Overdue thoughts on Ferguson

On the night the grand jury of Ferguson made its decision, everyone’s first course of action was to leap to their laptop screens. I, too, was tempted to jump on the bandwagon, but I stopped myself. Did I really have enough information to make an informed conclusion? For months, public opinion has been based on speculation whereas only the jury had been granted access to structural evidence. As much as I disagreed with the final decision, I had to wonder: could it be that something brought up in court had turned the tables? I didn’t feel comfortable indiscriminately *liking* all of the profound statuses that popped up on my newsfeed (many of which were just paraphrases of one another) -- not because I had any qualms about the value of black lives, but because I did not want to risk discrediting such an important piece of history by being ignorant on the subject matter. There was simply no moral prerogative I could expect to gain from tagging along with the “hashtag advocacy” culture.

In light of the Garner and Brown cases I began to wonder why some white-on-black police brutality cases get more exposure than others, and though I wasn’t really able to come to a definitive conclusion, I can say this: the unfortunate and unwarranted fate of Michael Brown did receive a lot of attention because of the racially charged context, but it was not a respective, isolated episode -- his death marked the boiling point for a population’s intolerance for systematic racism. In other words, I don’t think the shooting necessarily set the bomb, rather, it detonated it. I have to be honest, hearing my classmates repeatedly associate Bigger Thomas sympathies with the situation made me cringe. To some extent, I agree with people who say that we should be giving people like Michael Brown the benefit of the doubt by trying to understand their mindset rather than immediately assigning them a victim complex. Unfortunately, there are people who severely butcher this rationale by going as far as frivolously blaming the dead:

Trayvon Martin should not have been wearing a hoodie.

Michael Brown shouldn’t have stolen Cigarillos.

Eric Garner shouldn’t have been selling loose cigarettes.

As useful it is to take Ferguson as a teaching experience on the continued pervasiveness of systematic racism, I think it’s important for us to distinguish that aspect from the second main protest that has emerged from this incident: the increased militarization of police. To encapsulate this sentiment, I present you with Bob McManus, a bold columnist from the New York Post who commented: “Eric Garner and Michael Brown had much in common, not the least of which was this: On the last day of their lives, they made bad decisions. Epically bad decisions. Each broke the law — petty offenses, to be sure, but sufficient to attract the attention of the police. And then — tragically, stupidly, fatally, inexplicably — each fought the law.” REALLY? Are we supposed to passively condone police abuse of power? Having some respect for differing opinions, I had assumed the Ferguson controversy was a matter of conflicting interpretations of evidence and witness accounts. Come to find out, overt negligence of the Ferguson law enforcement played a significant role in why there are so many holes in the story. Not only did the investigators fail to recover fingerprints on the weapon, but Wilson washed away blood evidence, and the medical examiner did not take any pictures of the body because his camera apparently ran out of battery -- the list goes on. The existence of these critical pieces of evidence could have made all the difference.

Law enforcement continued to disappoint me with their response to civilian protests. Demonstrations across the board from peaceful to violent were met by officers armed in military-grade riot gear, which if you ask me, is very poor strategy in easing the public’s unrest and distrust in law enforcement. If you dress in riot gear, you’re more likely to engage in one, and if you throw in some tear gas (plural chemical equivalent to the chokehold, anyone?), you’re just inviting confrontation. As expected, the protesters returned the crackdown with more aggression, sparking a relentless back and forth cycle that has done nothing but erode the police force’s reputation. Apparently, the Ferguson police department basically managed to flag the area off as a temporary no-fly zone, allegedly because they “feared their aircraft would be shot at”, privately because they didn’t want any news helicopters hovering over any violent protests.

Is Sethe Crazy?

There have been an awful lot of blog posts regarding the morality of Sethe’s controversial decision to kill Beloved that have all come to pretty much the same general conclusions. Inspired by Jack’s recent blog post, I’ve decided to look at Sethe’s condition from a medical standpoint.

I have it on good authority (Wikipedia) that a principal characteristic of an insane person is their inability to separate physical reality from imagination. For Sethe to be, for instance, schizophrenic, would mean that it was not a ghost that drove her sons away, in fact there was no ghost to begin with. Of course, in order to evaluate someone’s perception of reality, we need to be able to distinguish it ourselves on the authority of the novel, which becomes a bit of a problem when all of the characters seem to accept the existence of a haunting. Thus, in order to rule out Sethe’s insanity for this particular trait, we would have to put Denver, Paul D, Baby Suggs, Stamp Paid and basically all of the townspeople in the same category for acknowledging something that in our physical world, doesn’t plausibly exist. But then again, we have to remember that none of them committed the same moral infraction she did.

Alternately, we could assume that in this parallel Ohioan universe, the baby’s ghost truly does exist. If we assume it does, then we can look in the direction of psychopathy. It’s common knowledge that psychopathy is often induced by a trauma, which certainly applies in Sethe’s situation. Though she endured years of brutal slavery, it’s almost too easy to diagnose the isolated incident. By raping her and stealing her milk, schoolteacher and his hooligans contributed the single most agonizing experience to Sethe’s life, one that could potentially have acted as a trigger to her suppository insanity. Finally, we arrive at the central discussion; the moral dilemma -- in order for Sethe to be a psychopath, she must not be able to discern right from wrong. Though we could say she generally conducts herself with rationale and sensibility, how you classify this particular characteristic rests solely on your moral stance of her decision to commit infanticide.

*I’m almost positive none of you think Sethe is insane (I don’t either). But given how we’ve struggled with the supernatural aspects and the moral aspects, it’s definitely interesting to contemplate why they may be there and how they affect the images of the characters.

Nikki-Rosa

childhood remembrances are always a drag   

if you’re Black

you always remember things like living in Woodlawn   

with no inside toilet

and if you become famous or something

they never talk about how happy you were to have   

your mother

all to yourself and

how good the water felt when you got your bath   

from one of those

big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in   

and somehow when you talk about home   

it never gets across how much you

understood their feelings

as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale

and even though you remember

your biographers never understand

your father’s pain as he sells his stock   

and another dream goes

And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that

concerns you

and though they fought a lot

it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference   

but only that everybody is together and you

and your sister have happy birthdays and very good   

Christmases

and I really hope no white person ever has cause   

to write about me

because they never understand

Black love is Black wealth and they’ll

probably talk about my hard childhood

and never understand that

all the while I was quite happy

Yesterday in class I chose to present the poem Nikki-Rosa by Nikki Giovanni (OA 246). When I first read it, I was immediately overcome by a sense of guilt, because while I'm often susceptible to seeing the “rags-to-riches” narrative as the most important if not only side of a person’s story, I have simultaneously taken what I have for granted. It’s important to note that the poem itself does not intend to invoke guilt, in fact the author makes it clear that pity is the last thing she wants. The mix of nostalgia, irritation, and bitterness summarizes how she remembers her childhood and how she feels about the way others try to portray it. In class I likened this to how you feel when people keep asking “what’s wrong?” no matter how many times you tell them you’re fine. They don’t understand.

The artist wants to set a good example for other members of her race but is constantly hindered by other people’s one-dimensional marginalization of her experiences; in the process, these perhaps well-intentioned “white biographers”  misrepresent her. And it isn’t just the happy remembrances that they misinterpret -- in addition to focusing on the lack of an indoor toilet and bathtub instead of how warm the water felt, or her father’s drinking and her parents’ fighting instead of the closeness of their family, they also don’t understand “your father’s pain as he sells his stock”. To these people, this is just another sad fact of her hard black life, part of the feel-good, strength-in-the-face-of-adversity tale they want to sell. Or perhaps they think that by presumptuously highlighting and magnifying these specific perils they are somehow dignifying African Americans, as if suffering is the only thing that made them who they are.

Neil expertly pointed out the line “they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself”, which just reiterates the ignorance of American media and how inclined they would be to fixate on the absence of her father and not how much she enjoyed the attention from her mother. This kind of pessimism is not only patronizing and condescending but also characteristic of the self-righteous morality that exists in this country. When I asked the class if they could think of any contemporary examples of glamorizing misfortune, it went from athletes to popstars, some of whom were not black but all of whom missed the point that “black love is black wealth”.

It’s not difficult to identify that the root of this transgression comes from materialism and is not just a “white” issue. I’m aware that the artist herself has even expressed that it’s “important for us to be the tellers of our own stories; because only then would they be as authentic as we are. And by we I don’t mean just Black people, I mean all human beings. I wholeheartedly believe in autobiographies. And I don’t care much for biographies.” I will leave you on this note; all of us at Uni are relatively fortunate, and you've at least had the luxury of a peaceful childhood, the luxury to complain, or the luxury to ask for expensive gifts on your birthdays and Christmases. But if you ever become famous or something, no one will ever question if you were happy -- please remember that that too is a luxury.

"cool funny black guy"

To too many people, the only manifestation of racism they recognize is in its antiquated, truly blatant, KKK-civil-rights-movement-era form, and because this degree of racism has for the most part been extinguished, they believe racism virtually doesn’t exist. In a rudimentary sense it would seem that erasing racism would be a progressive move, but the consequence of such a skewed perspective is that it becomes increasingly difficult for mainstream society to imagine the real-life experiences of minorities and yet more prone to misidentifying latent racism. Beatty successfully points out how this misconception has impaired the public education system; Gunnar’s classmates and teachers ignorantly perpetuate these minor offenses, giving him seemingly harmless labels like the “cool funny black guy”, and while he good-naturedly plays along, he is subject to many instances of stereotyping.

If this novel had a central protest, I think it would be against the contradictory nature that is so ubiquitous in the context of our multicultural environment. In Gunnar’s own words: “My early education consisted of two types of multiculturalism: classroom multiculturalism, which reduced race, sexual orientation, and gender to inconsequence, and schoolyard multiculturalism, where the kids who knew the most Polack, queer, and farmer's daughter jokes ruled.” However well-intentioned, classroom multiculturalism is exceedingly inconsistent: on the one hand, Gunnar’s instructors naively embrace eracism, on the other, they try to show how forward-thinking are by acknowledging and attempting to address what they believe are his racial obstructions. These inconsistencies contribute to his general state of confusion upon moving to Hillside, in the sense that he is unsure what image to adopt in order to be accepted now that he is no longer the “cool funny black guy”. Though Gunnar is eventually able to overcome these impasses, I think Beatty makes a profound point by pointing out a seemingly not so profound transgression, one that is muted and much harder to detect or evaluate.

Chameleon

The White Boy Shuffle is very much a novel that defies stereotypes. Gunnar Kaufman is able to identify with so many different groups that he isn’t compatible with any of them. The best way I can articulate Beatty’s use of this phenomenon is that Gunnar is an example of a transcendent outlier that redefines, if not undefines what it means to be black. Of course, this is not to say that Gunnar isn’t black, but that his qualities too frequently contradict one another for him to be defined in any one light. In fact, he is fluent in so many cultural settings that it’s impossible to classify him as anything other than an individual. As anticipated, we as socially apprehensive adolescents, had high expectations for him and were most bewildered by why, with such high aptitudes in so many fields, he refuses to take the role as a precursor for any of them -- who wouldn’t want to be a basketball star or attend Harvard? In terms of individual identity and not allowing race to limit one’s potential, Beatty’s message is reminiscent of Invisible Man as opposed to the naturalistic leanings of Native Son, but the difference is that while the narrator seeks recognition, Gunnar is a unique individual only for the sense of himself and not for the sake of standing out from others.

Ethnic Notions

The degree to which society has been willing to speak for African Americans from the moment they became Americans never ceases to amaze me. Whilst maintaining ever-insulting misrepresentations, I have found that America’s systematic approach to black racism has also been incredibly cunning. Our past has been tainted with a medley of inaccurate and hyperbolic portrayals of African Americans, each adjusted to accommodate the historical circumstances, resulting in an often paradoxical hodgepodge of characters. For those who missed the Ethnic Notions movie night, this may be a convenient summary.

Jim Crow is probably the black imitation with the most name recognition. Playing a fidgety, dancing caricature meant to impersonate an old handicapped black man, the actor by no means put any effort into accuracy… but alas, his impression impacted the public perception of African Americans indefinitely. Simultaneously, minstrel/Sambo-type characters reinforced the notion of slavery by depicting African American laborers as happy servants. The version of this character I found particularly interesting was “Mammy”, essentially a plump auntie figure who is both happily obedient and fiercely loyal to her white household. What I learned from Ethnic Notions was that she is intentionally not illustrated as a sex symbol so that she will not pose a threat to the mistress. At the same time, she is the matriarch of “her own people”, which while I might add is a stark contrast to women of the “civilized culture” who are designed to remain subservient, it is also an affront to the masculinity of black men. In essence, the general trend of these compliant black characters was to represent harmless menials, thus justifying the institution of slavery.

Before the Abolitionist movement really gained momentum, the media was careful to depict slaves as docile and faithful in order to effectively validate their debasing servitude. Once freedom became a possibility, this was completely reconstructed into two main manifestations. More civil of the two was Zip Coon, an arrogant, ex-slave who bore a flamboyant appearance and equally frivolous speech. His failed attempt at respectability was aimed at mocking the supposed failure of newly freed blacks to adapt to their liberation. Presented in a much more unpleasant format was the “brute”. Too primitive to even deserve a characteristic name, the brute image was especially popular during the Reconstruction era and was intended to demonstrate not only that blacks were incapable of adapting to their freedom, but that they were also incapable of self-control. In the apotheosis of scientific racism, the brute justified a reversion to slavery as well as the killing of African Americans.

In the three centuries since these stereotypes were first introduced, African Americans have been pigeonholed into various roles based on the particular oppression they are facing at any given point in time. For example, the brute image, however prevalent during the Reconstruction Era, would have never been employed during the slave era because it would have suggested that the slaves wanted to be freed and not, as we believed, happy Sambos. I think it is important to remember that between the Sambos, minstrelsy, Jim Crows, Zip Coons, and brutes, this compartmentalization of African Americans has not only been an injustice but also regularly contradictory within itself. So if you’re gonna be racist, at least be consistent.

Wright vs. Hurston

Though the topic of dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God has been exhausted, thanks to Richard Wright I think there’s just enough oil for me to give it one last run.

While most of us have been receptive to Hurston’s use of vernacular speech, our good friend Richard Wright was quick to accuse Hurston of “[exploiting] that phase of Negro life which is ‘quaint’”, in other words, he felt she that had reduced her characters to exotic spectacles. He goes on to describe the novel as a work of literature tailored for a white audience, because by his logic, these supposedly primitive mannerisms would be a wonted expectation to such readers. Furthermore, Wright claims that the use of dialect does not go beyond contributing an organic effect, and that the novel’s resemblance to oral tradition is highly antiquated. The most profound indictment Wright makes is when he criticizes TEWWG of carrying “no theme, no message, no thought”. By all means, in comparison to a highly aggressive writing style like Wright’s, Hurston’s does not attempt to be nearly as combatant--her pace is much more balanced. Though I cannot say for sure, my assessment is that Wright may have only interpreted the novel as a one-dimensional narrative because he was distracted by the potent use of diction. I have yet to confirm this prognosis!

If you would like to see Wright's full critique, here is the link: http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam358/wrightrev.html

Renaissance

I’m sure many of you have wondered the same thing: why didn’t Ellison show us what happened after the narrator returned to civilization? He could have used this as an opportunity to strengthen his argument that the narrator has benefited enough from his refined perspective; enough that he now has capacity to propagate his newfound knowledge to the masses. Why not mollify our ambivalence and show us how he would “speak for us on the lower frequencies”?

The answer may be simpler than it appears: perhaps Ellison doesn’t give us a verdict because he simply doesn’t know the answer himself. As much as he claims that his novel disseminates universal truths applicable to human beings throughout the spectrum, maybe Ellison, as a member of a dying generation, simply can’t imagine a world where people effectively resist basic categorizations. His personal life is a testament to this--Ellison was often accused of elitism by members of his own race, even though it had been his life’s work to be identified purely for his craft--he, like his character could not escape the implications of his phenotypic qualities. Who’s to say that by elaborating on the narrator’s renaissance, Ellison would be stirring up additional controversy? In the opinions of black nationalists, Invisible Man’s seemingly passive ending was already offensive; to have this enlightened narrator then expose and expand these perversions to the public could instigate even more censure.

But there is yet another angle to explore: what if Ellison is leaving it up to the reader to decide what happens? Could this omission be a blessing? It would certainly eliminate some of the heat he would receive, but more importantly for the reader, his open-endedness is generous, allowing us to personally define the protagonist’s newfound independence and how he would employ it in the real world. Was his retreat into the basement even his last disillusionment? Ellison took a chance by offering this ambiguity, a stylistic choice that makes him both generous to his readers and vulnerable to his critics.

Why “Invisible Man" is a protest novel

Ralph Ellison maintained until the day he died that Invisible Man was not a protest novel. Exasperated that “black fiction” had been branded purely as a subgenre of protest literature and even more bothered by how his black peers brazenly reinforced this pattern, Ellison was determined to pen a composition that would not rely on the preconceived notions of racial relation critique. There are many reasons why, although he emphatically succeeds in the artistic department, I believe Ellison ultimately fails to eschew protest literature--his novel can attest to this.

Here is my interpretation of Ellison’s stream of consciousness: racism had created certain boundaries around the perception of African Americans, who, to counter the effect, began furiously producing literature designed to refute these stereotypes, in the process allowing [white] critics to identify ALL black fiction in the same category. The basis for Invisible Man was to break this cycle and avoid the so-called black aesthetic cliche; instead of advocating racial solidarity, Ellison chose to promote individualism and humanity. This in itself is a social critique. Like the hero in his novel, Ellison realized that as long as he was perceived solely as a member of a fixed group rather than as an individual, he would always be invisible. In other words, it was more valuable for him to become a successful author than a successful black author. 

During his lifetime, Ellison was often accused of being an elitist for his contempt of the black nationalist movement and his camaraderie with white critics. His aversion to chastising racial barriers did not resonate with the growing breed of black nationalists, who saw his approach as not only obsolete but also too passive. Nevertheless, I think his model of activism is important to note. As Ellison once said of Invisible Man, "This is not a self-help or self-hate book; it is a plea for common survival”, that is to say, his novel is not trying to cure invisibility nor excoriate it. He did not want to be exploited like the narrator, who became a symbol of the Brotherhood, or like the Founder, who had been helplessly immortalized as a champion of black humility. Ellison chose an affinity to preaching universal truths, which is especially echoed in the epilogue by the narrator, who implies that his identity and experiences are shared among but not limited to members of his race--anyone can be a Rinehart. Racism only impedes this ubiquitous prerogative.

By trying to avoid becoming one, Ellison was inadvertently establishing himself as a protest writer--a protest against protest fiction, if you will. In spite of this shortcoming, he delivers an extremely pertinent and comprehensive social critique. By these principles, white society is not the all-inclusive enemy--conformity is. “Who knows but that on the lower frequencies; I speak for you?”

Free at last?

Following his operation at the factory hospital in Chapter 11, the narrator’s nuances of internal discord drastically crescendo, a transformation he attributes to the manifestation of “some alien personality lodged deep within [him].” His disorientation is often in response to memory-triggering experiences, one of which is an encounter with a yam stand; it is this event that inspires his spontaneous rhetoric at the site of an eviction. By some miracle, he is recruited and absorbed into the Brotherhood, an influential communist organization in the Harlem area. Now reveling in his newfound self, the narrator proclaims that his journey to self discovery has finally come to fruition.

My objective for this blog post is to examine the extent of the narrator’s freedom after joining the Brotherhood. Let’s not forget that this opportunity only materialized because the narrator finally decided to take action under his own jurisdiction. Prior to his self-revelation, the mere possibility of ordering a meal that could reflect a stereotype would be an embarrassment, but as we saw in the yam scene, the narrator seems to have found some peace with his heritage and is able to embrace it, at least in a rudimentary way, which is why why I think it is a cruel joke for Ellison to introduce the Brotherhood at this pivotal moment. Though the narrator was prepared to refuse their offer, and even recognizes that they only wants to use him, his monetary needs ultimately dictate his decision. On top of this, his induction into the organization feels too rushed for him to have fully grasped what he was getting into. Almost immediately, Brother Jack begins cramming evangelism down the narrator's throat, trying to convince him that his eviction speech stood for more than he thought it did, which in my opinion, breached the line between interpretation and coercion. It is also mentioned that he seems to be able to predict the narrator’s every move, from which table he will choose in a coffee shop to his reconsideration of the Brotherhood. If you notice, this is eerily redolent to the narrator’s earlier suspicions regarding Bledsoe’s plan for him.

At this point, the narrator's initial judgement of the Brotherhood has somewhat abated and he is at least willing to fit their mold for appearances. On page 304, he is told that their collective mission is to redeem those who have been dispossessed of their heritage and that they have been waiting for someone like him for months. Furthermore, he should forget everything he learned about sociology in college, and instead educate himself with their program’s civic material. When I read this, I thought to myself: is this not just trading one propagandism for another? My suspicions augmented when it was suggested that he become the new Booker T. Washington, a figure as much of an idol to the Brotherhood as he was to the university students. When the narrator questions this decree, he is told that “it isn't a matter of whether you wish to be the new Booker T. Washington, my friend. Booker Washington was resurrected today at a certain eviction in Harlem [...] This morning you answered the people’s appeal and we want you to be the true interpreter of the people. You shall be the new Booker T. Washington, but even greater than he.” In other words, he has no choice, just like he has no choice but to update his social conduct to their standards, cut ties with his past, take on an entirely new identity, and preach with words that are essentially handpicked by them. The narrator develops a modified version of his grandfather’s life’s work: by acting how they want him to act on the surface but continuing to think his own thoughts, he is a free agent. However, this conflict with discipline propels him into a confusion, where he is forced to contemplate how free will is involved in the most trivial of situations. Either way, he believes in the eminence of his new social responsibility and seems to plunge back into his old habits of trying to please authority and taking orders.

I will end on this note: the narrator believes he has made a significant departure from his past self and that the Brotherhood is taking him down the correct path. The program paradoxically promises  him “full freedom to do [his] work”  but only if he operates within its strict disciplinary framework. Is he really free or is he just imprisoned by an institution he worked so hard to rid himself of, hidden under a new name? To quote the narrator’s own skepticism: “How far could I trust them, and in what way were they different from the trustees?”

Fifty Shades of White

Until his expulsion, the narrator has, for the most part, only known opportunities to come in the form of rewards for pleasing and obeying white folks. In fact, the university he was enrolled in takes tremendous pride in its administering of this philosophy. It is a Southern academy that “domesticates” its black students, teaching them that by remaining subservient and embracing white culture, they are advancing in society. This strategy not only successfully reinforces white dominance and masks black identity, but it potentially yields members of society that will act whiter. Having been an apprentice to this process, it is only appropriate that the sole place of employment the narrator is able to find in the North is a paint business that only makes white paint. He is now directly responsible for what he has been inadvertently expediting his entire life: “keeping America pure.”

The word “liberty” holds such a clout in this country that “we’ve practically trademarked it" (Mitchell, 2014)! We Americans prefer to think that our nation was founded on the tenet of freedom, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Whiteness could never maintain its reputation of “liberty” and “purity” without oppressing blackness. Case in point: the United States would be nothing without its most reprehensible institution, slavery; black men and women worked too long and too hard throughout American history to deserve this discredit. Likewise, Liberty Paint’s most popular hue, Optic White claims to be “so white you can paint a chunka coal and you’d have to crack it open with a sledgehammer to prove it wasn’t white clear through,” yet as the narrator learns, the brilliant white paint cannot be made without its secret ingredient: a few drops of black varnish. This metaphor becomes even deeper when we discover the character of Lucius Brockway, the old comical black employee hidden away in the factory basement. “Right down here is where the real paint is made. Without what I do [the people upstairs] couldn’t do nothing, they be making bricks without straw.” While Brockway has been at the company since its launch and recognizes his own indispensability, he fails to see the role he actually plays. He is from an older generation, old enough to have tasted the vestiges of the slavery era; the consequence is that his subordination toward whites is voluntary and genuine. Brockway is only concerned with his position within the company and not with his position within the system. Indeed, his strategy for upward mobility sounds like a less eloquent version of Booker T. Washington’s ideology about economic advancement being the only direction toward progress.

To me, the most puzzling scene in this chapter was when the supervisor overlooked the narrator’s spiteful tampering of paint. While there are many ways to interpret this passage, what I found most unclear is whether Kimbro actually missed the detail or if he detected it but chose to ignore it. The narrator can tell that the paint still contains traces of black by its grey tint, but Kimbro remarks that “that’s the way it oughta be.” When the narrator asks him if he knows what components are actually in the graduate, Kimbro becomes defensive: “His eyes snapped. ‘You damn right I know,’ he said. ‘You just do what you’re told!’” He is obviously aware of the crucial role of black varnish in the paint formula but also in denial that the paint is not purely white. Similarly many Caucasian Americans turned a blind eye to black society, self-assured that their labor and mere existences were only blemishes on society that played no role in white brilliance or prestige. Kimbro needs to believe that the government issued paint is purely white, just as Americans needed to believe that its infrastructure is purely white. (Alternatively, you could interpret this passage as a metaphor to the narrator’s grandfather’s gradual adaptation to the “lion’s mouth”. Like the carefully mixed grey paint, he becomes so well assimilated into this image that his notions are either nonexistent or too subtle for anyone to notice a difference.)

A Cross-Examination of Authority

I understand it has been a while since we have independently discussed Native Son, so please bear with me! #throwback

Everywhere he looks, Bigger is being reminded of how he is expected to act or told how he should be acting - not only in his interactions, but also in the media - which, in combination with his belligerent personality, makes his eventual act of rebellion almost too necessary. I would like to bring to a light a certain study conducted by the University of Virginia that was mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath”*. The study focuses on a scenario involving an elementary school teacher named "Stella". In this scenario, Stella's students are in complete chaos; entirely unengaged by her instructions, some are even doing cartwheels. At first glance, we may make the assumption that these children are instinctively immature, or that they come from a troubled background with little respect for authority or discipline. Only later does it become apparent that none of these factors are in play, that in fact the children’s behavior is a result of the teacher, who makes no attempt to understand the opinions and interests of her pupils but nonetheless disciplines them wholly; their disobedience is a response to her arbitrary display of authority. On several occasions, students who take initiative in learning (e.g. doing homework in class) are admonished by the teacher for “not following directions”. The long-term effect is that rather than help restore an appreciation for rules, the experience has provoked frustration and bitterness in the students, who were not given the opportunity to have any say in their punishment.

According to Gladwell, there are three fundamental constituents to the principle of legitimacy: “First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice -- that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can’t treat one group differently from another.” One can easily draw a corollary between this experiment and the disposition of Bigger Thomas. From day one, Bigger has been told who he is and who he can’t be. His lofty dreams of becoming a pilot are immediately dashed, and he knows what people will think of him and what will happen to him if he, a black boy is caught in the presence of an inebriated white girl. His feelings and beliefs hold no importance in a world where the most generous of Caucasians think ping pong tables will save the ghetto. The book very clearly sets up a naturalistic setting: almost every decision Bigger makes is an indirect reaction to authority, which has made sure that all consequences are in black and white, pun intended. Granted, Bigger Thomas is not an elementary school student, the consequences are noticeably inconsistent, completely contradicting the principle of legitimacy. “...the authority has to be fair. It can’t treat one group differently from another.” Before Bigger steps into the Dalton home, before he even meets Mary Dalton, the odds are against him.

*I’m usually a fan of Malcolm Gladwell books, but in this particular case, I found his writing to be relatively disjointed, so I would not recommend this book. (That doesn’t make the source I cited any less credible.)