A Blurry Line

I think "Pantaloon in Black" was my favorite of the seven pieces in Go Down, Moses. The book is obviously intended to depict the ever-volatile relations between blacks and whites in the Old South in a realistic and moving way. Rider, the protagonist of "Pantaloon in Black," is an incredibly sympathetic character: his grief is deeply gut-wrenching, especially when compared to the white sheriff's deputy who coldly and ignorantly relates the last tragic events of Rider's life. It was the most emotional I've ever seen Faulkner write. Reading the description of the footprints of Rider and his wife in the August dust almost brought me to tears.

However, I started to question the motive Faulkner had for writing this story, indeed, any of the stories in Go Down, Moses, which are considerably more focused on blacks than anything else we've read by him. Why document the the incredible pain and suffering of Rider's grief? Because Faulkner is white, I have to wonder how accurate his depictions of Rider and the black community are. Is this story meant as an apology for all those long, long years of slavery, cruelty, and oppression? Perhaps Faulkner wants to do his best to validate the feelings of the black community, to humanize them in the prejudiced eyes of the white American South. The juxtaposition between the visceral nature of Rider's mourning--he cannot eat, cannot sleep, cannot even stand still--and the detached, contemptuous deputy's story seem to indicate that the pain of a race beaten down for so many years must go deeper than the white man's, and the race that is capable of inflicting so much hurt without even flinching must be callous and unfeeling. Maybe this story is the product of a white man's shame.

On the other hand, Rider's grief is often portrayed as animalistic. I once saw a special on the Discovery channel about young bull elephants who are driven out of the herd and go berserk. Elephants are normally very gentle creatures, but these elephants will destroy everything in their paths. It was like Rider was being illustrated as one of those elephants. Faulkner may be saying that white people cannot grieve like this, but it could sound like black people are less in control of their emotions. They aren't as rational as white people, and have to "tear shit up" in order to properly express themselves. It's like saying women may not be as intelligent as men, but they are very pretty to look at: black people may not be as sophisticated as white people, but see how deeply some of them feel!

As I pondered these questions, I felt myself treading into very dangerous territory. As a white reader myself, how can I gauge the accuracy of these representations? I was incredibly moved by the depth of Rider's love for Mannie, but was it just white guilt on my part? Is "accuracy" even the issue here? In my heart, I would much rather read "Pantaloon in Black" in the first way, rather than the second, but as a critical thinker would I be deceiving myself?

I asked myself, "If the protagonist of this story was white, would it change how moved you were?" Would I be angry at a white person for committing suicide in the end, or would I see it as tragically and devastatingly as I saw Rider's death? I ultimately found myself feeling as ignorant as the white deputy acts in the second half of the story. How much of this world am I blind to?