I'm now three readings into Angry Black White Boy, and I still struggling with what to make of the character of Macon Detornay. He seems like a bundle of walking contradictions, and it's especially hard to evaluate because the issues of race and cultural appropriation still carry so much weight in current dialogue.
I've been trying to come up with analogies to provide an alternative lens through which to critique Macon's character. The analogy would have to have a traditionally empowered group endorsing and appropriating the culture/symbols/whatever of the very group that they've oppressed. I think that point is very important, as we discussed in class on Friday, because it really isn't the same for a white person to be told to stay in their place and for a black person to be told the same thing
But so far I'm not having tons of luck, because I realized that I'm not really able to relate to a white person mimicking any culture other than black culture. Today (Thursday the 30th) I thought about its parallels to transgender women (meaning, individuals who have made the switch from man to women), which has some interesting results. I'm not really sure about how fitting the analogy is, , but the incongruities do help illuminate the problems with Macon (I'm going to be referring to a man-to-woman transition for the rest of the post).
The transgender transition seems to be renouncing ones man-ness in the same way that Macon wants to denounce his white-ness, but I'm guessing that we as an English class would have much less animosity and reservations about a transgender woman than about Macon. I think motivations play into it. People switch genders because they don't feel like they were assigned the correct gender. I don't think Macon feels like he was assigned the wrong race, because he relishes the thought of himself as the one white person who renounces white-ness. The color of his skin is a crucial part of the equation. I think that might not sit well with us because it seems like he has picked up on this thing just so he can feel special, and if we want to analyze it really deeply, he is still using the color of his skin to satisfy a feeling of superiority.
Of course, he is also motivated by a hate for white privilege. His method of fighting it is kind of weird though. If you were a man who hated sexism, your route of action probably isn't to switch genders. It's to tell your fellow men to not be sexist. I'm not sure if Macon's renunciation is really a fight against white privilege, certainly not enough to be compared to Malcom X, and his excessive arrogance is why we are looking at his whole ideology in such a critical light.
Another point is that even if Macon renounces his white-ness, he will still be white and still have white privilege. By contrast, when a trans woman makes the switch, she is now completely subject to sexism (I talked to a transgender woman once who had some astonishing things to say about how her professional life changed, how she was treated worse in meetings and her ideas given less thought, etc.). The fact that Macon can't ever actually be subject to racism makes his renunciation seem less authentic, even if he wholeheartedly believes in it.
One final idea: I keep getting pissed off that Macon goes to Columbia. But so does Andre, and Nique goes to NYU, and not every black person lives in the projects, etc. However, these facts don't totally invalidate the claim that if Macon was really as balls-to-the-wall as he says he is, he would live a much less affluent life, because (a) his money was gotten at racist means -- it's not even implicit, it's explicated with the Cap Ansen thing -- (b) Nique and Andre aren't the ones that have REALLY gotten screwed by racism. You don't evaluate a group of oppressed people by it's more prosperous individuals, you evaluate by how many of them have been denied opportunity.
I would get into flaws in my analogy but this post is already getting really long and heavy and I want people to read it, so please point them out in the comment section.
This is an interesting comparison. I don't necessarily think that sex changes are widely accepted, similar to how Macon is not widely popular. It's really interesting to think about how Macon can't really ever completely change. Will he experience racism the same way Andre and Nique might? No. Just like how men won't experience the same sexism as women. This was a huge ramble but I just have a lot of ideas now, this was very thought provoking. I think the fact that Macon can never truly feel the effects of racism detract from his genuineness. But we wouldn't say that about a man supporting feminism, would we? We would wholeheartedly welcome him to the movement, no questions asked. But why is there such a difference? Why are we embracing men's movement to support feminism and questioning Macon's movement to support black people? I guess the way he does it isn't great...alright, I'm done. Just some thoughts. Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteKatie, that is a really interesting comparison. It also seems to be getting at the most important and relevant points of Macon's race treachery: he wants to change races because he feels like he has been biologically assigned to the wrong one. I hope we are able to talk about this post and this idea in class, because I think a lot of people would have a lot to say on this topic!
ReplyDeleteI think that you're point on the difference in the motivations for a man becoming a woman versus Macon's for wanting to become black is very interesting. Though I'm not sure if he really does want to be that one down white guy. It always seemed to me like he felt that is what he would have to settle for since he can't "be black". This is also why, I think, he over compensates so much in the way he choses to act.
ReplyDeleteAlso as towards what you said at the end I think that it is really significant that it is Nique and Andre who are talked about so much in this novel as having racism mess with their lives. I feel like these privileged fellows were chosen rather than a more "oppressed" set of characters because the author is trying show that racism is far reaching enough that it will effect you no matter how successful you are. This also reminds me of a Mos Def line "When the white boy's doing it well it's success/ when i start doing it well it's suspect".
It's hard to see a way out of this conundrum: Macon can't "be black," can't himself be a victim of racism, and yet he does get beat up at school (by white kids) for "dressing and talking black" (which is a KIND of surrogate racism, sort of), and at the end of the novel he's executed by a white racist as a "traitor" to his whiteness. But under these more outlandish examples, the novel asks serious questions about a white person committed to anti-racism: do you have to be a victim of the system to oppose its injustice? Will a guy like Macon always be greeted with suspicion? Would it be *better* if he was more like the other white people in his community on 4/29/92, just watching the riots on TV and not being bothered?
ReplyDeleteAs the novel unfolds (and especially in the scenes where he interacts with the media) it becomes clear that Macon isn't trying to "be black" but to be *white* in a different, more self-critical, way. And he isn't trying to "lead" black people but to lead white people to start honestly addressing racism and privilege--to acknowledge that an individual doesn't have to "act racist" in order to benefit in countless ways from an unjust and brutal system.