American writer John Grisham notes that he still struggles with his own racist thought patterns. “Growing up like I did, you have to work really hard to get it out of your system. To this day, I fight it every day.”
As the 68-year-old Grisham also said in an interview with the German magazine Der Zeit, refuses to say anything bad about his late parents, who “were no different than any other white guy on the street”. Grisham grew up in Mississippi in the southern United States.
“We grew up believing that we live in a white man’s world that will always remain white. That’s how I was raised and that way of thinking is deeply ingrained in me,” he explained.
Prejudices remain anchored in the subconsciousTo illustrate, he used an event from four years ago, when his granddaughter was born, and his daughter was impressed by the young African-American doctor who took care of her in the maternity ward.“And I thought, Wait a minute, if we’re in this famous hospital, I want a white man with gray hair who has a lot of experience,” Grisham explained, adding that he managed to keep the thought to himself and didn’t say it out loud. “But it made me think how far I still have to go,” he added.
His wife from North Carolina, who “wasn’t as bitterly racist as Mississippi,” also played a big role in his transformation. “She and her parents were much more tolerant, which influenced me. You know, we’re all tribal. We want to be around our people and believe in our people, and that’s often hard to overcome.”
Many of Grisham’s novels, among others, have been translated into Slovenian Guardians of Justice, Storm on Camino Island, The Great Deception, The Whistleblowers, Camino Island, Gray Mountain and On the edge of the law.
He is also the author of novels Firm, Pelikan Report, The clientMaster of Rain, King of Settlements, Negotiator, Runaway Jury and Christmas with the Kranks (The Year Without Christmas)which also became famous in the form of film adaptations.
Source: Rtvslo
