Blinded by the Whites: Why Race Still Matters in 21st-Century America

2. Easier Said Than Done: Making Black Feminism Transformative for Black Men

47 A curious thing happens in Toni Morrison’s Beloved whenStampPaidandPaulDareconversingoutsideofamakeshiftchurch about Paul D’s breakup with Sethe. As the reader will recall, Stamp Paid has facilitated this breakup in the name of protecting Paul D by proffering him information about Sethe’s infanticide and criminal proceedings . Having reflected upon his actions and witnessed the harm he has caused Sethe and Paul D alike, Stamp Paid tries to rectify his meddling by apologizing to both. He seeks out Sethe first, but intense feelings of shame, guilt, and gendered entitlement ultimately stall his apology attempt . The scene in question occurs after his multiple failed attempts to approach Sethe. In seeking out Paul D, Stamp Paid learns that he is sleeping in the cold cellar of a makeshift church. Stamp Paid is appalled, believing (wrongly) that the town, out of spite for his relationship with Sethe, has turned on Paul D and refused to house him. While the two men are engaged in an intense discussion about this misunderstanding and the circumstances of Stamp Paid’s intervention into Paul D’s relationship with Sethe, an unidentified man rides into town on horseback and abruptly interrupts their conversation. Dispensing with formalities, he simply says, “Hey,” to get the men’s attention and then asks them if they know “a gal name of Judy” who lives on Plank Road.1 Though Morrison does not reveal the man’s race, the reader intuits that he is white by the ways in which he interacts with Stamp Paid and Paul D. Stamp Paid’smarkedshiftindictionandbehaviorconfirmsthisreality.Instead of taking offense at the white man’s brassy interruption, Stamp Paid responds with servility, asking, “Yes, sir?” Further, he prevaricates and Easier Said Than Done: Making Black Feminism Transformative for Black Men two 48 Blinded by the Whites says that he does not know Judy but can gladly offer directions to Plank Road. The tension lingering in the air is that the man is in town slumming .Metaphorically speaking,heembodiesthe unspeakable,coercive, dominantwhitemalepoweragainstwhichStampPaid,PaulD,andblack men’s masculinity is socially pitted and measured. That the white man feels completely comfortable, if not entitled, in slumming for sex in the black town is particularly striking, for it draws attention thematically to Stamp Paid and Paul D’s social impotence as “real men,” especially in regard to protecting and upholding the honor of black women. We also see the pernicious reach and effect of white male surveillance on black male consciousness. Morrison registers the intensity of this phenomenon for black men in how the white man responds to Paul D (who is openly drinking whiskey on the church steps) after Stamp Paid gives him directions. The white man trots off a bit but then turns around and launches a threat: “Look here . . . There’s a cross up there, so I guess this here’s a church or used to be. Seems to me like you ought to show it some respect, you follow me?”2 Though we are not privy to what Paul D is doing when Stamp Paid first talks to the white man–which is, no doubt, also an intentional move on Morrison’s part3 –we can deduce from the white man’s warning that he is threatened by Paul D’s body language or gaze. Indeed, the wicked hypocrisy of the white man’s moral outrage in the name of white Christian morality (his sole purpose for being in an all-black space is debauchery) illuminates the twisted moral double standard upon which gendered white superiority rests. Paul D’s true transgression is not that he is drinking whiskey in front of a church, but that he refuses in some bodily way to accommodate the white man’s sense of moral superiority and white male entitlement. Acutely aware of what the white man truly wants and the dangers involved in not giving it to him, Stamp Paid intervenes : “Yes, sir . . . You right about that. That’s just what I come over to talk to him about. Just that.”4 Even though we have only Stamp Paid’s comments at our disposal, we know that the white rider ultimately receives the response of deference he seeks from both men because he rides away without violence or furthercomment.WhileStampPaid’sperformanceofgenderedservility successfully pacifies the white rider and perhaps even saves Paul D’s life, Easier Said than Done 49 italsoreflectsthesocialandpoliticalimpotenceofblackmenatthetime. We know that both men are conscious of this dynamic...