This was my final paper for my Minority Voices class, Fall 2014. We were tasked with tracing a single theme (of our choice) throughout five of the nine African-Americans texts we read during the semester. For my topic, I chose "The Two American Dreams."
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The Two
American Dreams
The United States of
America's “Declaration of Independence” states, "We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness” (par. 2). This document was signed and published in
1776, a time when blacks in America were still enslaved and had no access to
these "Rights." It wasn't until 1863, almost one hundred years later,
that slavery was abolished and African-Americans could rightfully claim these
unalienable rights. Restricted by both white opposition and the disadvantage of
almost three-hundred years of slavery with no proper preparation for
assimilation into the greater whole, other than a brisk thrust forward, African-Americans
found themselves unable to rise to the heights of freedom that white Americans
had been for so long privy to. Even after blacks found a footing in American
society, this idea of equality seemed only a pipedream. The American Dream that
promised Life—one not truncated, but lived to its fullest capacity—, Liberty—the
freedom of access, choice, and right of personhood—, and the pursuit of
Happiness—the supreme right of existence, one given by being birthed into the
very existence of manhood—seemed to be completely out of reach for the
African-American. Rather than given a share in this America promised to him,
the African-American was faced with an America that not only required sacrifice
of personhood, dreams, and self, but an alienation
to the very rights promised him. Thus was born a second American Dream, a fractured and halved dream, more true to
its namesake than anything else.
Booker T. Washington, the
man known as one of the most prominent leaders in early African-American
progress, was born into the tail-end of slavery. Experiencing this tumultuous
time during his early life, the American Dream for Washington and his people
had not yet begun to be defined. For Washington, blacks’ entry into American
society first meant proving their own worth, then receiving the rights due them. For those who lived during
Washington's time and strove for the same ideals he did, this idea made sense.
After all, there was great criticism and skepticism over whether or not blacks had
the potential to rise to the heights of American society. Washington's main
goal, then, was to prove the worth of the African-American in his right to citizenship.
Washington
single-handedly ushered in the largest reform of African-American standards of
living. He sought for education, practical skills in workmanship (a staple in
his curriculum for life), and eventual release of these men and women from his
school to venture their way into this new America, seizing it through their
earned rights.
Arguably, Washington's
fatal mistake was his condonement of American acceptance of blacks into
American society as a whole only after
they had earned the right. In essence, Washington had devalued the
African-American by placing him below the value of intrinsically inheriting the
inalienable rights due an American citizen. This was D.E.B. Du Bois's main
criticism of his contemporary. It is difficult to fault Washington in this way,
however, since he had no prior-existing program to follow, no blueprint for an
American Dream that had only recently become available. Washington wouldn't
have believed he was buying into a second American Dream, but his compromising
policies fostered this reality, regardless.
Du Bois, while having
great respect for Washington and his work, lived out Washington's policies and
saw too clearly how eager white America was to accept these compromises. This
America found itself content to allow African-Americans the right to seek its
Dream to an extent, but this context never once included full equality. White
America was more than happy to keep the African-Americans marginalized, but Du
Bois' generation had already earned their right to citizenship (and then some)
and wanted the full package. Du Bois criticized Washington's focus on the
working black man and argued instead for the necessity of the black
intellectual. To achieve the American Dream, Du Bois reasoned, one had to take
hold of it in all aspects, not just
vocationally. Du Bois argued that the only way the African-American could find
equal finding with the white man would be to show him he could stand toe-to-toe
with him in the intellectual sphere as well. Unfortunately, Du Bois also lived
in such an early period of the African-American's foray into citizenship that
his ideas were not widely accepted. The American Dream for the African-American
remained a fierce struggle, one that would continue to require much
white-knuckling before any progress became visible.
Richard Wright centered
the events of Native Son in the
1930's, just thirty years after the publication of Du Bois' writings, The Souls of Black Folk. In his book,
Wright depicts the life of Bigger Thomas, an African-American growing up in
Chicago. For Bigger, the inaccessibility of the American Dream has become so
compounded that it has broken the African-American people as a whole. Wright
shows the cruelty of the dual American Dreams in how one is presented to all
men, promising the fulfillment of every desire—you need only to possess it—yet
for the African-American it is one that is forever out of reach. The cruelty,
then, lies within how easily this Dream is in view for one to look at and
desire but can never, ever be touched.
The tension between these
two American Dreams is what drives Bigger's hatred of white people. For Bigger,
he attributes responsibility to the white population for creating the divide
that keeps him and his people from achieving the American Dream that comes so
naturally and without any effort to the whites. Mary Dalton, a white female who
sympathizes with Bigger's plight (though in a somewhat misdirected way),
represents for Bigger the very pinnacle of this Dream divide. She is born into her money; Bigger is born into
his poverty, his skin, and he hates her for being the reminder of it.
Wright doesn't
necessarily seek to resolve the problem of the divide between the two American
Dreams; in fact, that's not his goal. What Wright is trying to accomplish is first, highlighting the breadth to the
divide, forcing complacent and ignorant, largely-white Americans to recognize
the problems of the divide in equality and personal rights between the two
races, and second, by informing his audience of the latter problem, Wright
hopes to foster the connection between these two Dreams and bring about a more
progressive equality.
In James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, progression
certainly has occurred to bridge the gap between the two American Dreams. In
Baldwin's personal account, he tells a story of meeting with Elijah Muhammad, a
prominent leader of black Muslims in America. It was Elijah's position that all
white men are devils in which nothing but evil exists. This radical Muslim group
has completely set itself up against the white population. However, Baldwin
himself claims to have several white friends with whom he would trust his life.
The entire dinner party involves Elijah’s trying to convince Baldwin of white
evil and divinely ordained black supremacy; all the while Baldwin politely
listens but thinks otherwise, almost pitying Elijah. The ironic twist to the
story is that Baldwin has Elijah's driver drop him off at a white friend's
house at the end of the event.
In these polarizing
examples Baldwin displays the progression of the American Dream as each race
understands it, and the growing divide, as well as progressive resolution, to
the differences between the Dreams. In their Liberty, Elijah and his Muslims
have come to such a point where they are no longer subjugated to the white man.
However, Elijah is a product of the suffocating racial tensions seen in Native Son, though worsened to a much more
severe degree: Bigger Thomas' hatred has a voice. But the complete racial
divide seen in Wright's story is not present in Baldwin's life. Baldwin
actually has white people he would trust with his life, something you'd never
hear Bigger say. This reality speaks volumes of how much the racial gap has
been healed.
Lorraine Hansberry
tackles the idea of the two American Dreams more directly in her play A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry tells the
story of the Younger family and their struggle to live out the American Dream.
Taking place at roughly the same time as Baldwin's The Fire Down Below was published (about 1960), there exists the
social elevation among African-Americans that was present in Elijah Muhammad's
company. This and other striking differences distinguish the era represented in
the play from previously mentioned examples. Lena "Mama" Younger owns
a home. Beneatha Younger, daughter of Mama, is considering being a doctor, a
profession now available to an African-American. Walter Younger, the son of
Mama, dreams of starting a liquor business, working in an office building, and
being his own boss. The American Dream that was once available exclusively to
whites has become much more in reach for the African-American Younger family.
However, there are still
discrepancies between what the Youngers want
and what is realistically available to them. Walter wants to get his family out
of poverty as well as the tiny house they live in, but he needs money to do so.
He needs money because his job working as a chauffeur doesn't pay him enough.
He works as a chauffeur because it is one of the only readily available jobs to
an African-American in his day. Walter actually finds himself in a
catch-twenty-two with his financial situation. He needs a large sum of money to
get his family out of poverty (startup costs for the liquor store), but because
he has never had money he doesn't actually know how to use it. When he finally
gets the money he ends up losing it by entrusting it with an untrustworthy
business associate, robbing his family of the only chance they had to escape
their lifestyle.
The almost pitiful
handicap Walter seems to be at is a result of buying into and chasing the
American Dream—a dream that, again, says you can have whatever you want as long
as you've got the desire for it. Here again there are two American Dreams,
though nowhere near as polarized as they were in earlier examples. One says the
Youngers can have anything they want, as much as they want, yet as hard as they
try to live this Dream out they are met with continual frustration. For as far
as this society has progressed there still exists the dual American Dreams.
The unfortunate reality
in all these texts is that the two American Dreams never become one. That is
the hope, as there never should have been
two—all men are created equal (so they said). While the gap between what was
accessible and what was only a dream certainly closes, even to a commendable
degree, it persists nonetheless. For the African-American, there will always be
an American Dream contrary to the one they've been promised. One can only hope
that with time this gap shrinks to a degree so barely noticeable it would
appear not to exist, or, more preferably, its non-existence would become a
reality. If the pattern shown between these texts is any indication, there is
definitely hope of such a trend, though hopefully it happens sooner than later.
***
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. New
York: Vintage Books, 1993. Print.
Declaration of Independence. 1776.
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk.
Chicago: Dover Publications, Inc.,
1994. Print.
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun.
New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
Print.
Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery.
New York: Dover Publications, Inc.,
1995. Print.
Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Harper
Perennial Modern Classics,
2005. Print
