'Em All Together: African American Marxist Approaches to Colson

39 Lumpen ‘Em All Together: African American Marxist Approaches to Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days By Tarrell R. Campbell Abstract: In Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days, the psychological wounds of the novel’s pro- tagonist––J. Sutter––foreshadow the physical wounds that he will experience, ultimately resulting in his death. I examine Sutter’s abhorrence of the American South and locate such psychic scar- ring in the history of Black bodies in America. As a result of the hoped-for racial progress ushered in by the Brown decision, Sutter is represented as an exemplary member of the List. The List functions as a metaphor for the colorblind society suggested by Brown. In furthering the desires of those who control the List, Sutter must confront his fears associated with traveling from the North to the South. Geographical location signifies a sense of woundedness and a sense of loss in some African American Marxist literary traditions centered on generative uses of the lumpenproletariat and transience. I examine the costs of such migratory movement within and without the South in John Henry Days. For Sutter, the movement South from the North leads to death. I juxtapose Sut- ter’s transience and death with the lumpen literary schema espoused by Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, and Ralph Ellison. I argue that the the destruction of J. Sutter’s body signifies that the Dream––the myth––of African American full enfranchisement and integration into the fabric of American society remains deferred in many respects. Such an understanding may be instructive in these more recent times when the destruction of Black bodies is routinely disseminated on visual platforms to whet voyeuristic appetites of an American populace whose hunger is seemingly never satisfied. I expand on African American literary traditions as regards generative approaches to and uses of the wounded Black male body highlighting the role of a body under destruction. This article is excerpted from the forthcoming work, Wounded Brown Masculinities. Colson Whitehead is one of the most celebrated Tarrell R. Campbell is a writer, contemporary African American male novelists today. And editor, and content publisher. He while analyses of literary critics vary as regards the influ- received the doctorate in English ences of Whitehead’s approach to literary aesthetics and the Language and Literature from significance of his fictional works, most critics agree that Saint Louis University in 2018. Whitehead’s aesthetic distance from, and rejection of, the Currently, Campbell teaches and influences of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison account designs literature and composition for Whitehead’s welcomed and warm reception within the classes in universities throughout American public sphere. For example, in Understanding the greater Saint Louis area. Colson Whitehead, Derek Maus suggests that Whitehead’s appeal stems from the fact that he does not write in the protest tradition of Wright or Ellison nor does his writing advocate for a change in the status quo as regards race relations in America. Moreover, Whitehead’s writing is not formulaic like many past African American literatures; his writing, asserts Maus, “develops in idio- syncratic and unpredictable ways” (Maus 1). As one of only two book-length studies on Whitehead, Howard Rambsy II acknowledges that Maus’s work greatly extends the discourse on Whitehead and provides a blueprint for future book-length studies on contemporary African American writers. [Maus’s] analyses make us more aware of the intricacy of Whitehead’s writing and artistry. Ultimately, Understanding Colson Whitehead provides readers with satisfying and thorough interpretations of works by one of our most accomplished contemporary 2/1 (March 2021) Quimbandas 40 novelists. (Rambsy 483; emphasis mine) Still, Rambsy is concerned as regards of Maus’s approach to Whitehead. Rambsy observes, and laments, that while Understanding Colson Whitehead offers many important insights concerning the nov elist’s compositions...some scholars of African American literature might find fault with the fact that the book does not draw many connections between Whitehead’s works and writings by a broad range of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, and many others. After all, a major objective of African American literary studies over the last two decades has involved highlighting the intertextuality of black literary texts and authors, or, in short, the existence of African American expressive traditions...such intertextuality and traditions matter. (Rambsy 483; emphasis mine) Nevertheless, critics tend to view Whitehead’s work in alignment with Maus. William Ramsey refers to Whitehead’s literary presence as “a most dramatic turn” as regards the “traditional bur- den... [of]...the black literary imagination,” especially with relevance to the South (Ramsey 769; emphasis mine). Most revealingly, Ramón Saldívar argues that Whitehead “signals a radical turn to a postracial era in American literature” (Saldívar 1; emphasis mine). Éva Tettenborn, Peter Collins, and Kimberly Fain all suggest that Whitehead’s appeal is centered on his use of “kaleidoscopic vision,” which accounts for his fresh approach to literary racial representations of black masculinities, specifically, and his progressive approaches to subject matter throughout his literary works, generally (Tettenborn 272).1 As regards Whitehead’s 2001 novel John Henry Days, 1 According to Keith Clark, in Black Manhood in James Baldwin, Ernest J. Gaines, and August Wilson, “the most notable trend in black men’s writing since the 1960s has been the kaleidoscopic vision of authors who focus on male subjects. No longer bound by the discursive shackles of protest...such writers are influenced by theWright-Ellison tradition while they simultaneously renounce the limiting configurations of subjectivity proffered in earlier fiction” (Clark 128). Tettenborn claims that the use of kaleidoscopic vision by postracial artists often results in “portrayal[s] of black men...[that] avoid emotional investment...in characters…[and] often sound cynical” (Tettenborn 272). While she highlights the positive characteristics and generative literary benefits as regards literary racial representations of black masculinities engendered by kaleidoscopic vision, she also references the inherent iconoclastic nature of kaleidoscopic vision as regards African American literary traditions as reflected in Whitehead’s approach to literary aesthetics. She writes, in light of Whitehead’s internalization of kaleidoscopic vision, “Whitehead undoubtedly writes in an iconoclastic fashion” (272). Such reasoning seems to be in response to Tettenborn’s understanding of the roles, functions, and influences of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison as regards Whitehead’s approach to literary aesthetic. Interestingly, within some American Naturalist literary traditions, kaleidoscopic vision is understood as reg- endering white masculinity. For example, kaleidoscopic vision employed in literature with respect to white masculinity runs the risk of effeminizing white masculinity. For example, Stefan Brandt observes [in Männerblicke: Zur Konstruktion von “Männlichkeit” in der Literatur und Kultur der amerikanischen Jahrhundertwende (1890-1914) that] the turn of the twentieth century coincided with a recovery, one might even speak of a revival, of masculinity in American literature. When the success of what Hawthorne had termed a ‘mob of scribbling women’ as well as the popularity of the sentimental novel was beginning to wane, American writers began to contemplate what was seen as a particular type of masculinity. A masculine age had come.’ (qtd. in Banerjee 56n4) While post-Brown v. Board of Education African American literary artists were celebrated for employing kaleidoscopic vision in efforts to temper the overdetermined characteristics of hypermasculinity, misogyny, and homophobia as regards some traditional literary racial representations of black male subjects, the use of kaleidoscopic vision as relates literary racial representations of white masculinities was thought effeminate and antithesis to turn-of-the-century American masculine literary ethos. 2/1 (March 2021) Quimbandas 41 Maus, Fain, Ramsey, Saldívar, Collins, and Tettenborn collectively suggest that the novel is a radical, postracial exploration of American working-class men and signals an end to history as received.2 In this article, I confront the collective assertions of Maus, Fain, Ramsey, Saldívar, Collins, and Tettenborn. Whitehead’s John Henry Days does not represent a radical turn of the black literary imagination; John Henry Days reflects Black Marxist approaches to the literary racial representations of the African American lumpenproletariat and a con- tinuation of African American literary traditions––many centered on African American folkloric influences. As opposed to demonstrating aesthetic distance from the Wright/Elli- son dyad, Whitehead’s approach to literary aesthetics suggests heavy debts to, and fruitful inheritances from, the protest tradition. Moreover, the novel’s ideal reader recognizes that John Henry Days initiates analyses of different ways to discuss African American histories and analyses of African American histories initiate different ways to talk about John Henry Days. The novel is a cautionary tale as regards the consequences of the roles of labor and stasis for post-Brown African American

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