One doesn’t have to look far to find evidence that racism is
alive and well in the U.S., where schools and the population in general are
becoming increasingly diverse. Equally apparent is that some folks just aren’t
having it. When, recently, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, and members of
the Ku Klux Klan took to the streets of Charlottesville with their message,
“white lives matter,” I have to say I was shocked but not surprised. I felt a
visceral sense of shock and disgust at the news photo of torch-carrying whites,
gathered en masse, shouting their message of exclusion. But I was not surprised
at the message itself, because while the current political climate may have
emboldened these individuals, their argument is nothing new. I’ve heard the reverse-racism
discourse, the argument that whites are the new victims of racism and somehow
need protection, many times from white friends, family, and students – people
who would never take up a torch and march in defense of their perceived white
supremacy. In fact, when I bring up the topic of racism in my classes I’m more
surprised if students (usually white but not always) don’t launch into the reverse-racism discourse in the form of anti-affirmative
action arguments than if they do. Most of these students have heard these
arguments all their lives and have come to internalize the idea that if a
person of color (excluding Asians – there’s a whole separate discourse for
that) has advanced to an important or prominent position, he or she probably
got there at the expense of a white person who worked harder and was more
qualified.
In my
ethnography of high school students called Race
Among Friends,[i] I
found that the reverse-racism discourse was prominent during class discussions
of multicultural literature. Even among students who were deeply invested in
their cross-racial friendships at this small, racially diverse school, the idea
that racism is over and that African Americans use the “race card” to gain
unfair advantage persisted. When I
started to think more deeply about the fiction these students had read in
previous grades, the “classics” of the multicultural literature “canon,” it
wasn’t hard to see, at least partly, why these attitudes endure. Many students
are still reading the texts on race that you and I read when we were in school: The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn,[ii]
by Mark Twain, and To Kill a Mockingbird,[iii]
by Harper Lee. Both of these works still form the foundation of the
multicultural canon in many school districts. Both were written by whites, and both
depict the internalized racist attitudes that I (as a writer and as a person) and
many whites struggle to recognize and overcome.
Much has
been written about the racial language and images of Huck and Mockingbird, and
I won’t take the time for an in depth analysis here, other than to say that both
represent a complicated mix of brilliantly written narrative and hidden
racialized meanings played out by the stories’ characters. For example, while
some teachers and school districts still struggle over Twain’s use of racial
epithets, Jane Smiley[iv]
and Toni Morrison[v]
point out that it was Twain’s depiction of Jim, the full-grown African American
slave companion of Tom and Huck, as a child-like pawn in the hands of two white
adolescents, with no voice and no say in his own future, that is truly
problematic. Likewise, in the case of the much loved novel (and movie) To Kill a Mockingbird, the very title
suggests an unexamined racism far more subtle than whether or not the
characters use “the N word” (as my students say) in the story. The title comes from Atticus’ admonition to
his son, “Shoot all the bluejays you want…but remember, it’s a sin to kill a
mockingbird” (Lee 90). Miss Maudie, a neighbor, clarifies: “Mockingbirds don’t
do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s
gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts
out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (90). So, who are the
mockingbirds in the story? Lee creates a cast of “respectable Negros” who, like
the proverbial mockingbird, know their place and don’t bother anyone. I had to
smile a little last year at the distress of some readers over the depiction of
Atticus in the Mockingbird sequel, Go Set a Watchman.[vi]
How could this book depict the beloved Atticus, pillar of racial justice,
as racist? Unfortunately, Atticus’ passively racist proclivities were always
there; perhaps we weren’t looking carefully enough to spot them. While it's
true that he did his best to defend Tom Robinson in court (putting himself and
his children at risk), Atticus never completely disassociated himself from the
racism of his time. He told his daughter that racists "are still our
friends" (76) and are "entitled to full respect for their opinions"
(105). He made light of the role of the Ku Klux Klan (147) and excused the head
of a would-be lynch mob as "a good man" who "just has his blind
spots along with the rest of us" (157).
My point is
that even when white fiction writers are attempting to be anti-racist, it can
be difficult for us to fully understand how deep and hidden our attitudes about
race are, and we may inadvertently perpetuate racial stereotypes through our
work. Lately I’ve been reading a young adult fantasy novel. I’m about 100 pages
in, and so far there is one dark skinned character, a man, in the story. He’s
described as dark, muscular, and altogether gorgeous; his sensual masculinity
jumps off the page and, of course, the white female protagonist is immediately
attracted to him. Okay, I know there needs to be some kind of romantic
attraction to satisfy readers, but the way this character fulfils the trope of
the powerful black male who protects and dominates the white woman is so
obvious that it’s startling. Am I saying the author is racist? No more than I
am, because I’m guilty, too. A few years ago I published a young adult novel[vii]
that explores the awakening of a white teen who comes to understand racism as
she forms new relationships with teens of color. I tried my best to vary my
characters in appearance and personality and to make them rich and complex. At
the beginning of the story, Rachel, my protagonist, meets a group of five
students from other school districts who will become her close friends. As I
was writing, I decided that I had too many characters to suit my purposes, so I
had to make one go away. Guess who left the group? The one Asian-American
character in the story. Without realizing it I fulfilled the stereotype of the
silent Asian, the “model minority,” who fades quietly into the background. How
frustrating that even when I was trying to explore and expose racism, my own
internalized dispositions about race popped out and got the best of me.
I don’t
think that white people should stop including characters of color in their
works, nor should we stop exploring racism in our writing. On the contrary,
now, more than ever, whites need to name and expose racism in all its forms. We
are at a wretched, horrifying place in our country where racist views are being
accepted and promulgated by mainstream authority. But, as I concluded in Race Among Friends, we whites must think, write, and perhaps most
importantly, teach with deeper introspection, examining our own hidden
attitudes about race first, lest we perpetuate the very attitudes we seek to
expose.
[i]
Modica, Marianne. Race Among Friends.
Rutgers University Press, 2015.
[iv]
Jane Smiley, "Say
It Ain't So, Huck: Second Thoughts on Mark Twain's 'Masterpiece'" Harper's Magazine 292.1748
(Jan. 1996): 61-67.
[vii]
Modica, Marianne. The R Word. Endless
Press, 2015.
