Starting this week, we were introduced to an entirely new version of Noir from what we have read so far. Gone is the rugged detective who is always one step ahead of the others dipping his toes into the nitty gritty world of darkness. Now, we are immersed in the reality of that darkness. The opening of \u201cIf He Hollers, Let Him Go\u201d begins with Bob waking up from a dream with nothing but terror filling his heart. Unlike our protagonists before, Bob is not invulnerable to the consequences of this black world. In fact, the racial divides of the warring Jim Crow world permeate through his entire being, consuming him with an uncontrollable hatred. Instead of being on the outside looking in, this new perspective gives us the experience of what it really feels like to belong to this peripheral world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perspective plays a critical role in the context of a story because from Bob\u2019s view, everything must revolve around his race because that\u2019s what the world identifies him as. The binary of black and white prevents him from being allowed to think in other terms. For example, when he picks up the white hitchhiking boys, they have a great time talking and chatting about the women they see, but when an ugly black woman finds her way into their conversation it stalls because of the discomfort of these racial divides. Bob wants the conversation to continue, but unfortunately, the divisions win. The color of your skin determines your societal fate before you take your first breath in this world. Bob\u2019s perspective of life cannot escape the fear that is simply living in his skin. When the only world available is the world of the other, there is an inherent inescapable vulnerability he tirelessly works to push out of his mind. This is why we see Bob succumbing to his violent desires and fantasize about killing Peckerwood and raping Madge because it provides a way for him to wrestle power from the oppressor and shift his perspective from fear to triumph over the villains. He lives squarely as the \u201cother,\u201d but he desperately wants to define and legitimize his place in this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conversely, Chester Holmes gives us a glimpse into the white world, where the coloured folk are nothing but tools at their disposal. It\u2019s in the way Kelly orders around Bob and his crew. It\u2019s in the way Madge uses her feminine figure to lure black men into her twisted plays for power, and almost blatantly in the way her sister-in-law declares that the coloured people were placed in the world to simply fill the space after God created the white race in his image. It\u2019s also in the way Leighton always gives Bob those curious looks whenever they meet. It is the inherent belief of superiority from one look. These people get to live free of the constraints of being explicitly defined by their color. Although the implicit white identity is perpetuated throughout their daily lives, they get to live with no concept of what that identity entails, other than their own advantages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the story progresses, it will be interesting to discover how these clashing perspectives will play a role in the fate of Bob. At some point these intersections must go head to head, and when Bob finally gathers his courage the aftermath cannot end well because of the vulnerability that follows him around, like a shadow he just can\u2019t shake. When his vision burns blue with rage, he forgets these tragic truths and when one forgets, real tragedy ensues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Starting this week, we were introduced to an entirely new version of Noir from what we have read so far. Gone is the rugged detective who is always one step ahead of the others dipping his toes into the nitty gritty world of darkness. Now, we are immersed in the reality of that darkness. The … Continue reading “Color Me Perceived”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}