Post-Racial Vision, Racial Transcendence, and Racial Violence in George Schuyler’s Black No More
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It is reported that Barrack Obama’s 2008 Presidential election has ushered in an optimistic era of “post-racial” America. While this unprecedented claim and enthusiasm enthrall a significant portion of African American and ethnic minority populations in terms of race relations in the U.S., there seems to be a distinct ideological disparity between the desire for and the reality of a purportedly race-less country. When more subtle and gentler forms of “new racism” are prevalent in the twenty-first century, George Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) has been reevaluated by the academe. Schuyler (1895-1977) is a controversial African American journalist, essayist, and satirist who opposed Black essentialism and racial solidarity in the early 20th century. Schuyler had been out of the American literary circles for his scathing criticism of major African-American leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Walter White, and W. E .B. Du Bois during the Harlem Renaissance. Black No More is about a new scientific discovery—a treatment called “Black-No-More” that turns blacks white—and the consequential chaos when most blacks are whitened. Set against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s New York, the novel brilliantly portrays not only the absurdity of racially oppressed African Americans’ obsession with whiteness but also a post-racial dystopia as a race battle hunger game. Schuyler’s post-racial perception and imagination in the novel foreground that race is only a superficial difference in skin color and a social construct that is manipulative. Black No More depicts a racially dichotomized society tumbling into a chaotic race-less world, which evokes the post-racial America that many claim now. In this respect, this paper aims to explore the themes of post-racial vision, racial transcendence, and racial violence in Schuyler’s Black No More.
Abstract
It is reported that Barrack Obama’s 2008 Presidential election has ushered in an optimistic era of “post-racial” America. While this unprecedented claim and enthusiasm enthrall a significant portion of African American and ethnic minority populations in terms of race relations in the U.S., there seems to be a distinct ideological disparity between the desire for and the reality of a purportedly race-less country. When more subtle and gentler forms of “new racism” are prevalent in the twenty-first century, George Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) has been reevaluated by the academe. Schuyler (1895-1977) is a controversial African American journalist, essayist, and satirist who opposed Black essentialism and racial solidarity in the early 20th century. Schuyler had been out of the American literary circles for his scathing criticism of major African-American leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Walter White, and W. E .B. Du Bois during the Harlem Renaissance. Black No More is about a new scientific discovery—a treatment called “Black-No-More” that turns blacks white—and the consequential chaos when most blacks are whitened. Set against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s New York, the novel brilliantly portrays not only the absurdity of racially oppressed African Americans’ obsession with whiteness but also a post-racial dystopia as a race battle hunger game. Schuyler’s post-racial perception and imagination in the novel foreground that race is only a superficial difference in skin color and a social construct that is manipulative. Black No More depicts a racially dichotomized society tumbling into a chaotic race-less world, which evokes the post-racial America that many claim now. In this respect, this paper aims to explore the themes of post-racial vision, racial transcendence, and racial violence in Schuyler’s Black No More.
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