Day Twenty-Six

Continued Black Boy today (see blog, Day Twenty-Five).

I started the class by asking students to write down five words that they thought of when they heard the word black. Here are some of their responses:

Black: Evil, night, funeral, death, dirty, ninja (they do wear black), emo, depressed = NEGATIVE.

When they were done with that, we tackled...

White: Pure, clean, innocent, good, heaven, clouds (good weather), peace = POSITIVE.

Two colors, two completely different connotations.

And yes, I ripped this lesson off from Spike Lee's Malcolm X.

We then discussed black's negative connotation, and how it affected African Americans living in the South. This was a no brainer for my students.

White was a little trickier because in the book it means two things at once.

a) Everyone wants nice clean things.

b) But if you're Black, White can get you killed.

To demonstrate this, we analyzed Richard Wright's use of the word white.

At the beginning of the book, Richard is a very curious four year old boy. With very little entertainment at his disposal, he decides that it'd be fun to throw things into the fireplace and watch them burn. He starts out with small pieces of straw, but that gets old quick so he looks for something else.

His mother's "Long fluffy WHITE curtains- which I had been forbidden to touch" (3).

You can see where this is going. Richard lights the curtains on fire and all hell breaks loose, he burns down his house.

Richard Wright is obviously a great author. He wrote Native Son for crying out loud, a stone cold classic, but he's genius is nowhere more evident than here. In one sentence, he basically sums up segregation.

Again, it's all about connotation.

INT. CLASSROOM - DAY

Teacher - Can anyone tell me the connotation of fluffy?

Student #1 - It feels good.

Teacher - If you're asleep on a fluffy pillow how do you feel?

Student #2 - Comfortable.

Teacher - Good. Is Richard allowed to touch the white curtains?

Student #3 - No.

Teacher - So what is the author basically saying, symbolically?

Student #1 - That he's not allowed to be comfortable?

Student #4 - Yeah, because of the segregation laws. He can't relax. He's always on guard.

Teacher - Excellent. When Richard does touch the white curtains what happens?

Student #5 - He gets burned?

Teacher - So what's the overall message?

Student #2 - Don't mess with white people because you'll get hurt.

END SCENE

I was pretty happy with their response so we continued.

Later in the story, Richard's mother tells her son that they're going to Memphis on a boat.

Richard - "What color is the boat?"

Mother - "White" (10).

Again connotation. I asked my students to analyze the significance of the white boat, thinking that they'd say, "It's a nice clean boat for rich people."

Here's what I got.

Teacher - The boat's white. What does that mean?

Student - Richard is going to sink it?

And that in a nutshell is why I still like teaching.

Signing off.

Birds-Eye.