Racism Reproduced in "Sharing," "Brownies," and "Along the Frontage Road"

Fiction as a Cover for Racist Ideology

One of fiction's biggest advantages is the way it can be used to explore sensitive, difficult, and contentious topics from a relative distance. Fictional characters can express ideas and ask questions that would be considered beyond the pale in everyday life, offering writers and readers a relatively safe space in which to deal with difficult issues. However, this quality also has a downside, because too often destructive ideas can be repeated and strengthened through works of fiction that purport to be doing quite the opposite. The short stories "Sharing," "Along the Frontage Road," and "Brownies" are all guilty of this dishonest, destructive practice. Although all three stories pretend to offer useful insights into the contentious issue of race and identity, all three end up subtly reproducing racist ideas and tropes. By examining these stories together, one is able to see how the productive, exploratory power of fiction can be used as a kind of cover for the reproduction of outdated, ignorant stereotypes and ideas.

The Narrative Shield of First-Person Perspective

Before discussing these three stories individually, it will be useful to briefly address their narrative similarity, because the narratorial perspective they share is one of the most important means by which they are able to reproduce racist stereotypes and ideas while purporting to offer a useful, critical look at racism itself. In short, all three stories are told in the first person, with the narrator offering commentary not only on the events themselves, but also on their own thoughts, producing a kind of commentary-on-the-commentary as the characters in the "present" of the narration reflect on their immediate mental reactions during the "past" of the narrated events.

This tactic helps the stories shield their subtle racism by providing a kind of false front, whereby the story implicitly suggests that any racist content is the responsibility of the narrating character, rather than the story as such. Thus, when the narrator of "Sharing" assumes that her black neighbor does not like white people, it is the character herself who is racist, and not the story — so the reader feels as if the story is encouraging a judgment of the narrator's racism (Wideman 27). Of course, not every story that contains a racist character is itself racist, so the reader is supposed to be left feeling a comfortable sense of superiority, as though he or she is enlightened enough to criticize this racist character.

However, this is merely a dodge. While the story does offer the narrator's blatant racism up to the reader's criticism, it nevertheless engages in a more subtle, insidious racism through the events of the story itself. That is to say, the story simultaneously presents an example of blatant racism while reproducing a racist stereotype via its plot. This is essentially designed to trick the reader into a false sense of security and moral superiority, so that the more subtle racism may go unnoticed but nevertheless be reproduced. It is worth mentioning here that the intention of the author is not relevant; while saying that this is "meant to trick the reader" suggests a level of intentionality, this is merely one of the linguistic necessities that arise when attempting to describe something that is independent of any single actor but which nevertheless acts — in this case, the racist ideology under discussion.

Reproducing Stereotypes in 'Sharing'

In the case of "Sharing," the racist stereotype is that of the sexually aggressive black man who specifically targets white women, and its perpetuation of this stereotype is all the more egregious because it pretends to do quite the opposite. The story pretends to produce a level of irony when the racist narrator talks about not being like "those [racist] people I really don't appreciate living in our neighborhood," but ultimately this amounts to nothing because the story validates the narrator's own racism — her racism is deemed acceptable when compared to people who "complain about colored or Negroes or worse" (Wideman 29). When the narrator's black neighbor comes to borrow some mayonnaise, she imagines that "the mayonnaise is going to wind up in an X-rated place, and the man busy down there in that place, mayonnaise his favorite erotic dish, his bushy hair rubbing against my bushy hair and mayonnaise smearing his lips as he laps it from my thighs" (Wideman 30).

At first glance the story suggests that this is merely the imagination of the racially insensitive narrator, but there are details in the story that actually serve to transform the black neighbor — who is never named — into a sexually aggressive, white-woman-chasing stereotype. Earlier in the story, the narrator notes that the neighbor's wife is white, a small detail that only becomes significant when the story's larger picture comes into focus (Wideman 27). Then, when the story concludes, the neighbor says that he is leaving soon, adding: "so I don't know about a friendship. I don't know if there'll be time for friendship before I leave" (Wideman 38). The narrator's response is puzzling until one considers it in the context of the racist stereotype it helps to reproduce:

You don't understand. I don't mean what you're thinking. That's not what I mean. That's not the kind of friendship I want this to be. I just want us to exchange names, smiles, maybe shake hands, remember each other that way. It's never too late to be nice to each other. You know what I mean. Sure you do. Never too late to be nice. Never. Never. Never. (Wideman 39)

The story simply ends here, and it is difficult to read these rather ominous lines as anything other than the narrator attempting to ward off a potential sexual predator. While one might be inclined to suggest that this is merely the narrator's own racism showing through once again, because the story ends at this point without commentary or continuation, the lines function as "last words" spoken by a frightened woman alone in her house with "this large black man" (Wideman 31). Obviously the narrator is able to tell the story and is therefore not dead, but the effect of the ending is to transform the story from a critical look at the narrator's own racism into a validation of her initial racist assumptions.

Conclusion: The Danger of Subtle Racism in Fiction

Analyzing these three stories provides valuable insight into the way racist ideologies and stereotypes manage to reproduce themselves even in texts that purport to offer criticism of this very racism. Although they differ in their obviousness and in the particular racist stereotypes they perpetuate, "Sharing," "Along the Frontage Road," and "Brownies" all manage to perpetuate racism while pretending to offer the reader a critical look at race and identity. In some ways this kind of subtle, subdued racism can be more destructive and pervasive than more blatant, obvious forms, and so it is crucial to identify and condemn it wherever it appears — even if that means criticizing texts and writers more frequently lauded for their "enlightened" view of racism.

Works Cited

Chabon, Michael. "Along the Frontage Road." The Best American Short Stories. Ed. Sue Miller and Katrina Kenison. New York: Mariner Books, 2002. 1–8.

Packer, ZZ. "Brownies." Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. New York: Riverhead, 2003. 1–28.

Wideman, John Edgar. "Sharing." God's Gym. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005. 27–39.