Langston Hughes: The Ways of White Folks

    It is often said of certain books that you do not read them; they read you--or at least they read you back.  I have myself had and documented here that experience, most notable when reading the books of Dick or Vonnegut. When I say this, I mean "read" in the sense of observe in detail and provide results of that observation, as if by a medical device. The experience of being thus read by a book or an author is generally unnerving, and in the best cases is revelatory.  The realization that someone with whom you have never had contact, and is likely long dead, sees you and displays your own characteristics publicly is the proverbial lightning in a bottle that is one of the most magical things about literature.  

    Hughes does that in this volume.  He reads me in the sense of seeing right through me and recording what he sees.  But he also reads me--and presumably any other eponymous white folk--in another sense, that of NYC ball culture.  To read someone in this sense is not to objectively notice details about them, but to take those details to their most exaggerated and unflattering ends.  Hughes here reads me "for filth," as the saying goes.  He highlights and exposes the reality of my interactions with any melanated person, and more to the point, their interactions with me.  I am comfortable saying that I am anti-racist, both in belief and in action, though no more free from bias and generalization than any other human.  The startling and eminently supportable thesis of this book, however, is that the overriding variable in my interactions with others is out of my control: my whiteness.  Even more terrifying, the thoroughly plausible examples given support the idea that this same whiteness is universally negative in its effect.  My humanity, ethics, morals, etc. may counterbalance that effect to some extent, but they cannot erase it.

    What does one do with this information?  It makes the task of being a "good white person" somewhat irrelevant, doesn't it?  At the very least it humbles one, and gives the lie to anything resembling self-congratulation.  Furthermore, doesn't the same thing apply to other ways in which I am rewarded by the kyriarchy--maleness, cisness, etc.?  It is manifestly untenable to draw the conclusion that I should distance myself from marginalized groups for their own welfare.  Nonetheless, it gives rise to caution, and an honest look at my own motives, actions, and ultimately the effect of my existence.