In class yesterday, we began talking about the relationship between Benji's generation and his parents' generation in Sag Harbor. After thinking about what Colson Whitehead mentions about Benji's parents' lives and how Benji and his friends feel about issues of race, I have a few ideas about some potential connections between the parents' experiences during the Civil Rights Movement and the kids' relatively privileged way of living:
One of the differences between Benji's generation and his parents' that I noticed early on is their respective relationships to the Civil Rights Movement. Benji and his brother Reggie were both born after the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, so they never experienced the more extreme forms of segregation that his parents have endured. Another sign of the disconnect Benji has from the Civil Rights Movement is articulated as early as the first chapter of the novel, when Benji discusses not knowing much about many famous black people. On page 13 of my book (the hardcover version), Whitehead writes,
"One of my uncles would be over and mention Marcus Garvey and I'd ask, 'Who's that?,' as the eyes of all the adults in the room slitted for a sad round of tsk-tsking. 'Who's Toussaint L'Ouverture?' I'd stupidly inquire, and my father would shoot back, 'You don't know who Toussaint L'Ouverture is? What do they teach you at that fancy school I bust my ass to send you to?' Not 'Iconic Figures of Black Nationalism,' that's for sure."
There is an awkward difference between Benji's obliviousness to pivotal figures in Black history and his parents' noticing and possibly even being a part of the Civil Rights Movement and its immediate effects. This passage from the first chapter of Sag Harbor illustrates that it can be uncomfortable for Benji to ask about aspects of the Civil Rights Movement simply because it is so engrained in his parents' lives that they can't believe he isn't more attuned to or knowledgeable of it.
On a related note, I think readers of Sag Harbor could see Benji and his friends' toughness, awareness, or--what some people in class have suggested--oversensitivity when it comes to the role of race in their lives as a reflection of their parents' earlier struggles with how they were treated for being black. The kids have been privileged as far as their socioeconomic status their entire lives, while their parents had to endure growing up in a different, racially-segregated time. This is not to say that Benji and his friends are overreacting when it comes incidents that might involve race, but perhaps they feel like they have to justify their privilege in some way or have something to prove to their parents, whose struggles with race relations have been more extreme. Maybe some of the kids' reactions when they think they are being discriminated against racially (like when Martine pats Benji on the head at work and they read it as a demeaning, racist gesture that they should respond to or possibly get back at Martine for) is their way of trying to apply the same resilience about race that their parents needed during the Civil Rights Movement.
The connection can be interpreted in a few different directions, but I see it as either: 1.) Benji and his friends think they have to justify their relatively privileged lives because of parents' struggles, or 2.) they are accustomed to being sensitive to race relations because of their prior experiences and what they have learned from their parents, and just naturally react strongly to implications of how being black influences their lives. It will be interesting to see how this theme is illustrated throughout the remainder of the novel. Getting more details about Benji's parents and other adults and their ideas about race may help understand Benji's attitude as a result.
I definitely don't see Benji and his friends as *hypersensitive* to racism, or as imagining or even looking for imagined slights to get upset about. (And who am I to suggest whether or not they're right to get offended, anyway?) What I think Whitehead is doing here is showing how much less clear-cut these issues seem to be in 1985--how hard it is to distinguish between "actual and imagined persecution," as Ben the narrator puts it. The "stereotype stuff" is there, and these guys have no choice but to deal with it. They don't *choose* to take race into account as they try to construct their identities--this is American society's obsession, and they have no choice but to live within that context. The examples are deliberately ambiguous and often banal (buying a watermelon, for example), but that's partly the point--what for white people are taken-for-granted daily activities for these boys become complex navigations of self-presentation and reaction to others' stereotypes and assumptions.
ReplyDeleteTheir parents' generation had a more clear-cut kind of bigotry and discrimination to fight against, and their battles were mostly won, on the legal/judicial front. Benji faces a much more confusing and ambiguous situation--and as a result, they're constantly unsure about how they "should" be reacting to things. It's not a matter of separate water fountains or segregated lunch counters, where the issues seem clearly defined. We're in a much more hazy realm of innuendo, perception, self-projection, and subtlety. But that realm is no less real.
You touch on a really interesting topic that I think plays a major role in the book. Even though the lives of Benji and his friends may seem decadent, they are still affected by what their parents have gone through. It seems like they're constantly being guilt-tripped for not being appreciative enough for what their forefathers have accomplished, and this puts them in the kind of mind-frame that would make them paranoid about, say, a pat on the head. I think there's a ripple effect of their history that is more subtle in shaping them, pushing them to be a little more on their guard.
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