Author: gracieeppler

If all 8 of our texts we read this semester were laid out in front of me before I ever took this course, I think I would be able to connect all of them together with common themes. They all retain a sense of nostalgia and pre modern age language (even Devil in a Blue Dress and Blanche on the Lam feel to me as though the are still set in the 60’s), focus on race and sexuality, and include a fair share of violence.

But, prior to taking this class, if you had asked me to provide 8 texts that fell under the Umbrella of “Black Noir,” I’m not sure I would have produced the ones we read.

After taking this class, I’m still unsure if all the novels fall under this umbrella. To me, we started of with a clear shell of what Noir was, then dove into what Black Noir is by focusing on Black characters like Hugh and Bob. I feel as though we drifted from what Black Noir is in the middle of our semester, then returned back to the Noir novel with Blanche on the Lam and Devil in a Blue Dress.

While, as we all probably know by now, I did not like Trick Baby and Never Die Alone nearly as much as the other novels, this is not the only reason why I have trouble considering them Noir.

I still think that in my definition of Noir, there has to be some sense of mystery, especially through a fictitious story. Our readers must piece things together and must figure things out as we go to connect to this feeling of “descending into darkness.” I think Noir is not just about a descent as the characters in our books go to extremes, face increasing violence, and avoid the law, but also about the opposite; Noir is also about a reader coming to the light as the truth is illuminated to them. In The Maltese Falcon, Farewell my Lovely, Blanche on the Lam, and Devil in a Blue Dress, readers ascend into the light of truth as they discover who the true murderers were and move past the point of conflict. However, in Trick Baby and Never Die Alone, conflict is only resolved after our characters make a choice—such as Paul donating the money—as opposed to them uncovering something.

With the help of Street Players, I think I would most link Trick Baby and Never Die Alone to Black Pulp Fiction. The stories are too autobiographical and too straightforward for me to consider the Black Noir. However, I am still glad we read them and feel as though they exposed me to topics I’ve never encountered before at this level.

Something else that I think this class helped me do is realize how fast I can read if I really want to. My mom always asks me, “What are you reading?” every time I come back for break, and usually I reply, “I’m too busy to read.” My love for literature has never ceased, but my free time spent reading has decreased exponentially as I entered high school. Hopefully now I will realize that I can finish books more rapidly than I expected.

Overall, I think this class was extremely crucial for me to take. I like that I took it as my first English elective so that I can be reminded how much I love to read fiction and to analyze. While others might see Brit Lit 1 or Exploring Shakespeare as more important courses, I think Black Noir is equally significant as it tells the story of the Other.

This year, the post Eppler-Del-Rosario Thanksgiving movie was “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story.” The 12 of us that could still keep our eyelids from drooping after our feast piled into our various cars and traveled to the theater to settle in for two and a half hours of indulgence in a classic murder mystery.

As I met the mostly white, star-studded cast of the thriller, I thought about the ways in which the people of color operated in the Noir film compared to the white leads. “Glass Onion” is definitely Noir not only because of the classic detective mystery tale, but of the decent into darkness as (Spoiler Alert!) Detective Blanc delves deeper into the shrouded, convoluted lives of the eight other people on the island.

Janelle Monae plays the lead Helen Brand, donning chic, classy dresses and expensive bold suits as she investigates the mystery of who killed her sister. My family and I unanimously agreed that she was the most talented actress and most prominent face in the movie, save for Detective Blanc (Daniel Craig) himself.

Still, Helen’s success only comes after going to Blanc for help. She needs this powerful, important, smart white man to direct her, to formulate the plan, and to give her the clues towards answers he has already decided in order to take down her enemy. While Helen is smart, good-hearted, and tough, she is nothing without the rich, straight, educated white man who paves her path.

In Noir, black women and other foreign and “othered” characters exist because of the existence of the white person. Likewise, the white female cannot exist without the white man. Ellen’s purpose is to help Hugh—a man she’d only met hours before. Alice is in love with Bob, despite his beratement. And Brigid O’Shaughnessy comes to Sam Spade for help, and despite her intelligence, cannot outsmart Spade, and cannot survive without his protection. Blanche—while sassy, strong, and capable—needs the presence of a white family to keep her invisible from the Sherriff.

Noir exists in a place of fiction (or semi-fiction in the case of Trick Baby). Still, even in these fantastical worlds, the “other” relies on the aid of the “akin” to survive. Perhaps, then, Noir can never really be focused around the other. The white man and (and his world) are the other’s crutch they must rely upon to keep them relevant in the Noir world. Instead, it is a story about the white man, featuring the foil—the other. “Glass Onion” is Blanc’s tale, not Helen’s. Bob and Hugh’s stories are defined by the white men that hunt them down. Even Blanche’s story surrounds around the white family who she knows have the power to control the fate of her entire life (Neely 129).

Our initial introduction to Noir came in a very distinct, very easily identifiable and understandable package: a sly, white detective “descends into darkness” through an encounter with the “other” as he solves a mystery. These stories were placed on the West coast—a space where the “other” could interact with the akin easily as Los Angeles became steadily more infested with foreigners.

At least for me, Noir became very closely related to its setting in the Western Coast. Here, interactions with Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, Irish immigrants, and queer individuals were common due to proximity to the Eastern world and the influx of immigrants through California. From the introduction of Manifest Destiny, expansion into Western America became deeply entwined with the American Dream.

And then came the blunt transition to Trick Baby, set in the midwestern city of Chicago, which felt familiar and close to home, even including a character from my home town, “St. Louis Shorty” (Slim 3). It was more difficult for me to identify the Noir in Trick Baby and Never Die Alone because they felt much more like stories of Chicago mobsters than a “descent into darkness.” These novels felt much more similar to The Untouchables than it did to the familiar, old-timey detective novels we read in the beginning of class.

However, if we think back to Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton’s exploration of Noir, they did not identify the genre by a location, but by a couple of elements often found in Surrealism; Noir is “oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel.” All of these qualities are likewise captured in Trick Baby and Never Die Alone, and even Blanche on the Lam.

Interactions with the “strange” and the “foreign” are not only more easily accessible in the West (specifically in Los Angeles), but more controllable. One need only to walk down the street—to head to Chinatown or Hyde Park to encounter the “other.” These interactions are intentional; Philip Marlowe deliberately heads to a Black club to search for a perpetrator. He knows where the “other” exists and then chooses to take this descent into the recognizable “Black World.”

Stories set in the Midwest, or even in the South with Blanche on the Lam, interactions with the “other” must come in different, perhaps more hidden forms. For the King David, the “other” is a white Jewish man, inverting the idea of who the anti-other is. For Blanche, the “other” is Mumsfield—a white man with a disability. Thus, a setting like Los Angeles or Arizona makes capturing the essence of Noir easier. However, other settings—like the Midwest or the South—can also encapsulate Noir, though it more take more effort to do so.

            Kinohi Nishikawa’s Street Players has helped me understand the purpose of Black Sleaze and Black Pulp Fiction, and the ways in which white authors and white audiences interact with the Black novel.

            In Never Die Alone, we learn about King David’s story through the lens of a white man, Paul, as he reads David’s personal journal. Here, we take the perspective of the white audience—we become Paul, reading through David’s background. We learn about the infamous Black drug dealer through the voice of a white author. This made me reflect on how the white voice interacts with, encourages, and alters the Black narrative.

            “The work I have for you won’t have to be fiction. There’s enough rape going on in Harlem so that you don’t have to make up a f-ing thing, Paul. All you have to do is spread the truth a little. You know, dig the dirt up, that’s what sells,” editor Mr. Billings tells the struggling author. “There’s money in this kind of crap.”

            “This kind of crap” includes rape, grotesque murders, misogyny, drugs, and revenge. But what makes it so much harder for me to digest is that all of this is supposedly true.

            As we entered into the darker material of our semester, the descriptions of graphic topics became even more explicit, perhaps because they were rooted in some level of truth. It is one thing to tell these stories for the sake of having them remembered or written, like King David wrote in his journal. However, when these stories are exposed publicly, like Paul reading David’s novel, and even created and sold for a profit, I think that they lose some of their credibility and their true meaning.

            I like how Donald Gaines acknowledges that much of the popular stories sold at his time are “crap.” However, he also acknowledges that they are “true.” Paul writes about a terrible crime—the rape of three women—for sake of creating a story. But Mr. Billings sees this story as a source of profit—something that his southern white authors will “eat up.”

            Thus is the continued cycle of Black stories being told to entertain white audiences. Black stereotypes are constantly reinforced through white authorship.

            Nishikowa argues that “the idea of black authorship was set up to reinforce [the] expectation [that]…white men [could] encounter the obscene in black social life,” meaning that black authorship originally began to feed white readers what they were already proven to enjoy: the lewd, dangerous part of the black narrative they didn’t engage with in their everyday lives (103). Nishikowa takes a pessimistic view of Holloway House and other editors and publishers, arguing that their novels “were projections of the white imagination” (103).

            While I think that Holloway House began as a way for white people to indulge in their dark fantasies from their homes, it paved the way for legitimate black authorship written to tell stories and truths. Iceberg Slim himself has a begrudging admiration for the Black Pimp, who he says “ain’t shit,” and yet “neither are we without you” (107). Slim knows that the Black Pimp is exploitative and stereotypical, and yet he also knows that “we,” the “black men of the streets,” need the Black Pimp (108).

            While I think that Holloway House and white authors have taken advantage of the Black narrative, I think this exploitation was necessary in order for authors like Slim and Goines to come and direct Holloway House “away from sleaze interacialism and toward the interest of black readers” (109). Ideally, the Black narrative would’ve always been told by Black authors for Black audiences.

            I like how Goines recognizes that while some people will read his novel as a bunch of “crap,” he believes there is some sort of truth to it. After finishing Never Die Alone and returning to Street Players, I think it makes this section of our semester more easy to digest and to understand.

            Black Sleaze and Black Pulp Fiction are full of terrible, graphic topics. And while I still believe that not all of these excerpts were necessary, they are a part of a larger truth that many black people have experienced. Furthermore, the books we have read and Sweet Sweetback have all been told by black voices, so it is unfair to discount them just as “crap,” because on a certain level, they are just spreading “truth” like Goines argues.

I am glad that we have now gotten to the portion of the semester where we read black stories for black audiences by black authors. And while these stories are gruesome, they retain a greater sense of legitimacy than some of our earlier texts. However, I like how we discussed in class that these earlier texts were necessary to pave the way. Since racism ran rampant in the 20^th century and still persists today, I believe a white voice was necessary to start telling the black narrative. If it had originally come from black mouths using black voices, I’m sure that no one would’ve listened, especially not those with white ears.

Hands intertwined behind her back, my grandma stares earnestly. It is a white box on the ground, sitting there, seemingly staring back at her.

            Later, my grandma asks what I thought of the box. I tell her honestly that it confused me, that I’d much rather spend my time staring at Degas’ or Halestines’. If we’re going to go to an art museum, then I want to look at real art—real stimulating, beautiful, sophisticated art.

Grandma tries to tell me that the white box sitting on the hardwood floor is art too. I don’t respond.

My mom and I sit uncomfortably as a nearly naked dancer on stage slithers across the floor as a man reads spoken word. She hops and rolls to the ground. She twitches and convulses. She looks as though she’s been possessed.

We share a glance. And after the show’s over, Mom says, “Next time, let’s just go see ABT’s rendition of The Nutcracker.” I agree.

“Art,” to me, has always been entwined with beauty. Art is something that stimulates us, makes us feel something, or transports us to another time and place. Art is not a white box I have seen and ignored before, nor a quivering barefoot dancer. To me, the most attractive pieces of art are those that are beautiful.

After our conversation in class, I began to think about this definition of art within the context of Noir. Professor argues that this is simply a different kind of art—one called “Street literature.” It cannot be compared to Jane Austen or Shakespeare because it does not attempt to be Austen or Shakespeare. It exists entirely within itself.

Trick Baby is based upon the real story of White People’s, or so the story goes. It is crude and explicit in more ways than one; explicit in its graphic nature, and explicit in its obvious and unclouded language. Admittedly, I have grouped this book into a segment of my brain called “Weird Art I Don’t Understand and Probably Won’t Explore Again.” Iceberg Slim’s novel sits alongside the white box, the barefoot dancer, and several poems and songs I can’t make sense of.

As an English major, I am aware that I cannot ignore art that makes me feel uncomfortable. I know that the purpose of an Arts and Letters degree is to broaden my mind.

However, after watching Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song, I did notice that there is a “line” to be crossed, whether we want to admit it or not.

Black Noir is a descent into darkness and it explores raw and graphic truths about the Black community. Because I am reading Black Noir with a background of 13 years of white, Catholic education and morals, it feels strange and crude. But it is still a type of art, albeit not a type I particularly enjoy when it becomes too explicit.

Stories like Trick Baby help expand my definition of art and force me away from my bias towards white morality. However, I keep thinking about the first scene of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song, which is essentially a rape of a 13 year old boy that may or may not have happened in real life. We all acknowledge that this is immoral, that this scene is not art, and that it is excessively graphic.

However, why do we not apply this same argument (that we cannot impress our white, Christian morality upon a Black piece of art) to this first scene? I argue that there is a distinct line between what is immoral and moral. Discovering this line and adhering to it does not necessarily make us close minded, but instead, makes us equitable.

            I do think that Sweet Sweetback and Trick Baby are a type of art, but not one I would reach for first. However, just because Black Noir embraces the dark, I do not think that it is necessarily wrong to read it with a different set of morals. Black Noir cannot escape interpretations grounded in white morals, nor can it ignore objective immortals.

The term Noir itself implies a complete submersion in darkness. Black is not a color, but merely an absence of light. On the other hand, white is a conglomeration of all visible light. But we must redefine our definition of Noir to consider the gray space in between—all the moral ambiguity, questioning, and chaos.

The more we read Noir, the more convoluted my definition of the genre becomes. Noir is, at a basic level, about the divide of races—of dark and light. “You see, honey, this world is really two worlds,” Phala tells her son, Trick Baby. “The white world and the black world we’re in now” (Iceberg Slim, 59). Phala’s perspective made me question the objectivity of the Noir world; if there is truly just a white and a black world, where do the morally gray characters live?

When we began in this “white world” with Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, a descent into darkness was easy to identify. The affluent, powerful, sharp Spade and Marlowe are society’s apex predators, and subsequently descend into the world of their prey—the world of Irish and white-passing women, gay Levantines, and black murders. But even so, Spade and Marlowe already occupy a morally gray space. Though they may physically encounter darker characters and may travel to places occupied by black, yellow, and brown bodies, morally, they remain self-serving and cryptic. Thus, if Spade and Marlowe live in this white world, it is only physically at least; or, their existence within a white world proves that moral grayness for a white person is not considered “dark.”

Bob in If He Hollers Let Him Go is perhaps the blackest character we gotten to know yet—dark brown skinned and white-loathing. He sits plainly in this “black world,” a place where morals are skewed and inverted and where darkness, suffering, and trickery hides around every corner. And yet, The Expendable Man presents a new kind of black hero: Hugh, although very obviously dark-skinned, has relatively good morals.

But what defines these “good” morals or not? How can Spade and Marlowe exist in a “white world” and descend into a “black one” when they are already morally gray? How can Hugh live in a “black world” when he is more ethical than Spade and Marlowe? If Noir tells us that black = bad and white = good, then why does is there a lack of objectivity within the morals of the characters in its stories?

After watching Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and discussing morality in class, I begun to realize the way in which morality has been framed. In America and in Christianity, morality has been consistently enforced by the traditions of Anglo-Europeans. In this “white world” we stumble upon through Noir, it is wrong to prostitute women, wrong to kill, and wrong to be queer.

But Noir is a descent into darkness. A “black world” is already dark. I think that the contrast of the white police officers and the energetic scenes of the black characters Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song prove that within a “black world,” white morality need not apply. Sweet Sweetback’s in a sense accepts this “descent into darkness.” It asks, “Why should black people not have sex freely and for pleasure? Why should a black man not enjoy being a prostitute? Why must black people listen to the rules crafted for whites?”

In Trick Baby, White Folks is caught between two worlds. He lives in darkness because of his choice to con those around him. He has, therefore, already made the descent.

All this being said, I think that Noir is less about a moral descent into darkness and more about an interaction with the “other,” who may represent this darkness. Spade and Marlowe remain relatively morally consistent throughout the text. However, they meet members of society who symbolize darkness and corruption. This is their descent into darkness.

Hugh, Bob, Sweet Back, and Trick Baby already live in a dark, “black world” in some sense. This world must not be defined by white morals, because it is in a completely different planet. So, when white people from a “white world” meet others from a “black world,” it is no wonder they treat them like aliens.

I think Noir is about this encounter—it is about the intermingling of the two worlds and the subsequent trouble that results. Perhaps Noir is wrongfully named; it is not primarily about blackness, it is about a clash of black and white. Noir is about the gray space in-between.

As I read Hugh’s story and compared his emotions to those of Spade and Marlowe, I began to question what causes guilt. Is guilt an internal recognition of a mistake and a subsequent regret? Or is it something impressed upon us when others assume our fault? Or, does it lie somewhere in the middle?

Examining Spade and Marlowe’s stories makes me believe that guilt comes from within. Sam Spade laughs breezily in the face of accusations, making sly comments and quips. He is positive of his innocence, even if the audience is not completely sure, and so he is able to separate himself from the guilt the detectives attempt to place on him. Similarly, Marlowe—despite being a clear suspect due to his location at the time of Mariott’s murder—harbors no sense of shame for his unfortunate circumstances. Both Spade and Marlowe are able to rationalize their situations and argue the coincidence of their position with dark crime.

Before reading The Expendable Man, I viewed Spade and Marlowe’s self-assuredness as admirable, rational qualities. But upon analyzing Hugh’s paranoia and conscripted guilt, I began to view their aplomb as less of something to respect and more of a benefit of their privilege.

Who gets to bask in their innocence, and who does not?

Hugh is not able to disassociate himself with the guilt that is so forced upon him because he is reminded of it everywhere he turns. Venner lurks in shadows, Marshal Hackaberry calls him up whenever he sees fit, and Fred Othy attempt to frame him. He cannot escape this innocent guilt not only because outside forces coerce him, but because these forces begin to seep into his skin, consuming his consciousness as well. The external guilt even gaslights Hugh into believing he might’ve done something wrong, even telling Ellen he wished he would’ve done things differently. This heavy feeling weighs him down even after the true murderer was found, so much so that Hugh [wondered] if he would ever be cleansed of his innocent guilt,” even as he made his way back to the protection of his home (243).

Unlike Spade and Marlowe, Hugh cannot simply write his guilt off. He cannot laugh in the face of authoritarian accusations like Spade. He cannot justify his unfortunate circumstance of being at the wrong place at the wrong time like Marlowe.

But is Bob’s guilt inescapable simply because he is not the confident, dynamic, sharp man that Spade and Marlowe are? Or does this separation of guilt come from something more than personality; does it come from skin color? Does “innocent guilt” only exist for the Black, the dark, and can the “pure” whites escape it?

I believe both of these influences play a role in disregarding innocent guilt. Because Spade and Marlowe are white men, they have been given the privilege to fortify their qualities of confidence and sophistication, which therefore allows them to avoid any unjustified innocent guilt. But because Hugh is a Black man who is systematically oppressed and immediately pinned as the first suspect, he cannot escape the guilt that others force upon them. Hugh cannot have faith in the justice and legal system as Ellen assure him to, because those systems have perpetually proven themselves to be against men like Hugh. And so, despite his innocence, Hugh must submit to this guilt.

I am from American flag bumper-stickered pickup trucks, from strip malls and Subarus, from parish picnics and poolside patio parties with the neighbors. In my Catholic grade school of 200 kids in a town of population 4,222, nearly every face I saw made me reflect on how different mine was, that is, after I came to realize I was different.

            Within my nearly entirely white hometown and fifteen minutes down the freeway to my all white all girl’s Catholic prep school, the question of “Do I fit in?” naturally arose. After the 2016 presidential election that tore my eighth-grade class apart and destroyed many of my parent’s long-term friendships, I began to think of this question in a new light: “Am I American?”

            What constitutes if someone is “American” or not? Clearly, it’s more than just a birth certificate or a voter registration card. When the idea of being an “American” is centered around the Anglo-Saxon citizen, how can the “other” possibly remain patriotic?

            I think I relate to Hugh and Bob in their questioning of where they belong in America and how they operate as “others” in society. While I recognize that I do not face, nor will never have to face, a plethora of prejudices and struggles they have, I also understand their feeling of discomfort and cynicism towards patriotism.

“It was just that [the average over patriotic American] didn’t think I out to have these feelings. They kept thinking about me in connection with Africa. But I wasn’t born in Africa. I didn’t know who anyone was,” Bob says. Even after generations of living in America, working at American companies, speaking with Californian slang, and even, later, joining the army, Bob is not seen as fully American because of his skin color and heritage. But oddly enough, those who are white are no longer associated with their heritage. “…the aristocratic blue bloods of America have forgotten what they learned in history—that most of their ancestors were the riffraff of Europe—thieves, jailbirds, beggars, and outcasts” (Himes 152).

            America, then, sits at an oddly hypocritical crossroads: it is both a melting pot for cultures who are lured in by a shot at “The American Dream,” and standoffish to those non-whites who try to grasp it.

            Even Hugh, who has most certainly captured as much of an “American Dream” that could be possibly for a dark-skinned family in the 1960’s (they are well educated, stay in well furnished, “elegant” and “large” hotels, and have homes with guest rooms), acknowledges that despite being American, his system will not serve him in the same way it would serve a white man. His mother is “convinced that only Arizonans were to be esteemed,” and has a certain sense of “loyalty” towards the desert state (Hughes 29). How can people manage to remain loyal to a place that is so built against them?

            This makes me think of La Casa de Amistad where I volunteer every Thursday, helping Spanish speaking immigrants with studying for their citizenship test. The students’ first question is always, “Where are you from?” When I reply, “St. Louis,” they want to know where my parents are from. And when I reply again, “St. Louis,” they are unsatisfied. What they really mean is, “Why do you look like that? Where is your heritage?” I am not a midwestern girl to them, I am Filipina, and when I relent that my mom was born in Manila but came here when she was 2, they nod in understanding. One man followed me up with asking about the history and politics of the Philippines, to which I admitted I knew roughly nothing about. “I am American,” I announced firmly. But I could say it as many times as I wanted to—the fact of the matter was that like Bob, I was associated with the country that my features reflected, not the country I was raised in.

            My personal experiences and the books we have read have assured me of this: Everyone, even those desperate to be an American citizen, sees the concept of “American” as white. Patriotism for a non-white American is either a denial of the prejudice and “othering” they face, or a stubborn attempt to prove that they belong, which will, as seen with Hugh and Bob, not succeed. Stubborn as he was, Bob could not defeat the system that was inherently pitted against him, shipping him off to the army for a crime he did not commit, even when the system knows that he is innocent. Similarly, Hugh acknowledges that in America, “[his] color is…against [him]” (Hughes 131).

            Hugh and Bob prove that to be patriotic for a person of color in America is to live in a false reality. I think of the love that I have for my hometown despite all of the discomfort and often blatant racism I faced there. But this love isn’t patriotism for Missouri or for midwestern America, it is a sense of nostalgia for the picket-fenced farm my house sits behind and the memories my sisters and I made chasing the geese that sat by the lake.

            I think this is where Bob and Hugh sit as well. They can be nostalgic for their experience in America, for the homes they have forged despite obstacles, but they can never be truly patriotic for a country that does not love them back.

As I closed the pages of our third novel, I began thinking about how Chester Himes’ book fits alongside the others. There is no murder, no detective, and no mystery to solve. Instead, “If He Hollers Let Him Go” is a sobering tale of racism in America in the first half of the 20th century. 

Upon pondering Bob Jones’ story and wondering how he fits in with Spade and Marlowe, I formed a conclusion. I believe that the general thesis of the noir genre is this: When the “other” attempts to accomplish what only the white man can, there is disorientation, violence, and the order of society is disturbed. 

I also fully acknowledge  that I will develop this thesis as we continue reading other texts, but believe that the three novels we read imply that when blackness strives to be white and when the “other” reaches for things that are out of their place, society crumbles. The “other,” here, is associated with blackness, or “noir.” This blackness can come in the form of actual black people such as Bob Jones, femininity, queerness, or foreign peoples from places such as the Orient or Greece. 

When Joel Cairo and Brigid O’Shaughnnessy attempt to steal something that belongs to a white man, they reach for something they cannot control and are not able to possess. As a result of Brigid being in over her head, and ends up killing Miles, and Cairo gets beaten up. As feminine creatures, neither of them are equipped for what it would truly take to steal from a white man, and in their attempt to accomplish what is impossible for people of their kind, they disrupt the order of society, and white men (specifically Miles) suffer. 

When Velma tries to concoct a plan that will erase the sins of her past, she not only ends up killing a man, but does so unsuccessfully, ultimately leading to her exposure, and later, her death. Just like Brigid, Velma is in over her head, trying to play games in a white man’s world. She takes the life of a white man, but isn’t smart enough to cover up her tracks well enough that someone with real power (i.e., a white man like Philip Marlowe) won’t be able to figure her out. 

 And then comes Bob. Bob’s story to me was particularly interesting because I saw it as a sort of “spin off.” For so long, we were told the story of the “others” by those that are included–the rich white men. These men must clean up after the “other.” Through Bob, we see the struggles of a man who does not want to be othered. “I never get a chance to think like an ordinary guy,” Bob confesses, complaining that “white people make [him]] think about [his race] in every way” (Himes 168). 

It all comes down to blackness. 

Through Alice, we see the driving tone of noir texts; she argues that Bob must “adjust [his] way of thinking to the actual conditions of life,” and that if only he can  understand his place in society, life wouldn’t be nearly as difficult. Noir seeks to show the repercussions of those who do not understand their role in society, and shows how much freedom those at the top (the rich white men) truly have. 

This is tricky because through Bob’s story, we see a man who eventually tries to stay in his place and settle down, but still faces racism and othering by society. Perhaps, then, noir’s thesis should be refined to a much more grievous argument: If you exist within the realm of “blackness” and if you are an “other,” those with all the power–the rich white men–have full control over you.

You won’t find a lot of women in the noir texts we’ve read. Rather, you’ll find“little girls,” “darlings,” “babies,” and “little sisters.” Through Himes, you’ll meet “little fat brown-skinned girls,” “short-haired, dark brown, thick-lipped girls,” and even “tall white girls” with “big blue babyish eyes.” All of these “girls” bring about a deep desire and lust within Bob Jones, a concept which I find disturbing, considering that Bob seems to connect the word “girl” with a deep sense of “sexual thrill.”

These girls never grow up. All the females in the noir genre remain girls for the entirety that they are present in the plot, conniving their way to safety and beguiling the protagonist.

 You will, however, find a lot of men. But the only “boys” you will ever meet (other than legitimate male children) are exclusively black men. Even Irish workers, who have faced their share of prejudice in America, may call their black coworkers “boy” to establish a sense of hierarchy. “Bob, you’re an intelligent boy.” “You colored boys better lay off the gin.” Bob even refers to the workers underneath him as “boys,” further emphasizing the dominant energy within the word, and its powerful ability to remind someone of their inferiority. The host at the restaurant calls Bob “Mr. Jones,” but “the ‘Mr.’ almost strangled him,” depicting how difficult it is for a white man to acknowledge a black man as anything other than a young, naïve, bothersome boy.

 All women are “girls,” but only black men are “boys.” This made me think of our discussion of the combination of white women and black men and who dominates that realm, since both possess qualities that demote them, but who is shoved to the bottom of the food chain is debatable.

This makes me conclude that the noir genre associates blackness with femininity. Both are weak, undesirable qualities that make a person less than a straight white man, who is the only one in all our noir texts that is free from prejudice. Being black or being a woman makes you simple and childlike and in need of protection, guidance, or nurturing.