Racial Inequality in "Down By the Riverside"

 

There were many scenes in “Down by the Riverside” that show inequality between how white people and black people were treated, and in a time of crisis, the inequalities become more severe. “Down by the Riverside” shows opposition to racism by showing the horrible things that were happening to the African Americans of a community affected by a flood. The first scene that I will examine is the scene where Mann rows up to the house of the people he stole the boat from. At this point of the story his wife is still alive and they wanted to call the hospital to hopefully get help getting there or have the hospital be ready for them when they showed up. What I find most interesting about this scene is that the people of the house didn’t immediately offer to help, but instead they wanted to see who the person in the boat was before offering the phone. In a time of crisis like the flood, you would imagine that everyone would want to help each other. After the white people found out who the boat belonged to they almost immediately started shooting the people on the boat even though they weren't posing a threat to the white people. This shows the inherent racism of the white people. Also Mann shoots and kills Mr. Heartfield, but he doesn't get a fair trial which shows inequality.

The next scene that I want to examine shows racism in how white people are treated differently than black people when they want to go to the hills to escape. After Mann has just lost his wife and is clearly distraught, a soldier comes up to him and asks him if he is sick to which he responds no. After this he is asked to go work at the levee and he pleads not to go. The soldier states that it is martial law that the black people go and work, and he is immediately put to work. This law only applies to black people which shows inequality in the legal system of the south. Also, there is no sympathy for Mann even though he has just lost his wife. It is unlikely that white people would have been treated so poorly after losing someone important in their life. All of the white people that were able to make it out of their houses got to go straight to the hills and escape any danger, leaving the dangerous work for the black people. Also, the soldiers are not doing much manual labor and they are just acting as overseers in a similar sense that slaves may have had overseers. This scene highlights extreme racial inequality that goes even into laws.

Another scene that I want to explore is the one where Mann saves Ms. Heartfield and her children. After Mann has finished his work on the hospital roof, where he breaks through the ceiling with an axe and then helps people through, he is handed a piece of paper with an address on it. He gets into a boat with another person who reads out the address. Mann realizes where this is and it hits him what might happen: “Mann stared at Brinkley, open-mouthed; the flash-light dropped into the bottom of the boat. His fingers trembled and the wind blew the piece of paper away.” Unfortunately for Mann, Brinkley was set on trying to make it to the house. On their way to the house Mann thinks about telling Brinkley about him killing Mr. Heartfield, but he realizes that it is too late and they continue to the house. When they get to the house and Ms. Heartfield doesn't respond immediately, Mann urges them to turn around. They continue to attempt to save the family even after the house starts floating away. I think this shows especially in Brinkley that the black people are willing to go to large lengths to help people out even if they don’t get the same in return. Mann also goes into the house to save them even though he could have told Brinkley it was too dangerous inside the house and left. This shows that Mann is accepting that he will likely sacrifice his life to save the white people.

The final scene that I want to examine is Mann’s questioning scene with the soldiers after he was caught. This scene highlights Mann’s unfair treatment in the legal system and how biased the people prosecuting him are. Mann is not allowed a court date and he is killed based mostly off of what one kid says. Mann tries to defend himself, but is cut off by the kid “‘Capm, he shot at me fo Ah shot im! He shot at me…’ ‘He stole our boat!’ yelled the boy.” The soldiers asked Mann questions, but it seemed like his answer had no effect on their final decision on what to do with him. Mann also stopped pleading for himself after a little while because he began to realize that there was nothing he could do to avoid his execution. The inclusion of this in the story is likely in part to address the inequality faced by black people in the legal system. Another noticeable detail about the interaction is that the soldiers tried to have Mann also accused of harassing Ms. Heartfield and her daughter. It is interesting that the soldiers do this and it is clear that they want to show just how bad Mann is before they ultimately execute him.

Speaking Culture into Literature: African American Vernacular

African American vernacular is a relatively common theme among works that we have read so far in African American Literature. African American vernacular can be easily noticed because of its distinct characteristics. When reading African American vernacular, you may notice that the words are attempting to depict the way many African Americans sounded like at that time. This is done by getting rid of some words, switching around word order, or making some words have different meanings than they would have in standard English. For example the word “is” is often removed from a phrase and there is either no replacement, or there is another word such as “be” that replaces “is.” Although this way of writing technically breaks the rules of standard English, it is not considered broken English because it is its own dialect that follows set rules.

Religious African American vernacular is common among many works we have read in class. Words such as Lord are often spelled as “Lawd” and the vernacular also shows up in religious services. The religious services use a lot of call and response preaching where the preacher says something and the audience responds back. Some of this religious vernacular is expressed in “When Malindy Sings.” In this poem, Malindy is depicted as this angelic being who everyone should listen to when she sings. I think that Dunbar tries to make the connection between Malindy and a religious figure since her singing has an element of being perfect just like a god. The poem explains how Malindy “Bless yo’ soul” when you listen to her, further backing up the religious aspect. Also, when Malindy sings “Rock of ages” the poem explains that “Simply to de cross she clings.” This is so moving to the people listening that “you fin’ yo’ teahs a-drappen’.” I find it interesting how the vernacular seems to be tied into their religion and this shows in just how different a mostly African American church preaches than a white church.

Although the African American vernacular follows a broad set of rules, when reading different works it is noticeable how different the language seems from one work to the next. This shouldn’t be surprising however since there are also large differences in how standard English reads from one work to the next. In “Bound No’th Blues” there is continual use of African American vernacular in the poem, however it differs a lot from other works such as “Scotty Has His Say.” In “Bound No’th Blues” the vernacular is much weaker than in “Scotty Has His Say.” For example, in “Bound No’th Blues” the vernacular was mostly just a “ (part of word)+’ “ for example goin’ and nothin’ and the grammar is slightly changed. This is all in comparison to “Scotty Has His Say" which has strong vernacular traits. For example, the sentence “Muh brown what’s tendon’ chillen in yo’ big backyahd” has the traits of “Bound No’th Blues” and some more. It has the same traits of removing to be verbs and adding an apostrophe instead of completing the word. Along with this, the words are spelled a lot differently than they would be in standard English like “muh” and “chillen.” The different spelling of the words is mainly what sets it apart from “Bound No’th Blues.” Also, some works like “Goin’ Back” have parts which use African American Vernacular and parts which don't. This is effective in splitting up which parts of the work are narrations and which parts are spoken.

African American vernacular is also used as a form of resistance against white literary standards. Many African American authors wanted to use their own dialect instead of conforming to the white literary standards. The vernacular also allows the writers to share their language culture through writing. A lot of the readings we have done have either directly or indirectly talked badly about the white people. One of the most direct examples of this is in “Scotty Has His Say” where the dialect is aggressive at times to the white people. For example, Brown writes “Oh, dat gal is young an’ tender, So jes’ don’ mistreat huh please, Or I’ll put a sprig of poison ivy In yo’ B.V.D’s.” Here he is threatening any white person that mistreats a young lady and he is saying that he would put poison ivy in someone's B.V.D’s (an old brand of underwear). This is a very direct statement that shows how African Americans are trying to resist the power imbalance between white and black people in the south. Overall, African American vernacular is very diverse and gives a good insight into the spoken traditions of many African Americans at the time and it was also used as a form of resistance against white oppression at the time.

-Lucas