The analysis of two autobiographical works; Dreams from
my Father by Barack Obama and The Color of Water by
James McBride.
Masterscriptie opleiding Engelse Taal en Cultuur
Name: Esmeralda Sutton Student number: 1394363 Supervisor: Irene Visser
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Table of Contents
Introduction ... 3
Chapter 1: From slave narrative to autobiography: how historical events have changed the genre…. ... 11
Chapter 2: Understanding race in The Color of Water. ... 18
Chapter 3: Racial issues in Dreams from my Father ... 26
The role of family and friends in shaping identity. ... 30
Conclusion ... 33
Appendix ... 35
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Introduction
This dissertation analyzes two autobiographies by two African-American men. The first autobiography Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is by Barack Obama and the second autobiography The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother is by James McBride. Both autobiographies were first published within a year of each other, Barack‟s in 1995 and James‟ in 1996. The African-American autobiography genre dates back to the mid 19th century with the autobiography of Frederick Douglass detailing his life as a slave and finally escaping to freedom. The genre continued into the early 20th century with authors such as Booker T. Washington and his famous autobiography Up from Slavery during the post-slavery era and Langston Hughes‟ two autobiographies halfway through the century during the Harlem Renaissance and well-known author Richard Wright who focused heavily on racial themes. The genre as it is now also focuses on racial themes, which is prominent in both Dreams
from my Father and The Color of Water. African-American literature became very popular
because of the issues discussed. The literature arose from the experiences, such as racial discrimination, black people had and are still having in America. African-American literature is a way for black people in America to gain power, in a literary sense. This way, black culture is also being circulated and black people are able to gain more power, culturally. Through the autobiography genre, the racial issues black people face becomes real to other ethnicities. It is no longer fiction.
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autobiographies, in that sense, can be seen as homage to their mothers for raising them and becoming the men they are today. This is especially true of James‟ story because his mother‟s story was the starting point for his. His story is dedicated to his mother and so his purpose was not entirely on the autobiography but on his mother‟s journey through life and how he learned from her.
Barack Obama, now 44th president of the United States of America, wrote his autobiography when he was thirty-three years old. It is about the search for his father‟s life and legacy and by finding out more about his father, he can know who he is himself. The common ground in the autobiography genre is that the author makes the journey through life. The author goes through life experiences and learns from them. In his autobiography, Barack is a very determined and focused young man searching for his identity. This makes it interesting to analyze because Barack was writing from an adult perspective with more experience and knowledge of the world than when he was a child growing up. It is also interesting because at this age he was still forming opinions about worldly problems regardless of the fact that he is a strong believer in his morals and values. From his teen years, Barack began to form an opinion concerning race, namely that people should be treated equally. This he held very dear to him and he tried to execute it in his career. The drive that Barack had is also reflected in the autobiography during his organizing years in Chicago. He witnessed many inequalities and tried to do everything in his power to help the people of Chicago. His autobiography disclosed the wrongs that were being done to African-Americans. Barack also wrote about the injustices done to them that could have been avoided. He discussed his struggles of being an African-American with white relatives. He also discussed how he had to learn to separate the judgmental/racist whites from his mother and grandparents. The most important task he had to complete was to learn about his father and himself so that he could function in both worlds. Barack has written another book called The
Audacity of Hope published in 2006, which expands on the themes and values he spoke about in
one of his speeches while running for president. Dreams from my Father is also available as an audio book.
James McBride‟s story is similar but still different from Barack‟s, in the sense that he does not struggle so much with his identity, this being his character and personality and moral values, as he does with race, literally the color of his skin, earlier on in life. In his autobiography
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James wrote his autobiography when he was thirty-nine years old and his mother was about seventy-five. James is the eight of twelve children. His mother was a very hard-working woman who tried to teach her children about respect. She avoided telling them about race because she did not want that to be the determining factor in their lives. For the older children, race did become a big issue for them and they rallied for Black Power. James, however, never really knew what side to choose and so he ultimately did not choose. Through his mother‟s biography, he realizes that although racial issues can be very problematic and sometimes painful, race should never matter despite all that has transpired between the black and white races. In his autobiography, James is determined to find out what color his mother is and the racial identity that shapes him. His autobiography also opens society‟s eyes to the inequalities between races although the main focus is on mixed-race children and how they deal with problems growing up. While most African-American autobiographies focus on black people, especially black men, James also focuses on the wrongs done to his mother. He shows the other side of the color line that white people also experience racial discrimination.
The first issue I explore in the autobiography concerns race and identity or racial identity, as it is also called, in both autobiographies. The reason for this being that both men are mixed and both encounter problems growing up and have problems placing themselves in society. The problems are different and that is what makes it interesting to analyze the two autobiographies. As children, they both were unaware of the racial tensions surrounding them. As they got older, they realized that they were different from their mother and that they needed to fit in somewhere. Both men chose to hang with the black crowd as a teenager, but they both gradually moved in and around both black and white circles. However, the reasons why they chose one side rather than the other were very different. Barack tried to learn about black culture because he did not have anyone who could provide that for him other than his friends. James had a stepfather and siblings who could have taught him about black culture, which they did. Unfortunately, because he was so dependent on his mother, when his stepfather died and his mother gave up the fight, James eventually gave up the fight too and headed for the extreme of what it meant to be black.
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life lessons that he carried with him. James‟ mother was usually present because she was the driving force behind his autobiography. When he was not around her, things usually went bad. The relationship with relatives and friends is also quite important because when the parent is absent, the others substitute, whether positively or negatively. The friendships that Obama had were both positive and negative. James‟ friendships were more negative.
The focus in this dissertation will be the genre of African-American autobiography. Autobiography has become a very popular genre in literature. Since the abolition of slavery and even before then, many people including slaves, American presidents, actors, and many more, have written autobiographies to reflect on their lives. What started as an oral form back in slavery days, turned into a written form that has become a way to find self and identity. In many African-American autobiographies, the author‟s issues usually lie with race and identity. Many mixed-race, biracial, and multiracial people do not know, or are confused as to which race they should belong to according to society. Mixed-race authors are often ridiculed by their choice, ranging from being a sell-out to wanting to “pass” as another race. Those authors that are not worried about race as much often deal with an identity crisis and vice versa. Society, especially the American society that is at the center of my discussion, wants them to choose one race and adhere to those rules. However, many mixed-race people often find themselves crossing the color lines continuously, sometimes with or without consequences.
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reading and contextualization. Because the two lives are almost similar, the differences are very important to note and also the manner in which the two men chose to deal with situations.
The first theme that will be analyzed is that of race and the racial issues such as racial identity that is prevalent in both autobiographies. There has always been a black/white problem. Although there are laws that ban segregation, many people still have racist ideas and attitudes. That is why many African-American autobiographies tend to veer into that direction a lot. The existence of the genre itself shows that there is a separation between (white) American and African-American autobiographies. Both authors that are discussed write about race, racism, and identity. Racial identity was a problem for both authors growing up because they were half-white and half-black. This is called the “one drop rule” and has been so since the days of slavery. “The „one drop rule‟ as well as many states‟ laws against miscegenation, turn-of-the-century eugenicists argued that “the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized, and lower type….The cross between a white man and a negro is a negro.” (Gubar, 205). No matter how white or light-skinned a person looked or was, as long as someone in their family or a descendant was black, they would be considered black too. In Barack‟s and James‟ case, it could not have been a mystery as to what color they were. However, it did confuse James because of the lack of black figures in his life. Coining a term for what they were was very difficult for them. “Thus, the mixed child produced by interracial relationships became conceptually inconceivable. …School applications, federal government documents, medical records, census reports, and job applications do not recognize “biracial” as a category” (Gubar, 205). They did not want to be forced into one group; it had to be their choice. However, society had already placed them in their group.
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perceived as the lower caste. Any child born of a white and black parent is considered black because of the “one drop rule”. “Children of a higher-caste and a lower-caste parent maybe assigned the lower-parent status, a procedure derived from slavery” (Sollors, 249). It was more difficult for a white woman to be with a black man than it was for a white man to be with a black woman. During slavery, the white man was usually the master of the house and he decided whether he wanted to keep the black child or not. The white woman did not have a say “because the idea of a black father/white mother was made unspeakable during slavery and Reconstruction” (Gubar, 223). Fortunately, as the years passed, white and black was being accepted, although there are still those that despise such couples. These mixed couples do not have to be on their guards as much as their predecessors were during slavery. “The figure of the white mother of the dark child evolves from pariah to Madonna over the course of the twentieth century” (Gubar, 225). However, they are still ridiculed and are sometimes said to put shame on their race. The child of the mixed couple is no less safe. They are called all kinds of names, “The identity of the child, too, undergoes a transformation, as the move from the term “mulatto” (meaning a sterile mule) to the terms “mixed”, “hybrid”, “biracial”, and “multi-ethnic” demonstrates” (Gubar, 225). Some children chose not to label themselves while others chose either the white or the black side and then there are those who do label themselves biracial. Obama chose to call himself black. James eventually decided for black but did not stress it excessively.
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grandparents) and a black father (and black siblings) allowed them to observe and understand how the races interacted with each other. Although both mothers tried to keep the issue of race out of their households, it still lingered both inside the home as well as outside.
Friendships were also beneficial in the formation of Barack‟s and James‟ opinions and decisions. Some of Barack‟s friends rallied for Black Power and this opened his eyes to the ways in which black people were being treated by (the white) government. However, this also made him think about white people, because his friends would occasionally talk badly about them. Considering the fact that his maternal side of the family is white and that he too was half-white, he could not just allow his friends to talk that way. His siblings were also helpful in his quest to learn more about his father. They welcomed him in Africa and made sure that everything was at his disposal so that he can find himself. James‟ mother also raised him up to be impartial to race and racism. She was also very religious and into education. Since she was the only adult around him, it was all he knew until his older siblings started to come into their own. They brought home exactly what their mother was trying to prevent. Blackness became a term that he grew accustomed to. White people became the oppressors. Unfortunately, as was the case with Obama, denying white people would mean that they were denying part of themselves. Luckily, both mothers were strong enough to deal with all the racial differences and raise their black sons to stand firm in their opinions and views about race.
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Chapter One
From slave narrative to autobiography: how historical events have changed the genre.
One of the most popular forms of literature is the genre of autobiography. This genre started out as an oral form of narrating what transpired in someone‟s life. Nobody really knows when the first autobiography was written but over one-third of autobiographies written in America before 1850 were religious narratives “including spiritual autobiographies, reminiscences of missionary work, and the life stories of clergymen” (Cooley, 3). Many of these autobiographies were printed in printing presses or by job printers who were receptive to pious causes and religious groups. The autobiography genre became more prominent and the focus changed. Many people started to write their autobiography or “as suggested by the welter of terms that authors and readers have adopted to describe it – „memoirs‟, „personal narratives‟, „life‟, „confession‟, „reminiscence‟, „spiritual autobiography‟- the narrative genre we now call „autobiography‟ is actually a cluster of genres whose early history in America remains largely unwritten” (Cooley, 3). Why there are so many names for one genre is odd to me, but it is interesting to see that people view their life stories in different ways; some see it as a confession, while others see it as something spiritual. However, this vast array of names all comes from one source that was the starting point for the many autobiographies we see today.
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form of protest literature, whose purpose was to expose the nature of the slave system and to provide moral instruction through the vehicle of autobiography…” (Smith, 8). Writing an autobiography would help them to overcome the system and expose slavery for what it was, inhumane.
Finding selfhood was always the focus in slave narratives. By figuring out who they were, ex-slaves could finally gain freedom. The slave became an individual. “The ex-slave, after many years of suppression, must find reassurance, self-realization, self-worth, but most importantly their identity, the self. The objectivity achieved and the selfhood affirmed are the final, and, in many ways, the most enduring testament of freedom” (Smith, 11). The slave was finally free from his master(s), free to do what he pleased, free to find himself. The ex-slave could work on „being black‟. The notion of being black and acting black had more weight than it does now seeing that there was clearly a divide between black and white.
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112). Therefore, the events that took place helped the person find selfhood or identity, truthful or not. How an author remembers his/her story is also part of finding selfhood.
The new generation of black revolutionaries brought new ideas to the African-American autobiography genre. They, like their predecessors, told their survival stories, but they also began challenging racial integration by trying to claim their status in American society. These black revolutionaries sought out a group identity. Ironically, they started many Black Power movements. These movements signaled a big moment in the history of African-Americans because they started to form “an identity” for themselves. According to William Andrews, “The
Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964) exemplified the concept of black identity as necessarily
distinct from and morally superior to the corporate white identity that dominated the cultural and socio-political ethos of America” (Andrews, 196). As the years passed, “this concept of blackness as the sine qua non of African-American identity in the 1960s inspired a new generation of self-styled black revolutionaries to give voice to their own life stories and political opinions” (Andrews, 196). Many African-American autobiographers recall some Black Movement in their autobiographies. William Cross, author of Shades of Black, describes how these black revolutionaries sought out each other. He says that black militants were more likely to “identify with Black cultural values, show a preference for people with dark skin and African physical features, adhere to a strong system of blame ideology, prefer Black organizations that are run solely by Black people, evidence strong anti-white perceptions; and evidence greater aggression and high risk-taking propensities (Cross, 153). Cross also added that these militants from many different backgrounds grouped together to have that sense of a “collective identity or sense of peoplehood.”
The search was for a viable sense of identity for blacks in a new era, when the blandishments of the “Negro bourgeoisie” and the “white American mainstream” lure the successful black person away from the “black masses” and hence, away from the only valid source of identity for blacks who desire a historically meaningful existence (Andrews, 199).
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same goes for Barack and James, although they did not write their autobiographies during the 60s and 70s. They grew up during those periods and knew what was going on in black circles where they spent some time also. As the years went by, black autobiographers started on a new journey, finding self-identity. Group identity only categorized black people and made stereotypes. Personal identity became the new, or rather, renewed trend. Finding out who you were as a person, not a black person was more important. In order to do this, they would have to go back to the old tradition of the slave narratives, which was finding themselves. While slaves formed their identity based on the newfound freedom, and the writers of the 60s and 70s formed theirs through group identity as stated earlier, contemporary writers form theirs on everything combined. Historical facts play a major role in their basic knowledge. By experience, they decide how they can maneuver in society with this basic knowledge.
At least two things are remarkable about African-American autobiography scholarship in the 1980s. First, the largest proportion of that scholarship was devoted to the antebellum slave narrative; second, some of the most thoughtful criticism on black autobiography seems to have gravitated toward the slave narrative.” (Andrews, 205)
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Jim Crow laws have been a major influence on the mindset of many. These laws were enacted in America during the late 19th century and mid 20th century. The laws were meant to segregate black and white people in a „separate but equal‟ way. However, black people had many disadvantages.
The reason Jim Crow laws were invented was that black people were becoming more and more popular in politics after slavery was abolished. Some white people thought that this situation was getting out of hand and decided to take matters in their own hands. They wanted to be superior to black people on a legal level, which meant in political situations. This, however, evolved into something more than just a legal issue. Seeing that slavery seemed to be lurking in the background during this time, many white supremacists thought that this was the behavior blacks should adhere to and that is the social class they belong to. Not only did segregation apply to political issues, but it also started to appear in social settings. Jim Crow was invented. Public places such as schools, cafeterias, churches, even sidewalks, were divided into a white section and a colored section. White people did not dare step into a colored section because that would have meant that they were relinquishing their superiority and stepping into inferiority. Black people, on the other hand, were not allowed to go into a white section for fear of being beaten, or even worse, lynched. Unfortunately, many blacks were lynched. “Social inequality – whites‟ insistence on their own superiority and their resultant social distancing of blacks – is what these autobiographical stories are all about” (Ritterhouse, 113). The slaves wrote about racism and many autobiographers today write about racism in their autobiographies. It is an ongoing struggle.
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usually move to colored neighborhoods where they would be safe, at least for a while. Black families, who preferred to stay clear of white people, taught their children about race and what whites called racial etiquette. “Time and again in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts, black autobiographers make a direct connection between the experience of racism in early childhood and the beginnings of a sense of themselves as being „black‟ or „Negro‟ or „colored‟ (Ritterhouse, 113). Barack and James were also taught about race, but that they were supposed to ignore it; race was not an important issue in their home.
While black parents taught their children that in the society they were regarded as the inferior race, they still instilled in them a sense of pride and self-respect and that they should fight back when they could. If there were other white people around, caution should be taken. If no one were around, it would only be his or her word against the “victim‟s”. “Although they might think in terms of “inferiority traits,” black parents focused more on family than on race to explain why respectability was so important. Whatever you did, you were talking about yourself” (Ritterhouse, 88). Children were encouraged to behave and not bring shame on themselves. This in turn would only bring shame on their families and on their race. White people never taught their children directly about race, but by their parents‟ actions, white children learned how to deal with and talk to black people. “White southern children‟s racial learning was shaped, over time, both by their elders‟ craving for intimacy within a white-supremacist framework and segregation” (Ritterhouse, 16).
Although the Jim Crow laws were so heavily implemented and severely punished if broken, there were a few people, black and white, who crossed the color lines. Many tried to keep it secret, but still many were caught. It was usually white women and black men, as was feared, who took this dangerous leap. James McBride‟s mother, Ruth, made this decision. In her memoir, she tells the story of her growing up during Jim Crow. Barack Obama‟s mother also made the decision to marry a black man. However, it was much safer for her to make this decision than it was for James‟s mother. Barack‟s mother was fortunate to have parents who, despite growing up during Jim Crow, accepted her decision to marry a black man. She was also fortunate to have been raised in Hawaii where Jim Crow was not so prevalent. It was a multicultural place, so no color lines were implemented.
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Chapter 2
Understanding race in The Color of Water.
That race is a man-made distinction meant to secure and explain material and social inequalities come into high relief when we consider that every child born into a society has to learn anew, that every child begins life innocent of the very idea that there are different “races”, much less the idea that “race” ought to matter in certain specific ways as an organizing principle for his or her society (Ritterhouse, 9).
James McBride, born September 11, 1957, is a well-known musician and author. In his autobiography The Color of Water: a Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother, James discusses his life story, growing up in New York during the 1960s-1980s. He published his autobiography in 1996 when he was 38 years old. He grew up with his eleven siblings and his mother Ruth, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. He was the eighth child of twelve. His father, Andrew McBride, died before he was born, but he had a stepfather, Hunter Jordan, who was there part-time. From the time he started going to school, James was very confused because he noticed that his mother was different from all the other mothers. This troubled him because he thought that he was black, and so assuming, thought that his mother was too. His siblings were also black, he thought, but he did not know his father so he could not conclude if this was true or not.
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often trigger deep anxieties and resentments. As a result, even people who know that race remains a powerful shaper of social opportunity sometimes complain of „race fatigue‟” (Grant-Thomas, 2). Ruth knew what racism was and she decided not to talk about it anymore because it would bring back memories of her childhood.
Some interracial children find it very difficult to come to terms with which race they should belong to. Society and cultural experiences make it extremely hard for interracial children to know where they belong. A white child growing up in the 60s and 70s did not have to deal with social issues like racism because white people were seen as the superior race. “Whiteness was symbolically identified as the color of all possible origins (and freedom), blackness (into which interracial identity was often folded) as the source of only black origins (and slavery)” (Sollors, 43). For James, he had to first figure out what race he was and what it meant socially to be part of that race. Blackness was prominent in James‟ neighborhood, yet it was a problem because he did not and could not identify with it simply because of his mother‟s experiences with racism. However, James did notice that something was not right with the way his mother was treated by the public whom he thought was just like her. “…Negro children become aware of racial differences at an earlier age than do whites” (Cross, 9). James saw that his mother was different from the other mothers and then started to question why his mother was being treated differently and why he, nor his siblings, did not look like her. He soon learned that he would have to get to know his mother in order to understand race, meaning black or white and understanding what it meant to be black (or white) or both.
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color he was. His siblings all ranged from very light-skinned to brown-skinned. They all had freckles and curly hair. Yet, they did not look like their mother and had his father been alive, they would not have resembled him either. “ [C]hildren living in a single-parent household may be deprived of access to the culture and values of the nonresident parent. Since interracial children are expected to assume the racial identity of their black parent, the absence or limited contact with that parent can present a major problem” (Brown, 70). James could not understand his mother. She would never talk about her past and told them to never reveal anything about themselves, their siblings, or her for that matter.
As a boy, I always thought my mother was strange. She never cared to socialize with our neighbors. Her past was a mystery she refused to discuss. She drank tea out of a glass. She could speak Yiddish. She had an absolute distrust of authority and an insistence on complete privacy which seemed to make her, and my family, even odder (McBride, 6).
Ruth always taught her children that education and God came first in everything they did. The question of race still haunted James and he did everything in his power to get the answer out of his mother. He tried on many occasions and once he thought her had her when he asked about her family. She told him that she was dead to them because she had married a black man. He asked her, “„but if you‟re black already, how can they be mad at you?‟ Boom. I had her. But she ignored it. „Don‟t ask me any more questions‟” (McBride, 76). James was not going to get any answers. As he and his siblings got older, they all ventured out into the world and brought it home to their own world. This led to their mother‟s world falling apart. “She was the commander in chief of my house. The nuts and bolts of raising us was left to Mommy, who acted as chief surgeon for bruises, war secretary, religious consultant, chief psychologist, and financial adviser” (McBride, 6). She steered clear of racial and identity matters, but now it came to her. James was scared because his siblings got involved with Black Power, even though at one time they all had “some sort of color confusion.” He knew what the movement was all about and feared for his mother‟s life. For this reason, James had to seek guidance from his siblings. Since the older ones were into Black Power and all the anti-racial movements, James thought that he could find shelter in their rebellion.
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siblings. His older siblings would joke with him and tell him that he was adopted. This would make James even more insecure about himself. “While family structure has important implications for family interaction and the development of all children, it may have a particularly strong impact on interracial children” (Brown, 70). When he did not get sufficient answers from them, he hung out with his friends and they became more or less his family. “Every human being relies on people or groups as a point of reference, but which persons or groups one relies on reveals the specific nature of one‟s group identity or reference group orientation” (Cross, 45). Hanging out with his friends did not help him at all. After his stepfather died and his mother did nothing else but grieved, James took a turn for the worse. He began hanging out with boys who stole liquor and snatched old women‟s purses at night, just as he had seen his mother‟s purse get snatched when he was younger. After robbing an old black woman, he felt numb. “I felt I was getting back at the world for injustices I had suffered, but if you sat me down and asked me which injustices I was talking about, I wouldn‟t have been able to name them if my life depended on it” (McBride, 108) He started to drink and smoke. This helped him to forget the pains. “[He] had no feelings. [He] smothered them. Every time they surged up, [he] shoved them back down. […] as the pain and guilt increased, [his] problems with drugs worsened” (McBride, 109). He dropped out of school, but kept faking his report card so that his mother would not find out. He was completely lost. He did not have anyone to look up to. By that time, his older siblings had all left the house; he was left with his younger half-siblings. He did not know his biological father or his family and now his stepfather was dead. Moreover, of course, his mother did not provide him with answers he needed. Therefore, he turned to the streets for guidance. “My friends became my family, and my family and mother just became people I lived with” (McBride, 107). When Ruth found out that he was not in school, she sent him to his eldest sister‟s house to stay in the summer. There he continued doing the same thing he did in New York, only this time he did it with his brother-in-law‟s friends, hanging out on the corner. There he saw many things a child at his age should not be exposed to. One of the men on the corner called Chicken Man gave James something to think about. He told him that if he wants to shoot someone, he could go ahead. Nobody would care.
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somebody‟s gonna beg you to go back? Hell no! They won‟t beg your black ass to go back. What makes you so special that they‟ll beg you! Who are you? You ain‟t nobody! If you want to drop out of school and shoot people and hang on this corner all your life, go ahead. It‟s your life!‟ (McBride, 115)
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James had finally discerned black from white. In 1975, he moved to Ohio. On the bus, he realized that his mother had always wanted him to go. “She was always sending me off … somewhere. She pushed me away from her just as she‟d pushed my elder siblings away …, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college” (McBride, 146). She told them to go learn to live on their own. In 1982, he moved to Boston and could not decide whether to be a musician or a writer, “not knowing that it was possible to do both.” “In some ways I was caught between the worlds of black and white as well” (McBride, 158). He thought that his “change-the-world rap sessions” would do just that, but he was faced with the real world. He says, “Boston was not an easy place to have a racial identity crisis either. Its racial problems are complicated, spilling over into matters of class, history, politics, even education. It was more than I wanted to face, and I had to run” (McBride, 158). Here we encounter the running again, just like his mother. It seems as if both their lives, all they have been doing is running.
From this moment on, he decided to work on himself and get to know a little more about his grandparents, and the Jewish side of his mother‟s family. In Virginia, he met some old neighbors of his mother‟s. He says of the warm and welcoming Jews,
Like most of the Jews in Suffolk they treated me very kindly, […] as if I were one of them, which in an odd way I suppose I was. I found it odd and amazing when white people treated me that way, as if there were no barriers between us. It said a lot about this religion, that some of its followers seemed to believe that its covenant went beyond the color of one‟s skin (McBride, 175).
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Next to that, all the rules and religions in the world are secondary; mere words and beliefs that people choose to believe and kill and hate by. My life won‟t be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children‟s. I left for New York happy in the knowledge that my grandmother had not suffered and died for nothing (McBride, 179).
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James recaps his whole life and the man he has become. He says that it took him many years to find out who his mother was, “partly because [he] never knew who [he] was.” “It wasn‟t so much a question of searching for myself as it was my own decision not to look. As I a boy I was confused about issues of race but did not consider myself deprived or unhappy” (McBride, 205). He goes on further by saying that as a young man he did not have time or money to discover his identity. His friends and girlfriends were mostly black, although he did have white friends. At certain social moments when faced with choosing between black people or white people, he would move to the black side, just like his mother. James says that “being mixed is like that tingling feeling you have in your nose just before you sneeze – you‟re waiting for it to happen but it never does” (McBride, 205). This is something only mixed children can feel and understand. Black children do not have the problems (or comforts) of choosing sides or fleeing to another. James continues to state that it was easy for him to escape to the black side, but felt uncomfortable knowing that the color of his face is an “immediate political statement.” The only solution James found to this never-ending problem was to steer clear from it all. All through his 20s and 30s, he kept running from the race issue. He was confronted with it all the time at work, dealing with black and white reporters, white editors, and a mixed-race girlfriend he was afraid to commit to, all in fear of having his children turn out like him. Still there was this voice telling him that he had to get on with life. “There were two worlds bursting inside me trying to get out. I
had to find out more about who I was, and in order to find out who I was, I had to find out who
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Chapter 3
Racial issues in Dreams from my Father
In his life, Barack Obama was confronted many times with race and identity. His life‟s journey consists of three main periods, his childhood, his teenage years, and lastly, his young adult years. The three periods in Barack‟s autobiography signified his growth from innocence to racism and finally to self-identification. During each period, Barack learns something new about himself and of the people around him. The issue of race, or racial identity, first presented itself when Barack went to school for the first time after he came back from Indonesia. A ten-year-old black boy in a class full of white children, besides one other girl named Coretta; Barack felt that he belonged with the misfits of the school. Although it was not a racial situation for Barack, it did come across as such. For the other children on the playground, it seemed as if Barack and Coretta were playing together because they were black. For Coretta, having Barack say that she was not his girlfriend was like saying he was not black. She also saw it as a racial situation.
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between identity as something innate and changeless and identity as the shifting deposit of a continuing process of adaptation. Luckily, for Barack, neither his mother nor his grandparents forced him to choose a race. Furthermore, he was never pushed to act a certain way either. They left him to find out more about himself. They would occasionally tell him stories about his father so that he could get an image of the kind of man his father was. It was never about being black, white, African, or American.
The people that interracial children socialize with also shape their identity because they are influenced by them, whether they are family or friends. Barack‟s next encounter with race would happen when he went to high school. There he hung out with black friends, the few that did go to that school. One friend in particular, Ray, would try to teach him about being black, or so he thought he was. “There is no way to be Black. Black involves a wide spectrum of thoughts and orientations” (Cross, 149). Ray would take him to all the black parties. Barack did enjoy being around Ray, but he knew that what he was looking for was not going to present itself in that kind of environment because it was very negative at times. Ray would be raging against white people and Barack would let him know that Jim Crow is dead.
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there that I would make my closest white friends, on turf where blackness couldn‟t be a disadvantage” (Obama, 80).
There were other incidents where Barack was faced with racism, namely name calling, insults, and people feeling threatened by him. However, talking badly about white folks, as he and Ray would call them, was on the one hand easy for him and on the other hand very difficult. He would remember his mother and grandparents and would then grow silent. This was an internal struggle for him because he, as a black man defending his race, would make fun of white people not remembering at that moment that the maternal side of his family was white. “Assuming a black racial identity poses yet another set of emotional hurdles that are difficult to surmount... Black children must incorporate the prevalent values of our society, which include the devaluation of black people. They also must incorporate the mores and culture of the black community, and these frequently clash with the values of white society” (Brown, 44). He concluded, “It was obvious that certain whites could be exempted from the general category of our distrust” (Obama, 81). Barack would also remind Ray that they were living in Hawaii, a melting pot of people. They were not living on the mainland where black people and white people were separated. He knew that he was black, yet “[he] was different, after all, potentially suspect; [he] had no idea who [his] own self was.” Barack had learned to move between the two worlds, hoping someday that they cohere. Still, he felt that something was wrong. Comments from white people to him would always set him on edge. The comments referred to things many white people would associate with black people.
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to identify with groups of people whose physical characteristics, attitudes, racial values, and more are different from their own and those of their immediate surroundings” (Brown, 44). Barack‟s group identity led him to fall into the stereotypical idea of young black men. He began smoking drugs to get away from himself. He did not know who he was and tried to escape every time he could. It did not matter whom he smoked with, black or white were all the same. “…racial self-identification not only „measures‟ group identity, it „reveals‟ personality” (Cross, 14). Barack was heading in a direction where he would have been labeled into a category and would have a hard time breaking away from it.
According to a study by author Ursula Brown, people resolve the issue of their race by the end of their post-adolescent / young adulthood years. While in college, Barack was seen with black people. They formed a group, “and when it came to hanging out many of [them] chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs” (Obama, 98). It was in Los Angeles where he became a full-fledged black man. “Despite the numerous emotional hazards … the majority indicated that they had been able to resolve the question of racial group membership to their own satisfaction. Most had done so after high school” (Brown, 51). However, Barack still had a problem. He was always thinking about what white people thought about him. By that time, he had figured out that black people at his college did not think about such issues. Even the other mixed-race students were not thinking about race. They considered themselves individuals, not black or white. Barack‟s encounter with Joyce, a mixed-race student at his college, exemplified another problem with being mixed-race. Joyce claimed that she was not going to attend a black meeting because she was multiracial and she should not have to choose races. She also claimed that black people were the ones who forced mixed-race people to choose. Yet, she and many other mixed-race children tended to avoid black people. Many mixed-race people who choose not to identify with the black race often do so with a seemingly valid reason.
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being abused, terrorized, and discriminated against” (Brown, 44). Barack became more involved with political issues and sought change for black people in America. After he came to terms with his blackness, he began wondering about his thoughts and actions and the drive to change certain issues in society. It is then that he decided that he must visit his family in Kenya to learn more about his father and his heritage.
The role of family and friends in shaping identity.
Family is one of the most important aspects in an autobiography. Family is what helps shape someone‟s life. The experiences that people have with family are priceless and are therefore necessary in an autobiography. The same goes for Barack‟s autobiography. Family plays an important role in Barack‟s life. From the time he was born, a loving family surrounded him. They were the ones instrumental in his self-identification. The family consisted of his mother and grandparents. They made sure that he learned about his father and the kind of man he was. “A black-white family beginning with descendants is a perfectly dialectical illumination of the fact that descendants take features of both parents…” (Sollors, 41). His mother, Stanley Ann, wanted him to get to know his father, even when she remarried. She was always protecting him and he tried to do the same for her. Their relationship was a good one. Stanley Ann did not address race directly, but she did show that race did not matter, especially when it came to family. How people treated each other was more important.
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age could have backfired. Instead, it built character. Stanley Ann knew that it would be difficult, but she could not leave him in Hawaii. She knew that they would protect each other and she was glad that Barack would have a male figure in his life other than his grandfather and the occasional letters and one-time visit from his biological father. Barack‟s mother taught him many things about life and the human race, even when she did not speak. Her actions also taught him a lot about her and about himself. Showing him to do the right thing aside from telling him was also necessary in the formation of Barack‟s identity. “Since young children more or less view
themselves as an extension of their parents, social devaluation of their parents can be taken quite personally. Intense hurt, anger, shame, and humiliation can be experiences as a result” (Brown, 70).
Children usually imitate their parents, but to be mixed-race, it must be more difficult to imitate one parent only. That would mean that the child is siding with one race. Stanley Ann was fortunate enough never to be in situations like Ruth. Being white in Hawaii or Indonesia never was a problem for her and Barack saw that. If she was ever to be discriminated against in Barack‟s presence, things might have turned out completely different. Maybe he would have hated black people, or even worse, hated himself for being racially mixed. “With the parental ideal blemished, the internalization of a socially devalued parent results in hate and subsequent feeling of guilt about the hate. Thus, the psychological quest for an ideal becomes more difficult” (Brown, 70). His mother and grandparents raised him on the notion that all people were the same. He learned that race was never an issue for his grandparents until Stanley Ann brought home a black girl to play with when she was a young girl. Although they were not comfortable with the idea of his mother marrying his father, Barack‟s grandparents still agreed and they sacrificed everything for him. His grandfather got him into the best school on the island and they took care of him when his mother went back to Indonesia.
Barack‟s search for an identity started with the sudden death of his father. He realized that he never knew who his father was nor did he know any of his African siblings well. He,
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family, he now had certain responsibilities. However, he did not know or understood what that meant. He could not help them financially. He was also a black man struggling to make ends meet. He also saw that his siblings were struggling “as if the map that might have once measured the direction and force of our love, the code that would unlock our blessings, had been lost long ago, buried with the ancestors beneath a silent earth” (Obama, 331). Secretly, he had wished that his parents and all his siblings could have been together, but the reality of life turned out
differently and that made him sad. The stories he heard as a child growing up did satisfy him. These stories glorified his father. Looking at pictures from one of his father‟s many wives spoke differently. His father was happy with this woman and their two boys, his stepbrothers. He wished that the woman was his mother and he was one of those boys.
The journey to Barack Obama senior‟s original home brought everything together in Barack‟s search. When they made the journey to the Obama senior‟s original home, Barack found something there that he was looking for, his inheritance. He heard the story of his great-grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his father. Barack realized that his father only wanted to escape from his father, who was against him marrying a white woman and did not like the fact that he worked in government. Barack thought that his father should have no shame for doing what he did. “There was only shame in the silence fear had produced. It was the silence that betrayed us” (Obama, 429). If his great-grandfather had broken that silence, everything would have been different. Black and white, Christian or Muslim, would not have mattered, only faith in other people. Barack felt as if the circle was completed. He came to Africa to find out more about his African heritage and he got more than that. He got a loving family, both in American and Africa. He “realized that who he was, what he cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words”(Obama, 430). He goes on further by saying that his life in America was connected with this African soil. Him being interracial, him feeling
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Conclusion
In this dissertation, autobiography and racial identity were analyzed to demonstrate Barack‟s and James‟ childhood journey. It led them from innocence, to discovery of race, to maturation which consequently made them aware of their identity. James was confronted with the issue of racial identity because he did not have his father around to know that he is half-black and wondered why he did not look like his mother. Barack discussed racial identity in his autobiography when white people assume that he did certain things because he was black. Identity, I think, is something that is not determined by race. Yes, there are certain things people do that are typical for a particular race, but that does not mean that they belong to that race for that reason. To me, a person chooses to be who he/she wants to be and to do what he/she pleases. Many characteristics a person has are present because of what they have been exposed to. I think that experiences, not race, shape people, it gives them an identity. James and Barack have been exposed to different racial experiences and have drawn their conclusion from those experiences, whether good or bad. They both start to form their self-identity during their teen years when they are old enough to go out into the world. Their autobiographies come at a time when they have figured out who they are.
From the autobiography genre and racial identity, the role of the family was also analyzed. The mother-son relationship was most important because the father was absent and other male family members had to substitute. The fact that the mothers were white also made the relationship important because they had to raise black children. Other family members and friends also helped shaped the identity of Barack and James because they gave different insights into what it meant to be black.
School and society also played a major role in shaping their identity because the music, politics, and friends in college influenced their judgment. Barack willingly read books and listened to music by black people in order to know more about the culture. He felt that that was what he needed at that time. James let society play too much of a role and the outcome was negative. He began acting out and became very careless.
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Appendix: a brief history of Ruth, Stanley, and Toot.
Born in Poland, Ruth (formerly Rachel) moved with her Jewish family to America when she was only two years old. There were many difficult times for the family; Ruth‟s strict father could not find a decent job, her mother was handicapped, and they were left to fight for themselves in a largely white neighborhood where a few black people lived. Ruth also had two siblings, a brother and sister, whom she had to look after sometimes. Ruth and her siblings had to go to school and return home right away to work in the family‟s store. Although not fond of black people, Ruth‟s father did manage to survive because of the black people that frequented his store. When she was a teenager, she got into a relationship with a black boy. After a while, she found out that she was pregnant. Her mother sensed that something was wrong and decided to send Ruth to her aunts in the North, to get an abortion. When she returned to the South, she heard rumors that the boy she was pregnant for, had another girl, a black girl, pregnant and he was going to marry her. Ruth was glad of the decision she made. Her mother kept this secret from her father because he treated her badly. He had an affair with a white woman and eventually left her. Ruth was the one who took care of her mother. Although Jim Crow mainly affected black people, Ruth‟s family still feared it because they were not considered white. They were Jewish. White people did not bother them, but they never accepted them either. Therefore, the family was left to themselves. This made it more difficult for Ruth to have any friends. When she was old enough, she left her family and went to stay with her aunts in New York. There she met a black man with whom she had a relationship. One of her aunts did not like the company that Ruth hung out with and offered her a job in her business to get away from her toxic relationships. There Ruth met another black man, who later became her first husband. When Ruth heard that her family back in the South was in trouble, she ran to their rescue. However, she did not feel at home there anymore. At that point, her brother had already run away from home. Ruth‟s sister pleaded with her to stay, but Ruth just could not stay. She went back to New York to move on with her life. Her sister never spoke to her since. Living in the south during Jim Crow was not only traumatizing for black people. Any ethnicity that was not white, felt the horrors of Jim Crow, whether physically, socially, or emotionally.
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