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I Vo. THE IMAGE OF THE "WHITE LIBERAL" IN BLACK AMERICAN FICTION AND DRAMA Norma Ramsay Jones A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 1973 BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY cLo ii 5 5 6 8 4 5 ABSTRACT Literary criticism has examined white American writing to determine whether black characters have received stereotypical treat­ ment, but little notice has been paid to white characters created by black authors. Existing criticism has focused on the frequently appearing White Oppressor stereotype. This study presented the other major white characterization, the White Liberal, "who opposes prevailing standards by relatively less oppressive behavior toward blacks." It was hoped that studying the White Liberal would show whether black writers, free from the hatred and fear entering into creation of the Oppressor stereotype, had learned to create complex, round white characters, thus reflecting artistic growth. It was assumed that the white liberal image in various periods of history would indicate any progress made in race relations. The image of the White Liberal was examined in the black fiction and drama of four periods of black American experience: Protest (1853-1920), Harlem Renaissance (1920-1930), Between "Pride" and "Power" (1930 to the mid-Sixties), Militancy (mid-Sixties to the present). Major liberal characters were analyzed and typed according to motive for liberalism. Dominant character types and modes of artistic treatment were noted. Results of period analyses were then compared. Comparison of white liberal characters’ motivation in histori­ cal context showed that the moral estimate of liberal motivation altered in relation to the amount of oppression blacks experienced in a given era and the extent to which they were dependent upon whites. Excepting a few multi-dimensional portraits from the late Fifties and early Sixties, the White Liberal was usually stereotyped. As a race relations indicator, the image of the White Liberal showed that blacks know whites as imperfectly as whites know blacks. Ill In appreciation —for all the help I have received in writing this disser­ tation—from my chairman, Dr. Alma J. Payne, and the members of my doctoral committee, Drs. Frank Baldanza, Virginia E. Leland and Raymond Yeager. Exciting teachers and sound scholars, they have long since become good friends. —to my mother, Helen M. Jones, whose sacrifices made my education possible, and to whom the present work is most affectionately dedicated. IV CONTENTS CHAPTER Page I. INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1 II. ALWAYS IN A CONTEXT OF PROTEST........................ 9 III. AMID AWAKENING........................................ 56 IV. THE PERIOD BETWEEN "PRIDE"A ND "POWER" ................. 101 V. IN THE HANDS OF THE MILITANTS......................... 156 VI. CONCLUSIONS........................................... 180 LIST OF WORKS CITED 192 V "There was a brightness in him." —Alan Paton "If you want to be a bridge you must be willing to be walked on." —Marjorie Penney I CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION American blacks have often complained that their fellow citizens view them as a class rather than as individuals. Today’s blacks demand more emphatically than ever that whites relinquish the stereotypical blinders which have prevented genuine confrontation with black persons. In literature the racial upheavals of recent years have forced critics to reconsider how white writers portray black characters and to ask whether an unfair use of stereotype prevails. There have been several studies of black portraiture in white writing; for example, two-thirds of the essays in Gross and Hardy’s Images of the Negro in American Literature deal with whites’ presentation of blacks.1 There have also been lengthier treatments of the black image in the work of individual white authors, such as Nilon’s study of the Negroes in Faulkner.2 Less attention has been devoted to black writers’ characteri­ zation of whites. The present inquiry has turned up only two extended studies of the white image in black American literature, both of them unpublished doctoral dissertations. James Byrd reviewed the portrayal of white character in one hundred and ten black novels.3 And David Britt studied the white image in the work of four important twentieth century black novelists.11 There have also been some brief studies of a limited class of white characters such as Klotman’s research on the 1 2 White Bitch archetype in black fiction.5 These works have provided a helpful background for the present effort, which seeks to supplement them. Mr. Byrd and Mr. Britt have employed opposite techniques in approaching the matter of white portraiture. Mr. Byrd covers over a hundred novels by sixty-nine authors but in trying to gain scope limits the depth of analysis of character types discovered. The nature of his typing tends to depend upon superficial qualities such as the characters’ profession or position in society: the Benevolent White Father of Mulattoes, the Northern Teacher, the Southern Sheriff. Britt, on the other hand, offers a far more intensive discussion of his writers’ development of their white characters but limits himself to the work of only four, Hughes, Wright, Baldwin and Ellison. Furthermore, the Byrd study ends with 1950 and Britt’s with Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man (1965).6 Considering the wealth of black writing since then, it is none too soon to begin updating the analysis of the white image. Neither study attempts to discuss the white image in black drama.7 The major limitation of most preceding research is that studies of the white image in general tend to deal chiefly with the White Oppressor. ^Jt is certainly a valid emphasis, since oppression of blacks is a cardinal fact of American life which has been consis­ tently referred to in black and white literature. However, it is also probably true that the portrait of the White OppressorJ is not nearly so significant from a critical point of view as that of the White Liberal. A study of the white man who is, in some sense, sympathetic 3 to the black cause will avoid the numerous stereotypes associated with the white enemy and enable us to see whether black writers have grown in their ability to create complex, round white characters. Charac­ ters depicted,as "the enemy" are more likely to be stereotypical because the hatred and fear felt for an enemy is founded upon ignor­ ance, and the ignoring of human depth and complexity is fundamental to the creation of stereotype. There is at least a greater possibility that in the creation of White Liberals black writers will deal with that variety of human feelings, thoughts, and behaviors which inspire multidimensional portraiture. Furthermore, a consideration of the changing image of the White Liberal is timely. In the revolutionary black rhetoric of the mid-Sixties the term itself became an insult. LBelieving in the role of the artist as prophet—in the etymological sense of "speaker forth" of fundamental truth rather than as "foreteller"—we may ask what light black writers, past and present, can shed upon current hostile black attitudes toward White Liberals. But before such an analysis is undertaken we first have to define what a White Liberal is. At the outset we acknowledge that this term has different meanings for different people. Some users simply mean a seemingly benevolent white person. Others try to tie it to those who espouse various brands of political liberalism; and this is particularly confusing, because sotae political conservatives, because of their relative friendliness toward blacks, may be regarded as White Liberals. To add to the confusion, some blacks now say that 4 White Liberals are not really "liberal" at all. At the very least they say that White Liberals are guilty of gross presumption, as summed up by James Baldwin: "There is no role for the white liberal [in social change], he is our affliction." Baldwin goes on to speak of "a certain missionary complex on the part of white liberals, whose assumption basically seems to be that I am much worse off than they are and that they must help me into the light."8 At worst, the White Liberal is seen as positively harmful. As Stokely Carmichael puts it, "I think the biggest problem with the white liberal in America, and perhaps the liberal around the world, is that his primary task is to stop confrontation, stop conflicts, not to redress grievances, but to stop confrontation." The White Liberal actually "enjoys the status quo; while he himself may not be actively oppressing other people, he enjoys the fruits of that oppression. And he rhetorically tries to claim that he is disgusted with the system as it is."9 Even white social critics like Tom Wolfe take the White Liberal to task. In his devastating attack on New York East Side "radical chic," Wolfe exposes the "Have a Panther for Tea" syndrome as irresponsible dilettantism by wealthy whites looking for excitement coupled with the right to feel virtuous. Wolfe does admit that the basic impulse of radical chic is sincere but insists that it has been hopelessly sullied by a "concern for maintaining a proper East Side life-style in New York society."10 \jClarification of the problem of how to describe a White Liberal and of the reason why the term has fallen into such disrepute is offered by Marian Musgrave, who says that blacks are no "longer 5 willing to praise those "liberals" whose sole contribution to the cause of justice is mere unwillingness to support overt oppression. This kind of "liberal," she says is "a man whose mind is so open that the wind whistles through it—a man who refuses to see that there are not two sides to every question.1,1 Ultimately she concludes that the term has become one of opprobrium because "In the U.S.

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