We’ve all had that moment in conversation when we choke back words that we fear might be racist or struggle to find politically correct terminology for what we’re trying to say. Saturday Night Live even made up a product to help you cope with this confusion – “Excedrin for Racial Tension Headaches.”
These awkward moments reveal that although society is striving to become truly race-blind, we’re not there yet. In order to move past race as an issue in society, we should invite more open discourse rather than limiting the language we currently use to express racial difference.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Clybourne Park,” currently playing at Steppenwolf Theater, portrays the inadequacy in acknowledging racial inequality offered by our current discourse.
The play, set in the neighborhood for which it is named, consists of two acts: the first is based off of Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” and the second is set 50 years later. The second act centers on a legal dispute between two couples: Lindsey and Steve, who are white, and Lena and Kevin, who are black. Lindsey and Steve try to convince Lena and Kevin to allow them to remodel their new home, a house that used to belong to Lena’s great-aunt, which Lena would like kept preserved.
The discussion starts out politely, but grows increasingly awkward as racial tension seeps in. Lena doesn’t speak openly but rather hints at the significance that the house holds for her, as her great-aunt’s family was one of the first black families to seek a better life by moving out of the black projects and into the affluent white neighborhoods of Chicago. She doesn’t mention the symbolic importance that home ownership had for the black lower class during the Civil Rights era. She urges Lindsey and Steve to respect that history, but doesn’t specify further.
Lena is clearly emotionally connected to the history of racial injustice her family experienced, but in wishing to transcend issues of race and in order to avoid looking like she’s “playing the race card,” she hesitates to discuss the issue directly.
Meanwhile, Lindsey exhibits denial of her own latent social biases by making exaggerated efforts to show compassion for Lena’s story and insisting that half her friends are black (although later she is only able to name one black friend). She tries to be politically correct, but her displays of progressivism instead seem false and affected rather than sincere, suggesting that society puts on a face to overcome racial tensions.
The couples tiptoe around the problem until Kevin suggests that their argument is really about race. The scene instantly explodes into bedlam as the others jump on him, asking him whom in the room he’s calling racist. Kevin insists that he didn’t say the word “racist” but rather the word “racism.” It’s as if racism is an underlying force, for which none of the characters is responsible, yet its presence in the room is palpable.
Like the couples in the play, society often maintains the pretense that race is a nonissue. We don’t have adequate language to deal with racial issues that still exist. The discursive clumsiness that leads to feelings of anger among the characters and discomfort for the audience conveys the fact that racial tension is still present in society.
This play is especially relevant during the Obama administration, which many have heralded as a sign that America is approaching a “post-racial” moment in history. Obama has declined to enact race-conscious policies in favor of what Harvard Professor Randy Kennedy calls “transracial universalism.” This approach dictates policy should not cater to race-specific issues but should level the playing field among all people, no matter what race. This attitude is key to achieving a greater equality in society, but we can’t let racial issues fall under our radar.
The shelving of racial consciousness from law and politics has drawn both praise and criticism. Some laud transracial universalism as a middle ground between emphasizing “the color line” and ignoring it, while others criticize Obama for turning his back on an issue that merits direct attention. Race-conscious programs have worked, while policies that do not acknowledge racial inequalities, like Roosevelt’s New Deal and French policies in present day, have left non-whites at a disadvantage.
As our first black president, it is admirable for Obama to subvert racism by downplaying its importance. However, general discourse needs to acknowledge that racial lines are still significant today.
As “Clybourne Park” shows, our racial history is still alive in societal memory. Economic and educational gaps are widening across racial lines due to the economic downturn. As our society becomes increasingly multiethnic, issues like immigration remain heated topics.
The language of post-racialism is troubling when it fails to acknowledge that it is not yet fully realized and discourages open discourse of racial problems that persist.
Social critic
