The Making and Unmaking Of Whiteness: Richard Wright' Rite of Passage

Abstract

Richard Wright's Rite of Passage (1994) unmasks whiteness as mark of ideology and racial privilege. Valerie Babb suggests that a distinction should be made between white skin--the common pigmentation we associate with those we call white--and whiteness: .... whiteness is more than an appearance; it is system of privileges accorded to those with white skin (Babb 9). Coded as norm for empowerment, whiteness is often representation of terror (Hooks 172) in black mind as consequence of values and attitudes that persist as legacies of white racism. Whiteness, as privileged signifier, constantly reminds us of power and control. Power, as Michel Foucault has shown, means relations, more-or-less organised, hierarchical, co-ordinated cluster of relations (198). Establishing relationship between margins and center is an arbitrary social formation. social construction of whiteness determines discourse of white supremacy because it is built on both exclusion and racial subjugation. White supremacy powerfully affects lives of blacks, particularly in Rite of Passage where whiteness operates in social context, signifying the right to exclude others (Harris 108). A posthumously published novella which Wright completed in 1945 and later tried to include in Eight Men shortly before his death (Butler 315), story centers around main character's rite of passage as he moves from being prospective student to being criminal. fifteen-year-old black male protagonist Johnny Gibbs is hard-working student at school, but his whole life is shattered when he learns that he has been foster child all along and city authorities demand that he should move to live with another family. As Arnold Rampersad indicates, Johnny's life is changed by government bureaucracy in area of human welfare and social services.... power and carelessness of white may be inferred from policies and actions of authorities who insist that Johnny must be sent to new home, even as it is clear that these authorities have only most limited respect for blacks and poor in general. (120) Much like Bigger Thomas in Native Son and Fred Daniels in The Man Who Lived Underground, Johnny is unable to deal with crisis of identity when his life is dramatically changed. Robert Butler rightfully suggests that Johnny's real dilemma lies in this very crisis: Should he accept an identity arbitrarily constructed and imposed upon him by social which is unable to perceive him as human being, or should he rebel absolutely, completely rejecting standards of conventional society, and begin task of building radically isolated self? (315-16). If we explore question within terrain of whiteness, question boils down to whether Johnny should conform to tenets of white supremacy or not. Because conventions are produced by inherent ideology of whiteness within sociocultural constituents of domination, he rejects them and begins building radically isolated self and becomes non-conformist. Johnny's choice to be an outsider in becoming member of gang, The Moochers, foreshadows his identity as criminal through rest of his life: he turns to gang's solidarity, built on hostility against whites, to define social boundaries of blackness. novel opens with Johnny in classroom with his mind winging away from voice of his white teacher, Mrs. Alma Reid, towards home. is full of joy that he will soon be home for dinner with his family: The white woman teacher's silver voice caressed his ears droningly, lulling him into depths of daydream centered about bowl of steaming beef stew waiting for him upon kitchen table (1). Even though he is non-white, his whole identity is defined in terms of social markers of whiteness: his report card is all A's in school where white teacher's authority is visible, and his success makes him feel that it is rosy world (3) in which he is superior: He caught glimpse of boy flashing knife and he smiled superiorly (3). …