QUOTES - QUOTATIONS AND ANALYSIS

(Continued)

Barbara observes that Cedric is comfortable in his new surroundings: he is ravenous in the manner in which he eats, unconcerned about what others would think at the moment. Others in the dining hall are equally comfortable - "effusive, chatty" - while she is "flat and elemental", out of place and unsure of where she stands.

For his part, Cedric is often unsure of where he stands as a young black man from the ghetto now attending an Ivy League university. During his orientation week, a dorm meeting on diversity seeks to emphasize ethnicity and race in a manner that makes Cedric uncomfortable. Having been asked at the start of this workshop to describe himself with one word, Cedric's resentment at this approach grows:

Why would anyone want to embrace being a victim, Cedric wonders. Even though he's probably the only true victim of circumstances in the room, being a victim is the last thing he'd want to celebrate. He looks down at the unmarked paper in his hand. One word? A thousand words wouldn't do justice to who he is, he decides, and crumples the scrap into a tiny ball. (177-178)

The question of victimhood is crucial to Cedric: despite his situation growing up and the difficulties he faced as a student and a young man, he consistently refused to see himself as somebody who succumbs to the will of others. He was his own agent of change, and even railed against the Dreambusters in his speech to his graduating class. Thus, he finds it counterintuitive - even nonsensical - for a person to "embrace being a victim", as it is a weakness he would never permit himself. Similarly, the notion of "one word" is clearly seen as an oversimplification: to describe oneself with one word, no matter what that word is - and especially if the word deals with race - is to give in to the impulses he's opposed throughout his academic struggle.

Race is something that Cedric is aware of, however, as seen in this dialogue with Chiniqua after the O.J. Simpson verdict:

"Oh yeah, the race outreach," Cedric says sheepishly. "I just didn't go. I just decided I wasn't." "Well, I went," she says with a how-could-you look. "I was the ONLY one there."

"Was it bad?" "No, just like always. All of them just talking. No one says anything. Everything's fine, everything's good. He's acquitted, so what. It's nothing special. ... We is all saints here, anyway." (203)

The phrase "I was the ONLY one there" is obvious to the reader: she wasn't the only person there, or the only student, but the only African American in attendance. Note the offhand manner in which Chiniqua and Cedric discuss the outreach event, making clear their belief that it is for the benefit of the white majority in the university - "All of them" - and not for black people such as themselves. "We is all saints here, anyway," is a sarcastic assessment of the manner in which the university seeks to distance their own African American population from events of which they disapprove (Simpson's acquittal). Suskind also offers this insight on Chiniqua and her particular position:

Like a lot of black and Hispanic kids who come here from integrated settings, she finds herself already drifting toward her designated racial enclave. Much like the assimilated Jewish kids drawn to orthodox Sabbath services at Hillel House, Brown offers Chiniqua - who was reluctant to attend militant black rallies in Harlem or troll clubs on 125th Street - a sterling opportunity to reestablish her racial bona fides and validate her blackness. Safely inside these gates, she can now pick up a dose of black culture pasteurized by ambition, whether it's a tweedy, just tenured black professor talking about radicalism at a coffee clatch or fellow black achievers partying hard this week because next week is already blocked out for studying. (203-204)

In contrast to the hardscrabble life led by minorities in less privileged surroundings - where one's skin color often holds negative connotations in relation to the mainstream white culture - ethnicity and race has been made more palatable here, as it is "pasteurized by ambition". This phrase is an especially succinct choice for Suskind: not only is "pasteurized" associated with milk and thus whiteness, it also brings to mind a process by which something natural and harmful is cleansed of bacteria. Similarly, the aspects of minority culture which are not considered seemly in higher education - the militancy and the kind of socializing found in night clubs - have been disposed of, leaving only those aspects which can support the "ambition" which drives people to Brown in the first place.

That said, the white students in Cedric's dorm find value in his exoticism, despite themselves:

Neither says too much. But as they listen to Cedric's speech - his black urban expressions, sometimes wrapped around an inappropriate infinitive verb or dropped suffix - a little street creeps into all their voices, part accommodation, part unconscious imitation. Cedric, whose ear is sensitive to such inflections, is not sure if he should be flattered or offended. (206)

This description is written in the overall dispassionate, journalistic style of the book, using linguistic jargon to show how the speech patterns changes. This only serves to emphasize how these particular imitations are mere examples of a broader phenomenon - what has been termed by Eric Lott as "love and theft" in the days of minstrels - where white culture seeks to imitate the culture of the black underclass. Cedric is "sensitive to such inflections", as he understands how his peers see him at Brown, but "is not sure if he should be flattered or offended" due to the complexity of this situation.

A different attitude among privileged white people is embodied by Zayd's mother, Bernadine Dohrn, during Parents Weekend:

Bill and Harriet start chatting with Bear, who's tagging along, and Bernadine's mind wanders to Zayd, to her anticipation of spending this weekend with him. He's her pride, her heir, and, in some ways, her nemesis. He's discovering his talents, like she was at his age, but using them in ways she thinks are narrow and, sometimes, frivolous. Signing on to sweeping social movements? Fighting for larger causes? Forget it. It's all so fragmented with these kids these days, she mulls. Everything focused on personal behavior and group identity, inward fixations; everyone a one-man show, displaying themselves through consumerism and fashion. Yes, they do believe in things, but nothing they'll sacrifice for. There are no overarching principles that Zayd or any of his peers seem to embrace. Take women's rights. Here she is, fighting against the dehumanization of women, and Zayd, using all his sexual sway, treats them like targets. Drives her crazy! She told a friend recently, "What Zayd needs is a beautiful, brilliant girl to kick his ass." A girl sort of like she was, at twenty. (224)

At the start of the paragraph, Suskind segues into Bernadine's perspective. There is a righteous tone to that perspective --punctuated by short sentences such as "Forget it" and "Drives her crazy!" - which contrasts sharply to the doubts felt by other characters, most notably Cedric and his mother Barbara. The activism of the sixties counterculture had a clear sense of right and wrong, and it dismays Bernadine that the lessons of that time - which she still embodies - are not passed along to her son. There is also an ironic twist in the last two sentences of this quote: beyond the Oedipal overtones of such an observation, there is also narcissism:. What Bernadine's son needs is someone like herself, she is the standard by which others can be measured for a virtuous life worth emulating. In effect, this portrait of Bernadine condemns the sixties counterculture for being too self-important, for speaking a great deal about improving the world but doing so in a manner that's obviously flattering to themselves.