I found Native Son interesting for many reasons, but, particularly, when the text is put in conversation with last week’s reading, the complexity of the construction of Blackness is revealed. For instance, Baldwin reminds us , in On Being White, And Other Lies that “no one was white before they came to America,” insisting that proving one’s whiteness through the subjugation of Black Americans is “the price of the ticket” to being a white American (Baldwin, 178). In Native Son, Wright draws attention to the fluidity of racial construction; for instance, Peggy, Dalton’s cook, shares that “my folks [in Ireland[ feel about England like the colored folks feel about this country” (Wright, 57). While conflating the two experiences can diminish the complexity of each circumstance, Wright helps the reader understand that America’s racial construction doesn’t just fall on lines of Black and white; rather, racial constructions work to uphold the wealthiest white class, while races and/or nationalities seen as the other continue to work in subservient roles, like Bigger and Peggy. Wright further expands on this by explaining that no one hates Black America more than “poor whites,” because they gain economic mobility and social validity through their racism (Wright, 23).
In the first part of the novel, it is very clear that Dalton’s house represents white America: guarded off, wealthy, and – in the literal case of Mrs. Dalton – blinded, further exemplified by Mary’s ignorance of the Black experience. While Peggy is still invited into the home, she can only access Dalton’s wealth through serving them, much like Bigger. However, there is a recognized inequality between Bigger and Peggy – between Black America and white America. Even Peggy’s comment about her hatred of colonization indicates that British colonization while a threat in Ireland, is not a reality faced by Irish Americans, but the threat of white power is a reality faced by Black Americans, like Bigger. Moreover, Peggy’s comments about the “last colored men” who worked for the Daltons prove that Wright draws a distinction between Peggy’s and Bigger’s status.
In Irish-American communities, the discrimination faced still rings loudly; yet, as Baldwin almost predicts, discrimination is used to minimize the harsh consequences of racial constructions; Irish-America often points to their own discrimination as evidence that Black Americans cannot ‘rise above ’ their status. In reality, as Wright notes, Irish-Americans and Black Americans exist shunned from the upper class but different in their experience of race. Mary and Jan’s visit to the South Side indicates that Bigger’s experience is not just different but seemingly alien from that of White America. While Peggy appears for a mere four pages, Wright draws a sharp distinction between Black America and Irish-America, which would have been relevant as waves of Irish immigrants and Black migrants settled in Chicago in the early 20th century.