I get the feeling Ishmael Reed doesn't really like white people.
Mumbo Jumbo has to be, without a doubt, the weirdest, craziest, stupid book I have ever read. However, there is a lot of social commentary intertwined with the odd plot. One thing I picked up on was Ishmael Reed's constant satorization of white people, which I thought was kind of funny and pretty interesting.
Ishmael Reed often makes fun of white people, almost to a point where it becomes offensive at some point. I think that Reed is basically inviting white people to be offended when he includes the point of view of people in Africa when white colonizers first entered Africa. PaPa LaBas comes across some lampoons in Abdul's office. He shows the point of view of the African people, and they go in on the appearance of white people. They say their skin looks like chalk and they are depicted as ridiculously ugly. The Africans had a great sense of humor which the Christians stamped out and instead brought "glumness, depression, surliness, cynicism, malice without artfulness, and their intellectuals, in America, only appreciated heavy, serious works." (96). This depiction of the white people and Christianity is Ishmael Reed "punching up" to those in systemic power. He wants to get those people mad and offended but it's hard to especially since that's how white people had described black people for so many years.
Another example of Reed making fun of white people is his depictions of white characters in the novel. Thor Wintergreen is one of the few white people who actually seem to be on the right part of history in this novel, taking over the role of the white ally. This is significantly better than the simply evil portrayal of Biff Musclewhite and Hinckle Von Vampton, however he isn't portrayed in a good light by any means. When Thor is assigned to keep watch over Biff Musclewhite as he had been captured, Biff quite easily manipulates Thor into believing his cause. Thor lets Biff go and Biff ends up killing Berbelang. Reed doesn't seem to think that white allies are completely committed to the cause, and their naivety allows them to be easily manipulated by white opposition.
Hinckle Von Vampton is the worst of the lot, and is the ultimate goofy white supervillian. He wears an eyepatch with a maniacal laugh and comes up with the most irrational plans to undermine Jes Grew. He tries lightening Woodrow Wilson Jefferson's skin, and he covers his dumb sidekick Safecracker Gould (SafeCRACKER is Reed definitely poking fun again) in mud to try to make him look black for his horrendous "Ragtime" poetry. It's almost as if Reed is saying that the white villain is incapable of doing anything right, just like almost all the white characters in the novel.
I can see why some people would get mad at it, but considering the fact that black people were depicted as the villains in a lot of media at the time, it's hard to be upset when the tables are turned around. We also discussed this idea of "punching up" in class which makes the characterization of white people in this book more justified.
I also found many of the moments you mention funny. I agree with the "punching up" idea that justifies Reed's portrayal of the white characters in the book. White people have punched down towards minorities for most of history, so seeing Reed depict a reverse story sends quite a profound message about the state of race in society. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHello Teo. Great Post! I also think it is interesting how Reed has the features that kind of show the opposite of the 'punching down' done by white people for a long time. It helps you realize all of the 'punching down' that has happened and still happens in our society.
ReplyDeleteI also like the idea of "punching up" in reference to Mumbo Jumbo, Reed definitely takes shots at popular white culture, but also popular black culture in terms of the Harlem renaissance. I think Reed is definitely pro-counter culture, seeing as Jes Grew is literally the embodiment of counterculture, both in terms of pop culture and society. Think of Von Vampton as a representation of Christianity and eurocentrism which reed is taking shots at.
ReplyDeleteThor Wintergreen is probably the white character who is most expressly designed to poke the eye of any progressive-identified white-ally reader of this novel: his commitment to the Mu'tafikah, his insistence that "I'm not my father," folds immediately under Musclewhite's pressure, which directly plays on a sense of racial "loyalty" to the Western/Atonist worldview. In comparison, Mother's Younger Brother (who is on the receiving end of a lot of ironic undermining himself!) looks like a serious, bona-fide revolutionary.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your post (especially the first sentence!) and I think you choose a lot of great examples to illustrate Reed's disdain for white people. I like that Reed is sometimes subtle in his insults, but they all culminate to form a pretty obvious message. It's interesting how there's only one white character in the book who, as you say, is on the right side of history. Maybe that's Reed's attempt to show the small number of white people who genuinely supported real life topics similar to Jew Grew (but even still, Wintergreen is depicted perfectly). Great post!
ReplyDeleteMy interpretation of this was that it was a sort of "alternate history" meant to display what the racism that black people experienced would feel like to some extent. And the best way to do that in Reed's eyes was to be racist himself (though some may argue that it's not racist because of "punching up" and the purpose of what he is saying, but that's a debate for another time). He is explaining racism by being racist in a way. At least that was my interpretation. He might just like making people mad.
ReplyDeleteThis was also the way I interpreted Reed's motivation, at least to some extent. African American people have historically faced the brunt of racism in many ways, shapes, and forms, so Reed is trying to give people a taste of their own racism by inflicting it upon white people and seeing their reaction. This is evident throughout the stories in many ways, but the most prominent one to me were simply the names of the characters. Each character has absolutely ridiculous names, such as Biff Musclewhite and Hinckle Von Hampton. I thought of this as Reed's way of making fun of white language, much like people have historically made fun of languages with foreign roots. But then again, we are reminded that Reed is someone that likes breaking conventions just for the sake of breaking conventions, so the racism against the white people might just be another way of doing that.
DeleteGreat post – I'd never really noticed how the white characters are all kinda laughable and depicted with major weaknesses. Your examples clearly show how they're all somewhat weak – even the supposed ally. At this time, I feel like it was pretty rare to see a book like this written, so I'm glad you wrote about this topic!
ReplyDeleteI find Thor Wintergreen's character interesting in terms of the topics you discuss. We see him trying to find his own sense of identity (similar, one could argue, to Mother's Younger Brother in Ragtime) outside of the privileged, comfortable life style he has, but Reed makes it a point to make his character extremely uncomfortable, vulnerable, and racially profiled which ultimately makes Thor let Biff Musclewhite go. It's a similar narrative if the races were flipped, except that the African American would most be untrustworthy to the group for different reasons. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteThis post was really interesting because a lot of the depictions of white characters are very much caricatures - I feel like most characters in the novel are almost two-dimensional but this was really apparent in the way white characters are portrayed. I guess this goes along with Reed's theme of reversing the way literature is usually written from a Eurocentric perspective - even if people do get offended with this portrayal, its more common to see the portrayal of characters of color in this manner in most literature. Nice job on this post!
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that his "insulting", oftentimes satirical depictions of white people are completely justified. The thing is, no one can just come up and say that this is unacceptable or whatever because the would just sound ridiculous. White people have been doing this to black people but on a much larger scale and to a much worse extent for such a long time that genuinely being offended by this would just be sad. It also feels like a breath of fresh air. There aren't many works that so explicitly challenge the common narrative like this, so it just feels like a long time coming. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI liked your point about Reed's portrayal of Thor Wintergreen. It sums up his position in a long held debate about how great a role white allies should play in black movements. His point is that it may be easy for white people to understand or even sympathize with the cause, but when push comes to shove they will always chose the easiest route and stick with their own race. I'm not sure if I completely agree with him on that front, but I also understand his point. The scene made me think of the stark differences between Thor and Younger Brother, in that YB was much more devoted to a cause having nothing to do with him than Thor ended up being. But a similarity is that both characters didn't seem to chose to be allies for the right reasons, and in the end that's what caused them to be ineffective allies.
ReplyDeleteWell Well Well, how the turntables turn. Thor Wintergreen has never really made sense as a character to me, but your interpretation here seems accurate. Reed defo seems to be trying to turn around a historical precident, villainizing and stupidifying white characters, turning them into characatures such as people have done to black people in the past. Interesting post!
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