Birthright

Stribling, T. S. "Birthright." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. By David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 333-38. Print.

This excerpt really surprised me, particularly when I read the opening information about how popular it became. That isn’t to say it isn’t worthy - it was well written and interesting. I just have a hard time believing that white people cared for it or that black people agreed with it. It’s too sympathetic to blacks to appeal to most whites, and it’s too focused on how “black” black people are in the face of a “white” black man. The only point I can guess at would be that white people would read it because the main character acts “white”.

The concept of a black man turned “white” through education and then returning to his childhood home is interesting, particularly because the reader gets to view how the narrator’s concept of being black changes as he goes from the white, educated north to the uneducated south, not far removed from slavery. The way the excerpt reads, it almost feels as if the black narrator is a bit disgusted by his fellow black men in the “Jim Crowe” car of the train. He points out how loud they are, how they smell differently, and how the car seems to be a bit unkempt. When his (drunken) childhood friend begins talking to him, you get the feeling that the narrator is uneasy with the other man’s overly-friendly and loud attitude.

I was also surprised at the passivity the narrator had towards being removed from the white potion of the train to the Jim Crowe car. Being an educated and (apparently) successful man, it seems to me that he should have done more than just get up and move. I believe this is saying something towards how he feels about the nature of racism, particularly because the train is bound for the southern states. He seems to feel that it isn’t worth fighting for; that it’s better or easier to just nod your head and do what you’re told, even after you’ve been educated alongside white men for four years. I’m not sure who to relate this attitude to: certainly not Garvey or Washington, but equally unlikely is Du Bois (who I first thought of when I began reading the excerpt). Although Du Bois might have done the same passive action, he would have had something to say in his narrative about the injustice of being removed from the white cars. In any case, I doubt Du Bois or any of the other black rights leaders we’ve discussed would have agreed with the narrator’s actions and attitudes, and once again I’m surprised at the success of this novel.