The BU Creative Writing 104 Experience

One of the most attention grabbing aspects of Gunnar’s Boston University experience, were the white students and professor that Gunnar interacts with. Gunnar’s first class is a poetry workshop, and the students must stand and introduce themselves to the class. The first few students are obviously accomplished, but have a slightly obnoxious way of speaking and presenting themselves. Their depictions somewhat parallel the arrogance of the students at El Campensino Real High and Gunnar is consistent in not being afraid to challenge things he disagrees with, as he has throughout the novel. When Gunnar eventually introduces himself, the professor and class are instantly stunned. “(...) I never dreamed you'd take my class.” Then Sylvia Plath shows him a collection of his poetry called Ghettotopia: An Anthropological Rending of the Ghetto through the Street Poems of an Unknown Street Poet Named Gunnar Kaufman. Gunnar immediately questions what “street poet” is supposed to mean. To them it can't just be poetry, it was written by a black boy from a lower income, racially segregated area in a larger city; it must be street poetry. It's an outside looking in perspective, and to them it's just cool to observe a culture completely different from their own. The next scene is one of the most absurd instances of cultural appropriation I’ve read. A blond, white woman with cornrows (because they name her feel powerful) named Negritude. As this is the first post Civil Rights Movement novel we've read, this is the first real experience with cultural appropriation we've encountered. Previous books have had minstrel show references and implications, but during the overtly racist segregation era the sole purpose behind it was to belittle black life and black people. The White Boy Shuffle takes place in the 1990s, so hip hop and R&B were gaining more and more popularity and celebrities like Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan were extremely prominent figures of American culture at the time. Now it was cool to enjoy or take part in black culture and white people had the bonus of not being black.

When Negritude demonstrates how to “welcome home an Ashanti warrior returned from the hunt with a fresh kill.”, Gunnar decides he's enough and dashes out of the room, only to be followed home by the class. He gives up his usual bravery and defiance, and for the first time Gunnar just has a sense of hopelessness. Even so called white liberals are completely ignorant and useless to progress. This sense of hopelessness is only fostered by the subsequent events in the story, leading to Gunnar's final mindset and serious contemplation of suicide.

White Boy Shuffle Initial Thoughts

Paul Beatty’s White Boy Shuffle has been an incredibly enjoyable yet different read so far. Gunnar Kaufman’s funny, sarcastic, and self aware way of storytelling combined with the post Civil Rights Movement setting, gives the story a unique atmosphere. In the prologue, Gunnar tells that he is (or has to be) the messiah of black Americans, which is in stark contrast to the troublemaking elementary school student living in a majority white Santa Monica we find in succeeding chapters, just like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Invisible Man’s narrator and Gunnar are both even viewed as “harmless” or model black people by the whites in their communities. Where White Boy Shuffle differs from Ellison’s novel, is the initial mindsets of the protagonists. At the beginning of Invisible Man, the narrator seems to be presenting the reader with passive observations of everything happening around him, or is so focused on one particular thing (e.g. the speech or keeping his scholarship) that he doesn’t really provide his own input or perspectives. Gunnar, however, is much more apparent in showing the reader what is on his mind. In Chapter 1, when Gunnar is describing his family's history, he shows particular shame in how his father reacts to his white coworkers racist comments/jokes, deciding for himself that he wasn't going to laugh. This is the first instance of a young Gunnar showing a more independent, observant and thoughtful mindset. In Chapter 2, when Ms. Cegeny gives her colorblindness lecture and students list things like the justice system as “colorblind processes in America,” Gunnar chooses to reply with simply, “Dogs.” His response emphasizes the foolishness and ignorance of the students’ answers and the lecture in general. His reluctance to do things like even bring up black heroes he read about to his friend, David, shows he has a long ways to go until he reaches his “messiah” status. I am looking forward to seeing how the experiences he has living in West LA will change his perspectives.