Derrida in Twain: Deconstructing Racism in American Literature
An African American, a Hispanic American, a White American, and an Innocent Child are sitting in a room when a white elephant walks in waving a Nazi flag.
Derrida in Twain: Deconstructing Racism in American Literature
An African American, a Hispanic American, a White American, and an Innocent Child are sitting in a room when a white elephant walks in waving a Nazi flag. The Innocent Child points and says, “Elephant!” The three adults immediately scold the child, “Don’t talk about the elephant!” Tired, ridiculous analogy? Maybe. But are we doing exactly this same ridiculous act every day? As a society, we cannot hope to eliminate racism until we discuss not tolerance but rather understand and deconstruct the racism within us all.
Here is a less ridiculous example than our Fascist pachyderm. An African American couple moves into an all-white neighborhood. The elderly lady next door immediately goes to welcome them. Central to her conversation are several dozen people she knows, has worked for, or respects who are also African American. She leaves them with an offer to help them any way she can. Are they likely to call her? Is she racist? Perhaps her intentions are good; she has not taken any overt act of racism. This woman has done nothing more than the innocent child: She has acknowledged the issue but not understood it.
This very type of racism is, in fact, central to Cassie Dandridge Selleck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Pecan Man. The main character, Mrs. Beckworth, is shocked several times by overt racism in her community (Selleck). Meanwhile, she is always respectful to her African American maid, Blanche, counting her as a friend and even donating exclusively to charities Blanche frequents (Selleck). When Blanche takes offense at special help offered to her, Mrs. Beckworth is taken aback. Mrs. Beckworth finally reaches her epiphany when, after decades, she tells Blanche she does not need to wear the uniform of her office (Selleck). This act is significant as a parallel to head scarves worn by former slaves. Mrs. Beckworth realizes “I had confused social graces with a social conscience” (Selleck). Selleck paints a powerful message echoed by many researchers that racism today is simply more covert, not gone (Pennington 94).
Racism in America doesn’t take such overt stances in most cases as my first example. When people express these opinions openly, we ostracize like the three adults. This takes the form of censorship—either societal or internal (Reinelt 3). This has also closed dialogue necessary to understand the issue. Eliminating open racism has not resulted in people that are more tolerant but rather a “new racism” (Pennington 94). “Political correctness” drives these ideas deeper into the unconscious but cannot eliminate the opinions (Reinelt 3). This can manifest in frustration towards programs such as affirmative action (Pennington 94), more subtly in unconscious stereotypes (Ghoshal, et al. 130), or even in the good intentions of an old woman (Selleck). Some researchers believe that whites even begin to move the blame for racism to members of the minority group (Burley 118). This stems from mistaken beliefs (especially among whites) that racism in America does not exist, or has become “reverse discrimination” by favoring previously oppressed groups (Burley 117).
Another excellent literary example of this “new racism” is Harper Lee’s classic (also a Pulitzer Prize winner) To Kill a Mockingbird. Racism is a driving force in this novel, but not the only issue under discussion. Recent events in the news (the Ferguson and Trayvon Martin shootings) make the messages as relevant today as in the 1960’s. Racial tensions drive justice as much today as they do in Lee’s novel. It is clear that, while we may pride ourselves as a more tolerant society that does not have the lynch mobs like the one Atticus stops (Lee 152), all society has done is put a bandage on a festering abscess.
Atticus instructs Scout on racism many times. “You’ll see white men cheat black men every day... no matter who he is... that white man is trash” (Lee 252). Atticus clearly understands overt racism. On the other hand, he also knows “you never really understand a person... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 33). This statement is heavy with meaning. The use of the word “skin” clearly echoes race while the image of wearing someone else’s skin, in a literal sense, forms a paradox. That is, we cannot understand someone unless we wear their skin, but we cannot wear their skin, so we cannot understand them, which leads us to better understanding itself.
Atticus is clearly a well-intentioned man and perhaps even a good man, but we do not know how he arrived at this relatively tolerant outlook because Scout is a particularly unreliable narrator (due to her age). Lee hints that Atticus has grown to this point using birds as a symbol. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.... That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 103). Neither Lee nor Atticus ever directly applies this statement to the African Americans in the novel; however, it is an implied comparison highlighting a hidden racism. If applied to African Americans, the belief that they exist solely to make white people’s lives easier is an example of “new racism.” We find later that, while Attic