I'm currently reading Mat Johnson's latest novel "Loving Day," as a part of my independent study. I'm about a third of the way through it, and I'm really enjoying it so far. The narrator/protagonist, Warren Duffy, is a light-skinned black man who can pass for white in every day situations. Sound familiar? I've never felt such a real connection to a fictional character before, because up until now, I didn't realize people were recognizing members of the African American community who, well....don't look like they belong there.
So far, this book has made me feel a lot of different things--angry, sad, happy, and sometimes...a little confused. Maybe that's the wrong word, so I'll try to elaborate on the feeling. I just don't understand why some black people hate other black people, simply because of the amount of melanin they've got in their skin. Warren's interactions with other black people (who actually "look black) are different than the interactions he has with white people, or even with mixed people. When he's at a comic book convention, he's seated with the other token black illustrators (who are generally ignored by the white comic book fans), and he mentions how he lets his "black voice come out, to compensate for [his] ambiguous appearance." I really connect with this, because I've noticed that I don't always talk to my black friends like I talk to my white friends, especially if I get the feeling that maybe my racial identity is being doubted.
There is this part of me that desperately wishes that I could tell people, "I'm half black," and not have it ridiculed or doubted...I would feel so much more concrete in my racial identity if it wasn't constantly being scrutinized by people who have no understanding of the intricacies of race at ALL, or, people who are unwilling to open up to the fact that there is more to race than "black" or "white." But, it's like Warren says when he's reflecting on how he fits in with black people and white people:
"I am a racial optical illusion. I am as visually duplicitous as the illustration of the young beauty that's also the illustration of the old hag. Whoever sees the beauty will always see the beauty, even if the image of the hag can be pointed out to exist in the same etching. Whoever sees the hag will be equally resolute. The people who see me as white always will, and will think it's madness that anyone else could come to any other conclusion, holding to this falsehood regardless of learning my true identity. The people who see me as black cannot imagine how a sane, intelligent person could be so blind not to understand this, despite my pale-skinned presence."
Johnson explores the prevalence of intercultural racism within the African American community, something that I am very interested in and very confused by, when he takes his (spoiler alert) long lost daughter Tal (who is just as pale as he is, and, as he puts it, "casually racist") to an Afrocentric school in Philadelphia. When they talk to the principal of the school, there is such a strange vibe in the room as the principal condemns all things European and white, claiming that his school "remove[s] the toxins of Western decadence and replace[s] it with purity." Later, when Warren and the principal come across a group of students dancing in a large circle, Tal, a trained dancer, jumps into the middle of the circle and begins to dance, leaping and doing splits, fueled by the enthusiasm and encouragement of the students. However, when the principal sees how she dances, he says, "She shouldn't be jumping up...That was a good start, but she shouldn't be jumping up so much. We'll teach her. Jumping up, that's the European mind-set, you see?" When Warren mentions that he's definitely seen African dancers jumping around like Tal, the principal scoffs, saying, "See, the European mind-set, it's about distancing oneself from the planet, so their dancing is all about trying to jump away from it. It's arrogance, really. It says, 'I'm better than mother earth, I fly off of you because you're beneath me.'" This hatred of anything that isn't African relates back to Warren's need to prove his blackness to other, dark-skinned black people--as long as they're sure that he isn't just some Euro-loving sellout, they can accept him; but if he were to actively identify more with his white roots, the roots that led to his quasi-hatred of his blackness, which in turn led to his running away from America to live with and marry a very white Welsh woman, Warren would be rejected.
And that is what I don't understand. This book is really showing me the complicated hatred that is strewn throughout the black community. I was definitely aware of it--after all, it was another mixed person who told me I was an Uh-Oh Oreo in middle school--but damn....it is so upsetting. You'd think that after hundreds of years of discrimination against black people, no matter how light or dark they are, we'd be able to unite against the common force that's trying to bring us down. Why should Warren have to constantly prove his blackness? Why is it wrong for Tal to be classically trained in dance? Why is it that when the two of them enroll in the Mélange Center, a school for mixed race children and adults, Warren and Tal are classified into two different groups: black-identified and white-identified? Warren refers to his and Tal's fellow students and teachers as "The human equivalent of mismatched socks. The people whose racial appearance fails to mirror the ethnicity of their inner spirit."
I've still got 204 pages to go before I finish this book, and I'm sure I'll have a thousand more things to say about it as I keep going. But for now, I'll stop rambling.
For the record, though...when I look at that illustration of the old woman and the young woman, I can see them both. It's probably entirely insignificant, but I see them both.
So far, this book has made me feel a lot of different things--angry, sad, happy, and sometimes...a little confused. Maybe that's the wrong word, so I'll try to elaborate on the feeling. I just don't understand why some black people hate other black people, simply because of the amount of melanin they've got in their skin. Warren's interactions with other black people (who actually "look black) are different than the interactions he has with white people, or even with mixed people. When he's at a comic book convention, he's seated with the other token black illustrators (who are generally ignored by the white comic book fans), and he mentions how he lets his "black voice come out, to compensate for [his] ambiguous appearance." I really connect with this, because I've noticed that I don't always talk to my black friends like I talk to my white friends, especially if I get the feeling that maybe my racial identity is being doubted.
There is this part of me that desperately wishes that I could tell people, "I'm half black," and not have it ridiculed or doubted...I would feel so much more concrete in my racial identity if it wasn't constantly being scrutinized by people who have no understanding of the intricacies of race at ALL, or, people who are unwilling to open up to the fact that there is more to race than "black" or "white." But, it's like Warren says when he's reflecting on how he fits in with black people and white people:
"I am a racial optical illusion. I am as visually duplicitous as the illustration of the young beauty that's also the illustration of the old hag. Whoever sees the beauty will always see the beauty, even if the image of the hag can be pointed out to exist in the same etching. Whoever sees the hag will be equally resolute. The people who see me as white always will, and will think it's madness that anyone else could come to any other conclusion, holding to this falsehood regardless of learning my true identity. The people who see me as black cannot imagine how a sane, intelligent person could be so blind not to understand this, despite my pale-skinned presence."
Johnson explores the prevalence of intercultural racism within the African American community, something that I am very interested in and very confused by, when he takes his (spoiler alert) long lost daughter Tal (who is just as pale as he is, and, as he puts it, "casually racist") to an Afrocentric school in Philadelphia. When they talk to the principal of the school, there is such a strange vibe in the room as the principal condemns all things European and white, claiming that his school "remove[s] the toxins of Western decadence and replace[s] it with purity." Later, when Warren and the principal come across a group of students dancing in a large circle, Tal, a trained dancer, jumps into the middle of the circle and begins to dance, leaping and doing splits, fueled by the enthusiasm and encouragement of the students. However, when the principal sees how she dances, he says, "She shouldn't be jumping up...That was a good start, but she shouldn't be jumping up so much. We'll teach her. Jumping up, that's the European mind-set, you see?" When Warren mentions that he's definitely seen African dancers jumping around like Tal, the principal scoffs, saying, "See, the European mind-set, it's about distancing oneself from the planet, so their dancing is all about trying to jump away from it. It's arrogance, really. It says, 'I'm better than mother earth, I fly off of you because you're beneath me.'" This hatred of anything that isn't African relates back to Warren's need to prove his blackness to other, dark-skinned black people--as long as they're sure that he isn't just some Euro-loving sellout, they can accept him; but if he were to actively identify more with his white roots, the roots that led to his quasi-hatred of his blackness, which in turn led to his running away from America to live with and marry a very white Welsh woman, Warren would be rejected.
And that is what I don't understand. This book is really showing me the complicated hatred that is strewn throughout the black community. I was definitely aware of it--after all, it was another mixed person who told me I was an Uh-Oh Oreo in middle school--but damn....it is so upsetting. You'd think that after hundreds of years of discrimination against black people, no matter how light or dark they are, we'd be able to unite against the common force that's trying to bring us down. Why should Warren have to constantly prove his blackness? Why is it wrong for Tal to be classically trained in dance? Why is it that when the two of them enroll in the Mélange Center, a school for mixed race children and adults, Warren and Tal are classified into two different groups: black-identified and white-identified? Warren refers to his and Tal's fellow students and teachers as "The human equivalent of mismatched socks. The people whose racial appearance fails to mirror the ethnicity of their inner spirit."
I've still got 204 pages to go before I finish this book, and I'm sure I'll have a thousand more things to say about it as I keep going. But for now, I'll stop rambling.
For the record, though...when I look at that illustration of the old woman and the young woman, I can see them both. It's probably entirely insignificant, but I see them both.