Suicide as an act of rebellion

The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty begins and commences with a common theme: Suicide. In the prologue at the beginning of the novel, the black population of America is heading to its voluntary doom. Throughout the last few chapters of the novel, the theme of suicide is very heavily prevalent. Gunnar gives a speech at Boston University calling on those who truly care about the black struggle to kill themselves. Later, his best friend Nick Scoby, who’d experienced depression throughout past chapters, commits suicide. Then Gunnar himself attempts to drown in the ocean but ultimately gives up. The novel ultimately ends with Gunnar explaining his justification for suicide and talking about how his father killed himself.

Gunnar feels the need to justify suicide because Psycho Loco questions the effectiveness of doing so. The general perception of suicide is that it is merely giving in. It’s giving in to every force that wishes to take you down, because this is what they want. This is a rather simplistically bleak view of suicide and one that has been shoved down our throats through nearly every form of media. We patronize the suicidal man or woman too much, offering them very little agency.

While it is doubtless suicide is very often a deeply tragic event, it can also be much more. It can be an act of rebellion. I remember Mr. Butler talking to us about sailors who sank their own ships to prevent them from getting into enemy hands. In doing so, they took away a potential asset from the enemy. Gunnar may be doing very much the same thing. He has an ancestral pattern of not fighting the system, of giving into the white man, the most recent of which is his father who was a police officer that went along with his coworkers’ racist jokes. He may be afraid that by continuing to exist, he runs the risk of becoming part of the system. By killing himself, he removes any power that the white man may have over him and thereby maintains his agency and power over himself and his body.

This act is made even more rebellious when one remembers that Gunnar is a black man. Mental illness and suicide is something that has often been disregarded among nonwhite communities. It is seen as something that people of color, specifically men of color, do not suffer from. In Isaiah Rashad’s Heavenly Father which Saahithi read last quarter, Rashad talks about how no one would listen to his raps if he talked about his depressions and suicidal thoughts. Black men are thought to be tough and violent to others, not emotional and willing to hurt themselves. By choosing suicide, he and Scoby defy the expectations set forth for them.

Additionally, the idea of an honorable suicide is one derived from Japanese culture. It is a distinctly un-American idea, and therefore rejecting American values.

Portrayals of Futility of the Black Struggle

In all of the books we've read thus far, there's been one theme that I've noticed that was highlighted by the discussion of Varun's poem, "4/30/92 for rodney king" by Lucille Clifton. In the poem, the narrator talks about how the body of a black man is worth nothing and wonders if there is really any point in being nonviolent or sentimental, saying, "why / should we spare / the neighborhood" and "why should we save / the pictures".

This portrayal of futility with regards to black peoples' experiences in America has been a common theme throughout the literature we've encountered. In Native Son, Bigger Thomas is pushed every which way by extenuating circumstances towards his ultimate doom. A doom that the reader feels is inevitable throughout the course of the novel as we read about white people who fail to understand, a housing system that keeps Bigger in harsher areas, and a criminal justice system that works against him. In Invisible Man, the Narrator finds that no matter what he does there will always be someone pushing him and manipulating him, whether it be Bledsoe or the Brotherhood.

In all three of these examples, we see a portrayal of black life from a somewhat pessimistic perspective. One that suggests that outside forces have been and always will be at work, telling the black American population to simply accept it or move on. But also in all of these examples, there is backlash against these futile circumstances. In Native Son, Bigger kills in a rage-fueled frenzy of frustration. In Invisible Man, the Narrator joins a Communist-like organization in the hopes to combat social injustice. In "4/30/92 for rodney king", this futility is responded to by not sparing neighborhoods and by disposing pictures. In each case, there is an attempt to fight the perpetrators of the system in an attempt to put an end to these injustices that lead to such a futile life.

But in the prologue of White Boy Shuffle, we are introduced to a rather different take on the capacity of black life to be anything but hopeless. In fact, the narrator, Gunnar Kaufman, has become a messiah for the black community and has so inspired them that his novel "has sold 126 million copies". For those of us brought up on tales of the Civil Rights Era, the idea of a leader whose rhetoric all black people may rally to is the ultimate goal. It may seem like the one thing that can prevent the futility of all the years past.

And when he does mention futility, Kaufman does so very offhandedly and with little sentiment or sorrow. He devotes only a single sentence to "the oblivion that is black America's existence and the hopelessness of the struggle". It seems almost as if this futility is already an established fact for prologue-Kaufman and that it has already been pondered over as much as possible, unlike in the other works, where there is much pondering to be done on the topic.

But perhaps the most striking difference is how Kaufman reacts to this futility. Unlike any other figure we've seen thus far, this champion of black Americans simply decides for all the black people in America to die. Not to fight, but simply to die. This is perhaps the most futile of all the portrayals we have had thus far. Kaufman and the black population in the novel simply decide that there is no hope for them whatsoever, no matter how much they may try. Not even a messianic speech-giver could possibly turn the tide for them. It appears that Gunnar Kaufman will prove to become a rather pessimistic figure.