critical of the stepping-stones I choose to take?

You see, I completely agree with the points you both make. I think that my work was limited in its context. My question to you is: what should I have done differently? My goal was to break down barriers of discrimination, and I thought that anti-Semitism was a good first target. I suppose I engaged in my own gentleman’s agreement—that the sensitivity of antiblack racism was too hard to tackle, that it was more pragmatic to address anti-Semitism. Is this the same pragmatism as Kathy’s? I have my own opinion, but I want to leave it as an open question with one follow-up: is social justice surrounding identity an all-or-nothing engagement? If it is, I have to say that I am quite daunted about how to fill my role as an art-activist.

I look forward to your answers in a genuine desire to make progress towards the kind of society that Ma envisions.

Sincerely,

Laura Z. Hobson