Racial Equality, Not Ignorance

In the novels we have read so far this year, we have encountered multiple white people attempting to crusade for racial equality fail when they ignore the differences society imposes on the races. This happens in Native Son when Mary and Jan try to treat Bigger Thomas as they would treat any of their white friends, and in The White Boy Shuffle when Ms. Cegeny, Gunnar Kaufman’s teacher, tries to show the narrator that she does not see color. Both of these attempts backfire, and ironically, these events highlight the gap between the races.

            The episode in Native Son takes place when Bigger drives Mary and Jan around town. Part of my Native Son paper covered Bigger’s inexperience with the white community and how he was unprepared to spend a night out with Mary and Jan. Mary and Jan try to appeal to Bigger’s race rather than seeing him as his own individual. At the beginning of the night, Mary tells Bigger they are on their way to pick up his friend instead of telling him they are picking up Jan. She tries to show that they are on his side, but instead just confuses him. Mary and Jan try to appeal to Bigger with their knowledge of African-American music and restaurants. They try to treat Bigger as an equal, but Bigger still views them as the white symbols of power he has grown up seeing and even says sitting between them is like “sitting between two vast white looming walls”. Instead of making Bigger feel accepted, Mary and Jan make Bigger more aware of their differences. He becomes more aware of his black skin which makes him feel “naked, transparent”, and even as if it is a “badge of shame”.

            Gunnar Kaufman’s third grade teacher, Ms. Cegeny, makes a similar error. Kaufman remarks that classroom multiculturalism “reduced race, sexual orientation, and gender to inconsequence”. The signs of this mentality are all over the classroom. Ms. Cegeny owns a shirt that reads “Black, White, Red, Yellow, Brown, Human” with all the words except for “Human” crossed out. A poster in the classroom reads, “Eracism – the sun doesn’t care what color you are” which Ms. Cegeny makes sure to bring attention to when she wears her special shirt. This obsession with erasing differences in the classroom yields similar results to Native Son when the students are made even more aware of their differences. Kaufman notices on days when Ms. Cegeny wears this shirt, she pays special attention to the racial minorities and those are the days he is called on the most. The education with this mentality is dangerous. Ms. Cegeny teaches the students that Justice is colorblind in American society. She ignores and marginalizes the struggles of minorities to receive equal treatment in the eyes of the law.