conclusion of "ex-coloured man"

As he begins to wrap up the narrative of his life, our narrator expresses his changed view on race and his beliefs about himself as a black man. He states, "The anomaly of my social position often appealed strongly to my sense of humor. I frequently smiled inwardly at some remark not altogether complimentary to people of colour; and more than once I felt like declaiming: "I am a coloured man. Do I not disprove the theory that one drop of Negro blood renders a man unfit?" Many a night when I returned to my room after an enjoyable evening, I laughed heartily over what struck me as the capital joke I was playing" (197).

As a reader, I couldn't put my finger on the sentiment that the narrator was trying to express in that kind of a statement. He clearly expresses that he maintains respect for the negro race, because he concludes the novel with the thought that men who did work to advance the negro race performed "glorious" work, but the thought that the narrator unabashadly admits to laughing at jokes that degrade his own race makes my heart ache. This narrator is, by far, one of the most conflicted individuals I've ever come to know in literature. "It is to my children that I have devoted my life," the narrator says, reinforcing his inner turmoil. I wonder if the narrator realizes that by laughing at and finding pleasure in jokes that put down the negro race, he is laughing at his own children, who, by the "one drop theory...which the narrator honors, are black? If he claims that he isn't ashamed that he insults himself by accepting degradation of the negro race, I don't know how he could live the knowledge that his wavering attitude towards race means he is also degrading his own children.

The "so what?" attitude that the narrator appears to have adopted reminds me of a current social trend that I have been reflecting on a lot during the reading of this novel. In almost every single rap song that I've heard recently, the word "nigga" is often mentioned more than once, to the point where the presence of the word overrides the general message of the song. For example, in Soulja Boy's recent album, the line "Leave me alone, let me get some peace/I'm sittin at the house and a nigga can't sleep," appear. I believe that the message of that song would still come across if Soulja Boy had replaced the world "nigga" with "man" or "brother." In fact, by using the word "nigga," he specifically caters to a black audience -- an idea which I still don't entirely understand. I don't know if the idea that blacks use "nigga" as a term of comraderie, despite the reign that "nigger" held as the deepest insult a white could give a black, will ever fully make sense to me. I feel like blacks in our modern world who still choose to hold on to the remnants of their ancestors' painful pasts are playing the same role as Johnson's narrator...laughing heartily over a capitol joke that isn't that funny.

-Elizabeth