Reflecting on the material discussed in Ethnic Notions, I was reminded of the Willie Lynch Letter and the connection between his method of control and -- in addition to self-justification -- the method of control in minstrelsy and the creation of caricatures such as the sambo, pickaninny, mammy, and so on. The results of the enforcement of these stereotypes reverse the significance of the narrator's laughter in Invisible Man; the implication of self-possession in seeing past ridiculous, fabricated "reality." Instead, the laughter of the enforcers of these "humorous" stereotypes result in an amount of parasitic control over supposed freed slaves in the fabrication of apparent "realities," so that it not only creates fear, distrust, and envy within the black community, but even more the individual distrust of their own identity, ultimately leading them to perhaps submit and depend on the white version of their identity; for example, black minstrels who black-faced because it was necessary in following a rare path to a form of success or the nostalgia for "mammy" in Louis Armstrong's renditions of "When It's Sleepy Time Down South."
As such, some black people are then wrongly perceived as solely stereotypes or "minstrels" and then perceived as someone to be celebrated by both the white and black/minority community for the wrong reasons (please note however, that this an extremely overgeneralized observation). The reason being that it seems like they are the most successful a black person can be; thus resulting in a vicious, restricting cycle. I know that this isn't a perfectly coherent argument but I connect this to the significance of basketball in the contemporary setting of White Boy Shuffle. We see Gunnar's dad fitting him into the stereotype of a black athlete and later Scoby's frustration at being idolized for his basketball playing, confused as to whether he is playing for himself or the expectations of others; simultaneously fulfilling his classmates' vicarious happiness and the expectations of him from the condescending white people just as the white audience celebrates his failure at the Shakespearean Soliloquy Championship.
Along these lines, one of the speakers in the documentary mentioned how these images are/were so instilled in the culture of society that "we even come to believe it ourselves." The complexity of these stereotypes that arises from the difficulty in distinguishing reality from unreality led me to recall the significance of Rinehart in Invisible Man, and the interaction between the narrator and Sybil. The narrator believes he can maintain his own interpretation of himself while playing Sybil's expected "brute" but the line between Sybil's perception of him, and his perception of himself begins to blur and this is part of what ultimately pushes him to separate himself from the outside altogether in order to discover a sense of his own reality. In this way, we see how criticizing the "minstrelsy" in Their Eyes Were Watching God is such a difficult evaluation to make because there is always a very imprecise overlap between stereotypes and reality in certain aspects; for example the narrator is attracted to Sybil but that does not make him society's definition of a "brute." Consequently, it is evident how hopelessly and poisonously pervasive constructed stereotypes are and how it is perhaps impossible to ever truthfully separate your true identity from your socially constructed one; your real identity which you must use to maintain sanity and freedom in truth and your reputation which you must use to be free in the physical sense. As such I can understand where the words "it's no disgrace being a black man, but it's terribly inconvenient," are coming from. It is the frightening matter then, of reversing the negative cycle to allow truth to pervade societal constructs.
There's a lot worth responding to in this excellent post, but I'm especially struck by your observation about the complexity of laughter--the powerfully effective form of social control enacted in this ugly "laughing at" that minstrel stereotypes propagate (and for most of us it's hard to imagine finding any of this stuff funny), and the subversive, undermining kind of laughter we see in Ellison. These strands come together when the narrator tries to forcefully reject the dancing Sambo doll that Clifton is hawking, but somehow by spitting on it, he ends up part of the "act" (as the white man in the crowd laughs uproariously and points from the narrator to the doll and back). Likewise, his violent anger at the "Jolly N Bank" only leaves him with the "baggage" to carry around for the rest of the novel. But somehow, the ability to see the absurdity in it all, the kind of ironically humorous detachment he cultivates from his underground position, manages to subvert it all. There is a power in laughter, an untouchability, that can be more powerful than outright rebellion. I think we see this throughout Beatty's novel, as his humor--with its ironic and even sarcastic social commentary and its pointed self-deprecation--never falls into a "minstrel" dynamic (in part because he's able to humorously depict his own family line as a bunch of "minstrels" in a way that remains critical of the white society that refuses their "quest for dignity").
ReplyDeleteWhen everyone tries to tell you "this is who you are," it's hard not to be at all affected. In the context of such pressure, Gunnar's ability to remain so detached is incredibly impressive. Both in the basketball free-throw he misses on purpose and the speech he gives in Chapter 11, Gunnar seems to be simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the amount of power he has over people due to the constructed and twisted, perhaps even inhuman perception of him that they have. If he's ever on puppet strings, he's fully aware of it. Even faced with such idolization, he maintains almost a humble view of himself, any self-praise always ringing mockingly insincere. As readers of this book, it's clear that he could easily make himself appear genuinely the "messiah" he so sarcastically christens himself, but Gunnar instead seems to insist, "don't make me a hero". I'm not sure where I'm going, but it is hopefully sufficient to say that your enlightening explication of certain aspects of racial stereotypes really illuminated Gunnar's character for me.
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