TWO MASKS, TWO DIFFERENCES

By: Joseph Evans, Ph.D.

Something For Sunday

“We wear the mask that grins and lies it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.”

Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s iconic poem “We Wear the Mask” continues to speak prophetically into our current moment. For one reason, it serves as a glaring contrast with the expediency of Trumpian rhetoric. Trumpian rhetoric has an audience despite the healthcare expert’s warnings, and their factual evidence, which indicates that more than 100,000 Americans have died due to the effects of this pandemic. Indeed, Trump has enlisted many defiant dissidents; people who will not wear a personal protective mask while in public.

It appears that not wearing a mask is another form of signification. Indeed the mask is metaphor that is understood by those who refuse to comply with public health policies. It is reported by Myra Parson, that Jerry Falwell, Jr., has stated “He would be willing to wear a mask only if this picture of Governor Blackface is on it” (“Jerry Falwell Jr. Tweets That He’ll Only Wear A Face Mask If It Has Blackface On It”). Falwell has thrown shade against Ralph Northam, the current Governor of Virginia. Northam, a medical doctor served in that capacity in the First Gulf War. He was criticized for appearing in black face in a college year book photo. 

Falwell however openly reinforces the imperil edict that demands Trump’s disciples: “Do not wear a protective mask. This is how we encode that we want to be identified as disciples of Trump. The resistance to a physical mask means that we agree with and share his defiant views.” – But (readers) remember it’s not a physical mask but not wearing a physical mask is a metaphor.  We will return to this later in this writing. For now it is certain however that Trump perpetuates such behavior which points toward preservation of white racial supremacy. It is recognizable that Trump has compounded successfully the effects of race and class. Few, if any cannot see how he manipulates and contorts these racialized views as many demagogues have before him.

In fact, over the last few days, Trump’s divisive rhetoric has intensified amidst the alarming number of deaths. Instead of responding to these tragedies with personal empathy, he hurls attacks.  Disguised by insinuation, these harsh attacks are nothing less than another smear campaign.  This time, it is against Jeff Mason, Reuters White House Correspondent, and Joe Biden, former Vice President, and the Democratic Party’s 2020 presumptive presidential nominee. Instead of addressing the Coronavirus problem head – on, Trump pivoted by alleging another conspiracy theory. A theory that claims that media represented by Mason are against him and that Biden not wearing a mask signifies that he, Biden is weak. 

As mentioned earlier, we now address what we call a different kind of mask. The refusal to wear a mask is the new mask. Refusal not to wear a mask is metaphor and representation for white virility and particularly of the white male. James Baldwin would have recognized immediately this metaphor as a symbol for white supremacy. Baldwin once wrote about white mythology and the lengths that its disciples will travel to reinforce white supremacy. Baldwin was poised however to demystify it:

The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all for freedom – loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americas have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world’s most direct and virile, that American women and pure (See Chris Hedges’ article “James Baldwin and the Meaning of Whiteness”). 

Thus we assert here that Trump has created a metaphor meant to signify his support of a coldly calculated collective refusal to wearing a personal protective mask in public. The Trumpian metaphor is a sign that his refusal is a full-throated endorsement of white superiority – mythology.  Trump’s metaphor is silent but it is understood by those who share his worldview. It is a species of a large swath of white American’s passions to continue human domination over other people groups. Furthermore, Trump’s mask is metaphor that states – but in clandestine: “We will not share our resources; we will not change our cultural values although we know that our values are hegemonic. We will risk our lives because we believe foolishly our mythologies. A part of our mythologies, we believe; our genetic disposition will protect us and we dare God not to protect us because we willingly and foolishly believe; we are the superior people group.  Furthermore; we will not accept people of color’s human equality and yes, we are afraid – quite literally; we are fearful of a colored future.” This explains white human aggression and violence sanctioned by law and religion (at least those who confuse fascism with revealed religion). 

Violence and fear underline the Trumpian mask. The Trumpian mask is not wearing a physical mask. The resistance to wearing a visible mask is the metaphor.  It is metaphor that points to white supremacy – but it’s still a mask. In this context, we believe that Dunbar writes his poem.  Dunbar’s mask is another form of signification.  It is a different language that does not depend on Western influence over interpretation. Adroitly then, Dunbar’s metaphor points toward something deeper than the West’s conventional interpretation. It reaches for an interpretation that signals a way to survive human pain. This pain continues to be caused by the oppressor’s value system; a value system that reinforces the dehumanization of people of color. We now turn to Dunbar’s timing; that is, when his poem was published. The poem’s first audience was literate elite classes. And the elites had to read against their Western hearing to fully grasp what underlines Dunbar’s poem’s meaning.  

Dunbar’s poem underscores his native genius.  His poem was published in 1896 which is significant in this way:  The poem appeared in publication only thirty-one years after the official end of the American slave institution.  It should not be overlooked however that the poem mirrors the previous bondsmen and women’s experiences that will live in infamy and how they developed survival instincts and skills of adaptation. Because of their human condition, they learned to mask their feelings and opinions in order to survive. We see similar instincts and skills emerge in the Hebrew people during their Babylonian captivity:

By the waters [rivers] of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion [Jerusalem]. On the willows there we hung our lyres [harps]. For there our captors [tormentors] required of us songs, and our tormentors [captors] mirth, saying “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” (Psalm 137: 1-3). 

The psalmist was a master of metaphor, a kind of renaissance writer. Like the psalmist, Dunbar, a pioneer of the Harlem Renaissance, mastered the use of metaphor.  By this, we mean, that the poem’s mask is not to be taken literally.  Instead, it is employed in order to point toward something else.  That something else mentioned earlier, is to hide black feelings and even black opinions to avoid further humiliation or possibly death.  During Dunbar’s time, there were numerous deaths by the end of a rope – and for reasons that are simple to explain. Whites lynched blacks because – they (we) are black.  

According to a Tuskegee study (1892-1968), 3,446 blacks were lynched and according to an Equal Justice Initiative study (1877-1950), 4,084, blacks were lynched. Predominately these lynching’s occurred in the Southern states during post –Civil war period (73%).  Lynching black men and more frequently women has not stopped. Indeed it has continued but has evolved. In this case, we speak metaphorically about police brutality. 

There are too many names to list here but in 2014, all remember: Tanisha Anderson, Michael Brown, Michael Bland, John Crawford, Eric Gardner, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice to name only some.  Since that time, countless other human beings have been murdered by law enforcement officers; this includes recently the horrific deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. 

This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile: And mouth with myriad subtleties. 

The word guile in the West can be defined as cunning, craftiness, deception and subterfuges.  This however can be read in two different ways. First, it can be considered a learned behavior. This kind of behavior is enlisted and learned to survive.  It is an instinct to survive. Henry Gates warns in The Signifying Monkey against relying upon hegemonic interpretation and especially where that interpretation concerns black folk’s literature and cultural dialect: “The great mistake of [hegemonic] interpretation occurred because blacks were using antiphonal structures to reverse their apparent meaning, as a mode of preservation (73, p.).” In real terms, blacks said the opposite of what they meant in reality.  It was a cultural adaptation to avoid further discrimination and risk to their lives. We would argue that jazz was birthed in a similar fashion – jazz is an expression of the oppressed worldview!

We survive it appears, “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile: And mouth with myriad subtleties.”  These previous words point to survival methods that belong to the oppressed.  The meaning in this stanza “falls in between intent and meaning” as Henry Louis Gates has said (The Signifying Monkey, 47.). Once again, a first reading of “And mouth with myriad subtleties” we suggest should be read as Dunbar defending black survival – even if that means deception.  A second reading, and remember Gates correct understanding of black verse and – antiphonal techniques, the mouth with myriad subtleties more than likely means the lies told to the oppressed by the oppressors!  

Therefore, we must ask these rhetorical questions. “Is it the Negro’s guile that is in question or is it the oppressor’s human guile in question?” “Or is it both?”  The poem is not easy to interpret which points us again toward Dunbar’s genius. In his poem, Dunbar explains how blacks use their own tools to manipulate the master’s language.  Dunbar’s poem is an appropriate example of antiphonal structures reversed as “a mode of encoding for self-preservation” as Gates correctly states.  

We Smile, but O great Christ, one cries To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile, 

But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!

There was a time when blacks tried comedy, “We smile” not only on a stage, but in our daily lives. If black men or women could keep the oppressors entertained perhaps we may not be abused that day. Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (1902-1985) was a comedian that attempted to keep them laughing.  His stage name was Step in fetch it. He branded himself as “The Laziest Man in the World.” He reinforced the hegemonic stereotype of black men and made a living out wearing the mask. Perry reinforced a stereotype of black men and women “two stepping around the house, placing things back where they belong and looking for things that are missing from the places they belong, a kind of monotonous maintenance.” 

We can only explain Perry’s bootlicking behavior by suggesting that he was “one [who cries].  He kept the oppressor laughing perhaps to escape their unlimited power and unrelenting abuse of power. What is obvious, Perry’s comedy reinforced many white’s commonly held beliefs then and now. Perhaps, he was a trickster and he made use of his self-exploitation to survive.  We hold out hope that was the case and furthermore; we suggest that he was employing some form of signifying: 

Signifying seems to be a Negro term, in use if not in origin. It can mean any of a number of things; in the case of the toast about the signifying monkey, it certainly refers to the trickster’s ability to talk with great innuendo, to carp, cajole, needle, and lie.  It can mean in other instances the propensity to talk around a subject, never quite coming to the point. It can mean making fun of a person or situation. Also it can denote speaking with the hands and eyes, and in this respect encompasses a whole complex of expressions and gestures. Thus it is signifying to stir up a fight between neighbors telling stories; it is signifying to make fun of a policeman by parodying his motions behind his back; it is signifying to ask for a piece of cake by saying, “my brother needs a piece of cake” ( Roger D. Abrahams in The Signifying Monkey, 59.).

Pain underlines Perry’s form of signification, “To thee from tortured souls arise.”

We sing [and tell self-dehumanizing jokes], but oh the clay is vile.” Of vile clay, was this the black’s dehumanized body made vile in order to survive? Perhaps, but again employing Gates’s assertion that Western interpretation may mislead readers. We choose to read against Westernized hearing and notice that the clay is beneath the oppressed feet. This may indicate more clearly that the foundation or metaphorically the institutions that reinforce the nation’s laws and mores are vile and not the bodies of the oppressed. It is the oppressed who are forced by the oppressor’s rules to accept her or his subhuman conditions.  What follows however is a shaft of light that points toward the future. 

Let us not overlook Dunbar’s appeal to “Oh Christ” for justice. This seems to be the key to interpreting the last stanza of his poem.  Dunbar has asked God’s anointed one, his/our Messiah, our Savior, the Christ to intervene.  The last stanza therefore is a recognizable prayer; a prayer of the oppressed. If I am vile, forgive, justify and redeem and declare justice!  If I sing to deceive, it’s because the clay beneath my feet is vile – please forgive, justify, redeem and send a heavenly decree for justice! “Beneath our foot, and long the mile,” is signification that Dunbar is looking into the future to where justice is found and will be administered.   

Thus the irony, there are two masks. One is the metaphoric mask worn by the disciples of Trump. Indeed it is not the visible mask of the Ku Klux Klan; it’s an encoded invisible mask.  Against the advice of the healthcare community’s experts, they refuse to wear a physical one. But we understand the metaphor. The second mask, it is metaphor, which; Dunbar offers but neither is it visible.  It is the learned survival instincts and techniques enlisted by the oppressed.  We cannot take off our coronavirus mask until it’s safe to do so – but as soon as it is considered safe to do so, we must remove hurriedly Dunbar’s mask too. We no longer need it. The human demographics are why Trumpian disciples refuse to wear a physical mask. Remember their mythical virility. But the disciples of Trump, you will need to wear a physical mask until we hear all clear!  That means you have removed your invisible mask. Face it, white supremacy has done more to you than even coronavirus can.