Bitter Fruit
John Tooke
American Fiction
Blog 3
“So he entered his heritage. He ate its bitter fruit…” (110). This is a line from William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses. Roth, ashamed of the history behind him, has no other choice than to dine at the table and sleep in the bed of his brothers. This shame is not his own, but he is forced to deal with it. It is his race. It is the “bitter fruit” of his skin color, and the “heritage” he cannot ignore. He is not allowed to. What really is “race” though? Is it a legitimate classification of people, and if so, what can it be based on? Surely, skin color cannot be sufficient enough to group a mass of people together as one. Merriam-Webster defines race as “a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock” and, “a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics” (1). The first suggests a more genealogical and geographical look at a type of people, whereas the second focuses on the cultural aspects of a community. This is a very outdated method of classification. Race is simply a construct of a society that is attempting to organize its people into neat and orderly piles.
To be a little cheesy, are we not all part of the human race? This statement may seem a bit optimistic, but it is an obvious one (unless, of course, you are a Hammerskin or a Black Nationalist). Anthropology has advanced to a point where many misconceptions about the origins of humanity can be put to rest, but we still seem to be living in a world bent on recognizing the differences among its inhabitants. The easiest observation is the color of one’s skin, so naturally that is how people can be best classified, right?
Let’s go back to the definitions of race in the opening paragraph. The first talks of a family tree type structure. The problem here is that everyone’s family is a jumble of different nationalities, skin colors, and “stocks.” So can a person be classified by the end result of that mixture? It seems to be so. The second looks at the cultures of a people; their lifestyles and habits. This is an even less reasonable way to catalog people. There really is no specific type of person interested in a particular type of lifestyle. True, there may be more black people interested in a certain way, or a large number of white people leaning towards a likeminded type of behavior, but to classify people as such is an oversimplification. The 21st century is an extremely diverse one. With the internet and specifically, social networking, we have the ability to look intimately at different cultures and at what they each have to offer; greatly broadening our potential to expand our interests.
Race, however defined, seems like a needless generalization because we live in a world where these types of limiting boundaries are dissolving and soon, perhaps, classification won’t even be a necessity. The next time a survey asks your race, draw a box, check it, and beside it write “all of the above.” This is probably more accurate than any of the given choices!
“Race - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary.” Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race>.
Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.
