Research shows that racial and ethnic groups are socially constructed, meaning that they have a significance based on what is accorded to them by society, separate and apart from any empirical ‘reality (Glazer 64). In terms of what exists ‘in reality,’ Keita et al. (S18) argue that human biological variation is not structured into ‘races’ as presented in classical anthropology but they are clear to note that this does not mean that racism does not exist. This idea that race is a social construct is supported by Carl James and Bethan Lloyd (11), who argue that race is not only socially constructed but is also a lived experience. This paper explores the topic of racism in America using two literary texts and a poem as the main sources for the discussion, supported by research contained in four scholarly journals that support the thesis presented in the literary sources.
Langston Hughes’ poem I, Too is the first literary source discussed. Published in 1932, this poem speaks clearly about the discrimination in the society against African American, who have long been made to ‘eat in the kitchen rather than taking their rightful place ‘at the table’ in American society. The poem also clearly opines that this segregation of African Americans would soon end as African Americans demand their rightful place, regardless of those who want them to continue being ‘second class citizens in a country in which they have resided for centuries. The first line of the poem uses the word ‘I’ right away, stating: “I, too, sing America.” This meter is especially significant as it means that African american citizens are American in the same way that ‘white’ Americans. The poet continues to use ‘I’ throughout the second stanza. This stanza starts with the line “I am the darker brother,” which reinforces the point that African Americans are ‘different in terms of colour but are still American. The next part of this stanza outlines how African Americans were being treated unequally across the country: “They send me to eat in the kitchen / When company comes” (3-4). However, instead of expressing anger at this state of affairs, Hughes wrote: “But I laugh, / And eat well, / And grow strong” (5-7). This indicates that African Americans saw the current state of affairs as one in which they would be able to grow stronger in the face of discrimination (since the persons eating in the kitchen have a greater selection from which to choose), biding their time for the day when they can put an end to the segregation and discrimination. This also indicates that the continuing unequal treatment of African Americans had not killed their spirit, and indeed that victory in the face of the adversary was even sweeter.
In the third stanza Hughes looks towards the future, the ‘tomorrow’ to come: “Tomorrow, / I’ll be at the table / When company comes. / Nobody’ll dare / Say to me, / ‘Eat in the kitchen,’/ Then” (8-14). “Tomorrow” refers to someday in the future when the narrator can sit at the table, not because the ‘master’ has invited him, but because he has grown so strong that the master and his visitors cannot deny him this right to be at the table. The final stanza says “Besides, / They’ll see how beautiful I am / And be ashamed / I, too, am, America” (15-18). In the first part of this stanza, Hughes articulates his view that when an African American is finally sitting at the table, others will recognize the beauty (read: value) of African Americans. Additionally, the second part of the stanza seems to indicate that, rather than being malicious, those that denied African Americans their right to sit at the table were merely misguided, and thus when they see the error of their ways they would be ashamed of the fact that they denied them to sit at the table so long.
However, while African Americans have indeed taken it in their own hands to sit at the table (or sit at the front of the bus), the final ‘dream’ of Hughes – that the real value of African Americans would be appreciated – seems slow in coming in America. For example, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan studied the impact of the race (measured by the name on a resume) in the labour market. They found that applicants with ‘white’ names received 50 per cent more callbacks for job interviews than applicants with ‘black’ names. Moreover, even when the applicants with ‘black’ names had higher quality resumes, these improved credentials did not lead to an increase in callbacks for these respondents compared to those with ‘white’ names. This racial gap was found across all industry, occupation, and job requirement categories that the researchers investigated. This highlights that the returns to education, experience and so on for blacks are lower than for whites, which can be taken to indicate that even when blacks take the time to ‘grow strong and beautiful’ they are still seen as inferior. This indicates that African Americans may be ‘sitting at the table’ now but are still not being valued and not being treated equally.
It is therefore not surprising that many African American children yearn to have blue eyes, even at the time that Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye, when ‘Black is Beautiful’ campaigns were raging across America. One of the themes in this novel is the link between ‘whiteness’ and beauty internalized by African American girls and women and fact that there is a lot of reinforcement of the view that ‘black is ugly’ within society. In the novel, this is reinforced in several ways, such as Pecola’s idealization of Shirley Temple (and her blue eyes) and the general agreement that Maureen was prettier than the other black girls because she was light-skinned. This is also reinforced on a wider scale, such as through the idealization of white beauty on the big screen. Morrison repeats this point in her article in Time Magazine in 1993 entitled On the Backs of Blacks, where she argues that popular culture “participates freely in this most enduring and efficient rite of passage into American culture: negative appraisals of the native-born black population.” In this article, Morrison discusses the racial hierarchy in the USA in contemporary times and argues that that African Americans remain at the lowest position in the racial hierarchy, which has not changed since Hughes penned his poem in the 1930s. This position is echoed by Nathan Glazer (50), who argues that there is a “large distinction in the processes of assimilation and integration that has persisted during the three- or four-century history of American diversity – the distinction between blacks and others.” He goes on to note that ‘whites’ were differentiated from ‘blacks’ from the first census and that this has remained the most enduring distinction among groups in the American census (51). Not only is this black-white distinction enduring, but the position of African Americans also has not changed as noted by Morrison and supported by Glazer’s (50) assertion that one of the “two enduring themes of American racial and ethnic diversity, present since the origins of American society in the English colonies of the Atlantic coast [is] the continued presence of what appears to be an almost permanent lower caste composed of the black race.” Thus, as noted by Morrison in her article, new ‘non-black’ immigrants become ‘common American people’ over time but African Americans remain ‘noncitizens’ in America. She argues that “[t]he overwhelming majority of African Americans… [are] disappeared except in their less than covert function of defining whites as the ‘true’ Americans.”
Some researchers have argued that this ability of immigrant groups to become a part of the ‘common American people’ is a strictly limited process, available only to whites (Glazer 60), making race crucial to full inclusion. Morrison expounds on this position by stating:
In race talk, the move into mainstream America always means buying into the notion of American blacks as the real aliens. Whatever the ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African American.
Glazer (60) explains this position by noting:
This point of view implies that the present minorities as commonly understood exist not only because of the recency of their immigration, which characterizes someone them but primarily because of colour: they are not white. Their ability to become full and equal participants in American society is thereby limited because of its racist character.
However, Glazer (60) disagrees with this, arguing that a degree of racism is still present but the race is not the barrier to full inclusion that it once was. However, blacks are still sharply distinguished from other minorities or subgroups in the United States (Glazer 61), with blacks being more segregated in terms of residence than Hispanics and Asians, who have immigrated more recently and do not have English as their language (Glazer 62). This is because
[African Americans] are more sharply defined in their consciousness and majority consciousness as separate: history has made them so. But one sees the processes of assimilation and integration working among blacks, as measured by intermarriage, by the presence in high-status occupations, and to a more modest degree residential integration (Glazer 63).
This discussion indicates that the socially constructed issue of race remains an important issue for African Americans in very practical terms. There have been changes since the 1930s, and as foretold by Hughes, African Americans are no longer content to be ‘sent to the kitchen’ when the ‘master’ chooses. However, the classification of African Americans as 3/5 of a citizen, which was done at the beginning of census taking (Glazer 50) remains a part of the social construction of the role and position of African Americans in American society. First, empirical evidence presented by Bertrand and Mullainathan indicates that African American workers are seen as less valuable than ‘white’ workers even when the former workers have invested in their education and experience such that their credentials should make them ‘beautiful’ to employers. Second, Morrison, Glazer, and James and Lloyd argue that African Americans continue to be at the bottom of the racial hierarchy and assimilate less within the ‘common American people’ even as other, more recent, immigrant groups get a leg up by stepping on the backs of African Americans in their quest for integration.
Works Cited
Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan. “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination.” The American Economic Review 94 (2004): 991-1013.
Glazer, Nathan. “American Diversity and the 2000 Census.” Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy: Comparing the US and UK. Eds. Glenn Loury, Tariq Modood, and Steven Teles. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 50-65.
Hughes, Langston. I, Too. (1932).
James, Carl and Bethan Lloyd. “Differentiating the ‘Other’/Disaggregating ‘Black’: On the Diversity of African Canadian Communities.” Navigating Multiculturalism: Negotiating Change. Ed. Dawn Zinga. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006. 10-32.
Keita, S., Kittles, R., Royal, C. et al. “Conceptualizing Human Variation.” Nature Genetics Supplement 36 (2004): S17-S20.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume. 1970.
Morrison, Toni. “On the Backs Of Blacks.” Time Magazine, 1993.