bourgeois blues: intergenerational relationships and manhood as post-civil rights discourse

Bourgeois Blues: Intergenerational Relationships and

Manhood as Post-Civil Rights Discourse

Kerry L. Riley

For a long time I pretended my father was dead. I blocked him out of my mind, rarely mentioning him to friends or discussing him with family. I craved a life in neutral, a simple, orderly life; a life insulated from the turbulence associated wi th my father. No ugly confrontations, no financial catas- trophes. I just wanted to do my job, hang out w i th my friends, pay my bills on time. I submerged myself in everydayness. Everydayness, I thought, would be my deliverance. Pretending Dad did not exist made it easier for me to get through the day; and far easier for me to believe that I was nothing like him. But, at twenty-seven, I was finally coming to grips with the fact that my father and I were, naturally, inevitably, the same thing, that most inconvenient of Ameri- cans: a black man who didn't know his place. (Lamar, p. 11)

THE EARLY YEARS

Born in 1961, Jake Lamar Jr. is a l i fe long benef ic iary o f the gains o f the civil r ights movements. He is reared in a midd le class en- v i ronmen t in the Bronx, New York City and he receives his early educa t ion at pr iva te schools. Eventual ly, he g radua tes f rom Harvard University, major ing in h istory and l i terature, wh ich pro- pels him in to New York as a copywr i t e r fo r T ime magazine. Jake Jr. seems the quintessent ia l " b u p p i e , " and his a t t a i n m e n t o f an

Kerry Riley is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnic studies at the University of California-Berkeley. He has published articles, book reviews and essays in a variety of publications including Black Issues in Higher Education and in an anthology titled $oulfire (Viking, 1996).

Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir is a

painstakingly

reconstructed history of a

relationship; that of the

young author, Jake Lamar

Jr., with his father, Jake

Lamar Sr. However, i t is

also simultaneously a

history of black America and its attempts to survive

intact while beneath the

hegemonic yoke of white

supremacy. Jake Jr.'s

memoir intricately

intertwines race, class,

gender, intergenerational

relationships, and very

crucially, historical period

in a profound manner

unparalleled as a recent

example of the socio-

complexities of recent

gender scholarship.

48 J o u r n a l o f A f r i c a n A m e r i c a n M e n

upwardly mobile position has emerged during an embryonic era within his young career.

By contrast however, his father, Jake Sr., was not born of comfortable surroundings and environs. Jake Sr. describes himself as "an escapee from the garbage can" when reflecting upon his poor, humble southern beginnings in Shingley, Georgia. This "poor ole' country nigger" was an "academic phenomenon" who skipped two grades, started college at fifteen and was regarded as "the smartest nigra in the state" by the local educative bod- ies. Eventually, Jake Sr. went to Morehouse and excelled at ev- erything, especially business administration where he graduated at the top of his class. Despite his humble beginnings, Sr. was educated, ambitious, upwardly mobile, highly intelligent, and popular, especially with the ladies. Yet, Sr.'s parental lineage was somewhat complex. His father, the first Jacob Lamar, is described as poor, yet hardworking, excellent with cars, and a sharp dresser, who married Sr.'s mother, nicknamed "Good." However, eventually his "nasty side began to show" and eventually Good took the young Jake Sr. back to her parents when his gambling, drink- ing, and beatings became too abusive. Raised by his grand- mother, young Jake Sr. "rarely saw his father" but occasionally, would visit him in the garage where his father worked on cars. When Jake Sr. was thirteen, Jacob and his wife moved to another state resulting in his "never see(ing) his father again." Af- ter Morehouse, Jake Sr. was drafted to serve in the Korean War, eventually married, started a family and excelled in his business consulting firm.

Therefore, within this narrative, we have two men: both African American, "successful," educated, middle class, who share the same genetic structure. Seemingly, this relationship should be cemented with a strong like-minded bond of similar- ity in love and circumstance. However, this first paragraph of the memoir is indicative of a total ly opposing reality. For the first line, "For a long time I pretended my father was dead," we discover a relational chasm, marked by years of stubborn silence and ego driven insecurity and separation. Yet, by the end of this first paragraph, Jake articulates the revelation which it took him twenty-seven years to grasp: "the fact that my father and I were, naturally, inevitably, the same thing, that most inconvenient of Americans: a black man who didn't know his place ."

Thusly, Jake Jr.'s narrative commences with a powerful array of linguistic discoverance. In one paragraph he articulates the psycho-complexities of a father-son relationship; however, this is no ordinary father and son. They are both African Ameri- can and as such, their relationship is governed by a series of dark

Riley 49

and sinister ethical polarities insidiously ensconced within white supremacy. Jake Jr.'s pretense of his father's non-existence serves as a litmus test of truth and reality. For twenty-seven years, Jake has perpetuated the partially erroneous belief of his father's otherness and is now compelled to embrace his "sameness." This otherness-sameness dichotomy underlies the relational conflict which bisects father and son. Essentially, both Jakes will be viewed as a threat to white patriarchy and as evil, demonic, and devilish forces to rent asunder the "New World Order." For both Jakes, survival will be the operative goal to strive for.

This "sameness" characteristic manifests itself in various other mechanisms as well. Most notably, both Jakes react to their fathers in the same manner--with silence. Jake Sr. repressed all memories of his father after his abandonment. In fact, Jake Jr. was constantly being reminded by other family members of his resemblance to his grandfather. However, "not a single snap- shot of my grandfather appeared in any of the family photo albums I'd seen... My father had never, not once, mentioned his father to me." At the memoir's beginning, Jake Jr.'s gimmick to feign his Jake Sr.'s death mimicked the exact behavior of his father. Therefore, these relational silences are replicated in the same pattern of broken relationships. Ironically, brokenness of spirit usually conjures up images of oppressive noises, anguish, and lamentation. The silence between the Jakes cannot be heard, and yet the brutalness of the emotional pain creates a "screaming silence"--an oxymoronic reaction to the intergenerational rupture screaming for resolution and justice. Non-comprehen- sion of their shared misery leads to the creation of an Uothered" consciousness effectively rendering both Jakes as victims of an "affective enslavement." In essence, despite class status, education, and privilege, father and son are languishing bunkmates in the cell of "emotional incarceration," stinting the evolution of both manhoods. Once again, the hollow echo of historical enslavement resounds as it seems that white supremacy has won another battle by the alienation of African American men from one another, and therefore, from the world. Consequently, Jake Jr. is detained from bonding with his engendered ancestral line. However, unexpectedly, twenty-seven years later, Jake Jr. experiences a revelatory enlightenment as he discovers his father to be an ontological vagabond, much like himself.

However, despite this ontological sameness, there is an existential "otherness of context" whereby the how-to's and the wherefores of their respective experience are manifested. Many factors, especially historical, geographical, and existential ones create an otherness, which though not necessarily conflictual

50 Journal of Afr ican A m e r i c a n M e n

with the sameness, nonetheless creates a sameness-otherness dichotomy. This complex relationship between both factors requires a highly precarious and tenuous negotiation, with a conscious acknowledgment and understanding of this engendered identity chasm. Unfortunately for the two Jakes, advice and coun- sel were not available, and the sameness-otherness dichotomy implodes, creating intergenerational conflict.

Jake Sr. is an excellent example of a pre-lntegrative syn- thesis of African-American manhood. Most African American men born prior to the civil rights era have internalized the overt traumas of segregative life and its blatant racist woundings. However, the post-Integrative men, oblivious, ignorant, and de- tached from the engendered events of African American men of prior generations in some way have internalized a naivet~ which renders them helpless to combat the subtleties and covert woundings of prolonged exposure to hegemonic racism. Additionally, the post-integrative African American men are also subjected to the ubiquitous battles of racial identity politics. Certainly, prior generations created their own subjective litmus tests of authenticity. Yet the integration movement of the 1960s created a new identity of African American manhood which required newer and more complex mechanisms and often solic- ited critiques of "sell-out" or "oreo" or "handkerchief head." The interpersonal conflicts of the two Jakes are firmly and pro- foundly rooted within their dueling historical contexts which creates a chasm of miscommunication and misunderstanding; a Great Divide of such magnitude that it eventually leads to a tem- porary death of the relationship, and becomes a subtle form of "lntragenocide."

Nevertheless, Jake Jr.'s discovery compels him to search for clues of his father's complex, erratic behavior, for it seems that Jake Sr. was a man of many contradictions. Simultaneously, he manifested charm, rage, childishness, gloom, arrogance, inferiority, and work obsessiveness. Jake Jr. seeks to understand his father's boiling pot of emotional stew with an examination of his father's background:

I remember my father as a man of furious contradictions. He had an irresistible charm that made him the center of attention at any gathering; yet he was given to long peri- ods of impenetrable gloom. He was a man who loved to drink and party; and a workaholic who often stayed up all night at the dining room table laboring over his latest business projects. When he played with his children, he displayed the enthusiasm of a kid himself. But in an instant he could explode into terrifying, violent rages. He was a man of tow-

Riley 51

ering arrogance who nonetheless was tormented by a sense of inferiority that bordered on self-loathing. Race and class were at the core of one of the most painful conflicts in Dad's life, the struggle to reconcile the world in which he had been born--poor, Southern, black--with the world in which he tried to establish himself, one that was wealthy, privileged, white. (12)

Interesting enough, Jake Jr. establishes the source of his father's psycho-internal dissonance as the essential conflicts of his "two-ness." Jake Sr. could not resolve the world from whence he came with the world within which he now competed. Jake Jr. indicates that his father's interpersonal difficulties seem to be a direct result of his inability to negotiate a peaceful compromise between the two. However, unexpectedly, this analysis confronts assumptive and simplistic questions of epistemology and methodology within social science. Supposedly, mobility sim- plifies both existence and relational patterns for African Ameri- cans. However, Jake Sr.'s socioeconomic ascendancy creates an entirely unique form of internal dissonance. His internal struggle testifies to the erroneous assumption that improved social con- ditions necessarily provide for interpersonal betterment. In this analysis, both Jakes are compelled to understand themselves as marginalized characters in a tried and true morality play.

In this riveting memoir, Jake Jr. offers us many glimpses of his relationship with his father and illuminates yet another area long ignored and devoid of analysis, which is the shifting nature of these engenderizing relationships: "Most men are neither good fathers nor bad fathers, but rather, better or worse fathers at different times in their children's lives. When I was very young my father was very good". He even speaks of Jake Sr. as a playmate who offered him quality time to his children. Yet, Jake Jr. offers us something else highly profound; he shifts fatherhood from a merely pejorative morality play into a complex set of psycho-historical relationships. In doing so, he poses the possibility that different phases of fatherhood occur over time, as transitional patterns are buffeted by the demands of a race struggling for survival.

While he experienced his father as a playmate during his early childhood, his later childhood brought forth feelings of fear associated with his father's presence: "There was a time, just a few years earlier, when the click of my father's key in the door was like an alarm to me. The sound typically occurred in the dead of the night." This image conjures up visions of Jake Sr. as a thief stealing into a forbidden space; a mysterious and


dangerous force. This fearful thievery also manifested itself in their game playing. Jake Sr. teaches his son to play chess and more importantly, the importance of total competition. Noting that "he never allowed me to win," Jake Jr. articulates yet again his fear at his father's presence at the chess board:

Anything less than total effort disgusted h im. . . As much as anything it was fear that motivated me. Fear of nuns, of course, but an even greater fear that if I didn't compete, if I didn't win, my father would somehow stop loving me. Fear of losing a Dad's affection, combined with his increasing absence from the apartment and his anger toward my mother became fear of Dad himself. At nine years old, I was terrified of my father. (45-46).

But in the mid-60s, Jake Sr.'s career began to ascend and he rose in importance and status. The Lamar family moved near Yankee Stadium into an apartment building, becoming the second black family to reside there. However, as Jake Sr.'s promi- nence rose, so did the friction and tension in the household: "Fewer guests came over. We saw less and less of my father. He said he worked so long and hard that he had to spend many nights on the couch in his office. Mom didn't believe him. Yet when he came home, Dad often worked late into the night" (39). Again, this relational irony is brought forward and confronts the assumptive claims of social scientists. In this instance, mobility proves to be the force which ironically disunites his family. The seizing of these newfound post-civil rights opportunities by Jake II leads to the demise of their family structure, not an enhancement. This truly calls into question our knowledge of family structures and class. Also questioning these claims is the existence of a high volume of information regarding "dys- functional family systems" which is focused upon white families. Recently there is a plethora of revealed tales of abuse, rape, and incest indicating a "tangle of pathology" and denial that characterizes the white community which has had substantial and relative accessibility to mobility.

Additionally, few social scientists have allotted t ime for the analyses of black middle class families who have maintained their status over several generations nor for those black middle class who have achieved this status post-1960s. In Black Mascu- linity, published in 1983, Robert Staples notes that from the 1960s into the 1970s, the black divorce rate increased 113% (Staples, 114)! More recently, Alice F. Coner-Edwards and Jeanne Spurlock edited an anthology, Black Families in Crisis: The Middle Class, where they note: "In fact, long standing oppression, poverty and deprivation continue to affect the psychology, role relationships,

Riley 53

and behavior of many blacks who achieve middle-class status. These effects may be deeply embedded, outside of awareness, and unknowingly transmitted behaviorally from generation to generation and via interactions with peers" (ConerqEdwards and Spurlock, iv).

As Jake Jr. grew older, his father transitioned from the helpful playmate into the rage-filled tyrant, cursing and screaming, thus creating an upwardly-mobile living hell for the entire family, especially for Jake Jr.'s mother, who was eventually thrown out of the household by Jake's father. In one rage-filled moment, Jake St. beats Jake Jr. and his younger brother Bert for mischief at the expense of their cousin, and their severe punishment seems incongruous with the infraction. After a slapping and a belt-whipping, Jake Sr. orders them to get a haircut, after previously granting them license to grow a small afro. But on hindsight, Jake Jr. knows that his father's rage has a deeper source:

And it occurs to me that this punishment has nothing to do with [their cousin] Asa at all. It is, I realize, about more things than I can comprehend; but the one thing I know it is about is power. My father is letting me know that he has all of it, and, I , at twelve, have none. Dad's authority will not be challenged. And the only thing I can do to strike back is not to cry, not to let Dad feel even stronger at the sight of my crying. So I fight back my tears, as I watch tufts of hair tumble softly off the apron tied around my neck, forming a downy black pile on the kitchen floor. (68)

This passage is crucial. Jake Jr. indicates that his father is obsessed with power, and despite his contrary rhetoric, he still believes himself to be that "poor little ole' country nigger," emasculated and powerless. Despite his material success, Jake Sr. reveals himself to be ensnared within the vestiges of a white supremacy which renders impotent his material power and cuts short his evolutionary manhood. His household becomes the sole place where he can exercise total potency as master of his kingdom, and he transposes his rage and frustration towards his family. Unfortunately, Jake Sr. participates in the othering process of his sons by beating them into submission, physically and men- tally. In one traumatic moment, emotions, power, rage, and relationship clash and create an existential mechanizing which merely loops the intergenerational conflicts onto the next generation. This passage clearly illustrates that the shackles of white supremacy continually serve to constrict ability and the right to experience the deepest spiritual planes of intimacy, especially among African American men. Rationally it would seem that


African American men would unite upon their "sameness of otherness" so that the engendering constructs of manhood would therefore be fulfi l led to completion. However, spiritually the intergenerational scars run at such a level of depth that ratio- nalism is substituted for an irrational rage and thusly creates a symbolic projected flagellation. As Jake Sr. beats Jake Jr., he is actually beating himself into emotional submission, while simultaneously sublimating his childhood pain and innocence as a shield against his unbearable human weakness.

However, with this sublimation, vulnerability is denied-- a critical gift upon which manhood should be partially based. In one sense, Jake Jr. is entrapped in an emotional time-warp. White supremacy disallows him the sharing of his experiences as they relate to his vulnerability and subsequently, his repressed pain expresses itself in the form of hostility and emotional inaccessi- bility. Therefore, he must exert his kingship over his castle. The "power" he claims to understand is but an illusionary and temporal force which creates an ethical chasm the proportions of which are magnanimous. It is within this hollow echo that Jake Sr. coerces his sons to reside.

Despite these early conflicts with the "tyrant" side of his father, a major shift occurred in the later teen years of Jake Jr. During this period, Jake Sr.'s persona begins to resonate more like the "mentor" prototype. At various unannounced times, Jake Sr. would meander into his son's bedroom, usually with a drink in hand, and wax poetically upon his accomplishments via a rambling self-congratulatory monologue. Jake Ir. sarcastically recalls these bedside chats as he is being held captive to the "Myth of Dad" (60). His accounts of these chats are spoken in mockery of his father as a pathetic, yet comical character with grandiose and illusionary recollections of life upon the edge:

"Ain't nobody ever became a success by relying on luck. Success is earned. You gotta work for it. You gotta make yourself a success. You gotta do it by force of will. You may come from the garbage can, but you can't act like you do. You understand what I'm saying? When I go into a meeting with these white folks to consult them on how to run their business, I can't act like some coon from Shingley, Georgia. You see, man, you have to command respect. They gotta respect you the minute you walk into the room. Which means you've got to look right. First impression is key. And you know what the most important thing is in making a first impression, don't you?"

"What?" "Your shoes." "Shoes?"

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"Your shoes. Your shoes have got to have a fresh shine on them. That's one of the first things they're gonna notice. Why you think you see me spending so much time shining my shoes in the morning? I won' t even trust them to any- body else. Shit, nobody's gonna do a better job on 'era than me. Man, I was out on the streets shinin' shoes for a nickel when I was five years old. And I made more money than all the other shoeshine boys 'cause I knew how to make those motherfuckers gleam."

I wondered nervously what my father thought of the bat- tered, grimy white sneakers I wore all year-round.

"You gotta swear those details, man," my father continued, his voice rising. "This is what black folks don't want to understand. Yes, a black man has to work twice as hard to get half the credit. That's just reality. That is the nit of the grit. Niggers talkin' about black power one minute then turn around whinin about how 'Whitey did this to me' and 'Whitey did that' and they've got no fucking understanding of what real black power is--and what you've gotta do to go out and get some of that power. You gotta get what the white folks got. Show 'em you're just as g o o d - - b e t t e r ! - than they are. But you hear niggers talkin' about how they don't want to deal with the white man, don't want to sell out, don't want to assimilate. They want black power and they don't even fuckin' know, can't even see the facts star- ing them in the face, can't deal with the nit of the grit." Dad shook his head, took another sip of his drink. "1 understand power" (32-33).

Again, in this passage we can witness the s imul taneous pair ing of t w o in tergenerat ional prototypes. First, it seems tha t Jake Sr. represents the " c lown" as he exhorts Jake Jr. tha t shoes make the first impression and there is a wry comical w i t expressed as the scene is recounted. In recount ing his methods for success, the fact that Jake Sr. considers shoe-shining the most critical ac- t ion of his day indicates a partial absurdity of Jake Sr.'s wor ldview, and, of course, forces Jake Jr. to w o n d e r about his comparat ive nature as he reflects upon his "bat tered, gr imy wh i te sneakers."

However, wh i le the clownish qual i t ies of his father 's per- sonali ty are clearly evident, the context of these chats reflects more of his father's need to be the mentor for Jake Jr. In this speech, along w i th the o ther bedside chats which Jake Jr. re- counts, Jake Sr. very painful ly tells of his struggles to succeed as a black man in a hosti le env i ronment . Certainly, Jake Sr. seems misguided as his cont inuous struggles to accumulate belie his material success since he cannot gain peace and contentment . But he becomes imprisoned as an unwelcome player of vapid wh i te boy games. In some ways, his quest is paral leled by the


endless motions of Sisyphus and the proverbial rock. Yet, in retrospect, Jake Jr. realizes that these seemingly meaningless meanderings of his father actually were a foreshadowing of what his struggles would be as a black man in professional America. These bedside chats represent numerous attempts at intergenerational transmission by Jake Sr. who wants to pass on his stories of survival and transcendence so that his son will have a much easier time than he did. The passage of these stories reflects the critical survival skills which the first Jacob Lamar had not been present to deliver. Yet, at that time, Jake Jr. was incapable of understanding this, and therefore he did not consciously internalize them. Instead of positioning himself at his elder's feet absorbing a transformative oral history, Jake Jr. sees himself as a captive audience of an inescapable theatrical performance offered by an insincere and drunk actor. Jake Jr. did not recognize that, for whatever reason, his father had shifted from the "tyrant" of his earlier teens to the "mentor" of his later teens.

Of course, these bedside chats are revelatory of various negative aspects of Jake Sr.'s character as well. It becomes very clear that Jake Sr. understands manhood, and therefore fatherhood, to be fulfi l led in the acquisition and provision of material goods and services, as opposed to an ontological state of relational reality. Essentially he possesses a very utilitarian view of fatherhood:

I was born a renegade and now I'm gonna die a renegade. See that's how I live my life. Now I went out a here Thurs- day morning. I come back today, Sunday. Now, I do not ex- pect to get the third degree about where I been and what I been doin' for the past three days. 'Cause as long as I do for her and do for all a y'all, it ain't nobody's business if I don't come home for a few days... 'cause you may not see me around here much, but when you need me.. . Hey, man, when you need me, I am there!" (61)

Obviously, there are numerous flaws in Jake Sr.'s reason- ing. First, what does he mean by "renegade"? And connected to that, why does he understand this quality as an innate characteristic as opposed to the fallout from his unresolved issues? Of course, yet a third point of contention with Jake Sr.'s argu- ment is his desire to substitute intermittent trouble-shooting with lifetime parenting. He understands need-fulfi l lment in terms of solitary events, not as life-long discourse. Intergenerational needs transcend those of mere material formalities and Jake Sr.'s obsession with status blinds him to the relational nurturance which fatherly presence can create. Yet, he must also be commended for achieving his goal in which he was "determined to be a bet-

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ter father to my children than my father was to me" (29). Rela- tively speaking, Jake Sr. was an excellent father and this paternal subjectivity is crucial for understanding the gulf between father and son.

Nevertheless, Jake Sr.'s "storytime" became a very important element in his daily psychological functioning. It gave him a cathartic opportunity to detox his rage and pain, grieve his failures, and illuminate his successes. It also gave him the chance to achieve the emotional bonding which had eluded him during adolescence, and he was able to compensate for his failures at lost time with Jake Jr. Admittedly, there was a power imbal- ance, as Jake Jr. was at time, a captive audience. However, gifts of vulnerability and story were exchanged and though Jake Jr. was unappreciative at the time, these bedside exchanges would later inform his judgment as he sought to create his place in a hostile world:

As the family became more fractured, I began to feel like Dad's only ally in the house. Listening to his tales, I could understand why he had lashed out at us in the past. Having lived a hard life, he could not help but be a hard man... But dad was tough. He had persevered. He had prevailed. My father, I believed, saw in me the same raw elements that had made him a success in the world. Through his talks, I came to realize that he wanted to cultivate me, to teach me how to be strong. To make me more like him. I was an ea- ger pupil. (72)

Yes, Jake Sr. does provide critical elements of the paternal function which Jake Jr. only grasps upon retrospect. During one of his monologues, he exhorts Jake Jr. to consider the Presi- dency and to "prepare for your destiny" (62), meaning prep high school, followed by a "top notch" college followed by law school or even a Rhodes scholarship. Jake St. continually inspired his son to reach for the stars and to seek that space which is beyond mediocrity, and therefore survival. This is perhaps the most critical aspect of the African-American paternal function: to in- spire your children, especially the sons, to believe in their dreams and to set achievable goals. Unfortunately, Jake Jr. chooses not to comment upon this section and seems somewhat apathetic as to its importance.

Finally, this love-hate relationship experiences yet another blow as Jake St. takes up with a white female friend, Ruth, whose two young children Jake Sr. shared a warmth and coziness with that was foreign to Jake Jr. and his siblings. The young Jake was forced to endure these scenes personally, and notes that "1 never let on how painful it was for me to hear these stories; I just let

58 J o u r n a l o f Afr i c an A m e r i c a n M e n

them go on talking. I had a bitter desire to find out what my father had been doing when he hadn't had time for his wife and children" (99). Of course, the anger is two-fold; first, Jake Jr. and his family are neglected by his father as he seeks comfort outside of his biological home. Second, they are not only neglected, but they are substituted for and replaced, by white children, who are not biologically bonded to Jake Sr. The racial politics of these actions are obvious and exceedingly painful for Jake Jr.

These are just a few of the issues raised by the father- son relationship in Bourgeois Blues.

GENDER DEVELOPMENT

Conspicuously absent from the field of gender studies is material on the actualization processes of gender development as it relates to maleness or manhood. Arising from the women's liberation movement of the 1960s, gender studies was initially conceived to fulfill the need for an academic and intellectual explication of the interconnection between feminism, patriarchy, power, and of course for the African American feminists, racial oppression. Often called "womanists," these African Ameri- can women brilliantly articulated their harrowing experiences as victims of the double-barreled effects of racism and sexism. Yet an unexpected result of the empowerment of women has created a situation in which gender is conceptualized as the explication of women's consciousness and subjectivity. In essence, gender is now equated with femaleness and, is thusly understood as oppositional to maleness. In Bourgeois Blues, Jake Lamar Jr. offers us a glimpse of a methodological approach as it relates to the engenderization process for African American men.

Throughout the memoir, Jake Jr. consistently asserts that his father conceptualized manhood as an object of acquisition. This theme of manhood acquisition can be found in all onto- biological inquires articulated by African American men. While the materialistic and status-driven mechanisms of Jake Sr. seem externally extreme, non-fulfilling, and relationally unhealthy, it can be noted that manhood acquisition does involve a complex intra-psychic set of internal machinations which varies for each individual. Essentially manhood acquisition can be understood to be the end result of a fourfold process: 1) consciousness, 2) initiation, 3) achievement, and 4) resolution. Both Jakes experience all four stages, yet again, they are experienced within two totally different social climates, once again resurrecting the relevance of the otherness-sameness dichotomy.

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Consciousness is the most diff icult of the processes to ascertain. In Bourgeois Blues, we are inherently handicapped due to the predisposed structure of the narrative. Jake Jr. is the sole narrator of the story, and as such, all information is f i l tered via his biased perspective. In addition, many of his observations are a very complex syncretism of childhood recollections and adult modes of examination. Therefore, we can only surmise that Jake Jr. is sharing what he feels is relevant information on his father. Given this structural obstacle, we can still cite examples where both Jakes discover their engendered differentiation as African American males and the expectation and appropriated behavior patterns which accompany it. Regarding Jake Sr., we know that as a child he would occasionally visit his father's garage to converse with him. Indicative of an engendered connection, Jake Sr. never expresses the importance of these visits, but his eter- nal silence seems to stress their importance, especially after his father's abandonment. Jake Sr. also spoke of "George Brown, the husband of Good's older sister and a surrogate father of sorts, who taught him how to hunt and fish and hold his l iquor" (30). It also seems that as a young African American boy in the South, his coming of racial and gender consciousness would have occurred very early in his life. In the land of Jim Crow and brutal lynchings, African American males were appraised early of their survival odds.

However, with Jake Jr., we are given several clues to his coming to consciousness as an African American male. He notes that his "racial consciousness was aroused at age three," (34) when he heard his uncle raging against white people. Jake Jr. experienced a resulting confusion as both his sister and his mother were very light-skinned and he always thought they were white. Politely, his confusion is somewhat nullified as it was ex- plained to him that the women in the family were Creole, yet were still considered "colored people" (35). He notes elsewhere that "after Daddy and Dr. King, Sidney Poitier was my biggest hero," (47) and later that Dr. J (basketball player Julius Erving) was also a hero. It is crucial that he mentions these African Ameri- can men as heroes and it is indicative that he does have an Afri- can American male identity consciousness.

Yet, there are two scenes, each involving a parent noted in the book, which especially raise the difficulties of Jake Jr.'s movement into racial and engendered consciousness. One scene pertains to his father and he notes that Jake Sr. seemed indif- ferent to issues of racial identity: "Dad simply told me that if I worked hard and excelled in school, no one would care about my race. Dad abhorred racial activists like Stokely Carmichael


and Angela Davis. He mocked people who wore afros and dashikis. A registered Republican, he would end up voting for Richard Nixon in three Presidential races" (46-7).

Again, Jake Jr.'s developing racial consciousness, first influenced as age three, is impacted. This memoir proves to be a diary of racial identity as well as the anatomy of a relationship. Jake Sr.'s pontification of race and culture certainly bring to mind the philosophical exhortations of Booker T. Washington often incorrectly know as "accommodation." Jake Sr. articulates his belief that hard work alone can transcend racial and cultural barriers which will eventually result in acceptance as an equal. However, the story as presented by his son, is indicative of an opposite reality. Jake Sr. constantly articulates the importance of race, and as Jake Jr. notes early in his book, "Race and class were at the core of one of the most painful conflicts in Dad's l i f e . . . " (12). Indeed, Jake Sr.'s difficulty in achieving healthy balance in his life is his inability to balance his philosophy with his reality. Nevertheless, Jake Sr.'s belief systems were internalized by his son and inspired him to heights beyond victimology, especially during his stint at Time magazine. The second childhood incident of note involves an interaction with Jake Jr.'s mother. We know little about their relationship, but it seems to be one of warmth and tenderness. However, Jake Jr.'s mother, Joyce, unconsciously conspires to negate Jake's iden- tification as an African American male when he was young. He notes:

I often heard Mom talking on the phone with friends and relatives damning my father and all the men of her race. Black men were selfish. Black men were cruel. Black men would screw any woman with a pulse--especially if she was white.

"You know mom," I said one afternoon, "when I grow up, I'm gonna be a black man. Are you going to hate me too?"

She gave me an impatient look. "Well," she said shortly, "you'll just have to be different."

From then on, when Mom complained to women in her family, she spoke in Creole patois so I wouldn't understand what she was saying. But I know that each day her bitter- ness deepened. (48)

This recollection of Jake's is crucial for the understanding of gender relationships within the family. As a young boy, Jake Jr. recognized his engendered sameness with his father, yet in overhearing his mother's condemnation of all African Ameri- can men, Jake Jr. is confused again in terms of his racial and

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gendered consciousness. By generalizing negative attributes to African American men, she was condemning her son creating a youthful existential crisis. Suddenly, he is faced with losing his mother's love and respect because of his biologically determined status. It is Jake Jr.'s mother who participates in the othering process which eventually keeps the two Jakes apart, blinding them to their sameness. Jake is faced with choosing his identity to the appeasement of both parents and he becomes a pawn in their struggle to maintain their belligerent relationship. Children often see and internalize many more signals than realized, and the inclusion of this story in the memoir gives much needed insight as to the origins of conflict between the two Jakes.

The second stage of male gender development is that of initiation. The re-inclusion of this stage has become very well- known of late in popular culture due to the advent of the "Men's Movement." Spearheaded by mytho-poetic guru Robert Bly, this 1980s movement purports to recapture the "wi ldman" or the ancestral spirit of masculinity. Returning to generic ancient tribal rituals of yore, this movement recreates rites of passage pro- grams, which were previously intended for adolescents, by having the male elders initiate the younger males into manhood. Perhaps this takes a weekend, or even a longer period of time, but the emphasis is on the mentoring relationship. Recently, in the African American community, the "Afrocentrists" are utiliz- ing a similar philosophy by taking their cue from various Afri- can tribal rituals, which also ini t iate the young males into manhood.

However, for the two Jakes, initiation into manhood was something that had to be achieved individually. For Jake Sr., his initiation into manhood was ushered in via two mechanisms: 1) college, and 2) the military. Earlier in the narrative, Jake Jr. in- forms us that his father was an "academic phenomenon" (20) and as such found himself at Morehouse University when he was fifteen. Morehouse, an African American University in Atlanta for males, is one of the historically black colleges and universi- ties, and perhaps best known for its internationally famous alum- nus, Martin Luther King Jr. Morehouse carries a long tradit ion of molding the minds, hearts, and spirits of thousands of Afri- can American men and it seems likely that Jake Sr. would have internalized the legacies of the African American men before him. Again, we know little of this period, but it seems likely that his racial and engendered consciousness would have been affected.

However, Jake Sr.'s final init iation into manhood would have occurred during his stint in the military. When he received

62 J o u r n a l o f Afr i c an A m e r i c a n M e n

his draft notice, he "was the angriest man in America" (25). De- spite the fact that he had graduated college, and achieved a good job at an Atlanta bank, he was drafted for service in the Korean War, proving that America's puppet strings remain ac- tive even if you do the right thing. Again, we know little of his military stint, yet a cursory glance at the historical period offers us much insight into the manhood initiation of African Ameri- can men. Prior to the 1940s, most African American men could only secure employment via various unskilled, blue-collar labor positions. However, with the advent of World War II, the military became a viable option of employment and many African American men enlisted. Then, in 1948, an Executive Order from President Harry S. Truman, desegregated the armed forces and numerous lifetime careers were born. Due to the lack of other options, most African American men joined the military during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s after high school and, because of con- tinuing racism, they tended to bond together in unofficial fra- ternities.

Life in the U.S. military was considered both honorable and manly. As a soldier, courage, intelligence, masculinity, physi- cal strength and common sense were requirements of the position and the ability to rise in status in "the white man's army" became an opportunity to assert one's manhood in the face of both white patriarchy and enemy gunfire. But this military socialization of African American men raises still more questions which have yet to be posed in the field of gender studies. First, how did the climate of the U.S. military--regimented, hierarchi- cal, demeaning, paternalistic, imperialistic, colonialistic, etc.-- affect racial and gender development of this military group? Closely related, how did this climate affect their relationships and expectations within their own family, especially their sons? Second, a cursory glance at this issue raises the intricate question of intergenerational relationships vs. intragenerational relationships. Most studies of post-adolescent males tend to spotlight peer-age as the primary area of socializing activity. But again, more study is required: Which is more important, inter- or intragenerational relationships in terms of gender initiation and socialization? Does it vary according to the individual? Do they shift and change according to historical era? The region? Urban, suburban, or rural? More knowledge of these issues would have given us a more informed glimpse of the relationship between father and son in Bourgeois Blues.

In the case of Jake Jr., his initiation into African Ameri- can manhood seems to occur at two separate levels; one is the crux of the narrative chronicling his relationship with his father.

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The other seems to be a latent occurrence when he leaves home and moves to Harvard. Regarding the first level, almost the whole of Jake Jr.'s adolescence seems to infer an initiative process, especially with the string of bedside chats which occur more fre- quently in Jake Jr.'s later adolescence. While Jake Jr. is neither excited nor anticipatory of these monologues, the fact of the matter is that his father/s sharing his struggles to survive as an African American man in the world and he is offering his son a foretaste of his struggles to come. Directly and indirectly, Jake Sr. instructs his son into the processes of African American manhood, and he has definitive ideas as to how this is to be worked out:

"And you giggle too much. You sound like a faggot. Your voice is too high-pitched, you sound like you're squealing. Talk like a man. You gotta sound strong, confident. Talk like you know what you're talking about."

Jake Jr. replies, "1 don't want to sound arrogant." His father retorts, "What's wrong with being arrogant?

I'm arrogant." (82)

In this scene, Jake Sr. reveals a somewhat stereotypical view of manhood. It involves confidence, arrogance, low-pitched vocalization, etc. It is also possible that Jake Jr.'s insinuated effeminate mannerisms are a manner of rejecting his father's conception of manhood, and especially reinforced by his mother's degrading perceptions of African American men. This seems to be a partial explanation as to why he finds his relationship with his dad so oppressive. Of course, his father couldn't understand that his conception of manhood was not applicable to everyone's situation and that the post-Integrative group must develop their own coping mechanisms of manhood which are appropriate to their historical period. Again, all African American men must develop the skills necessary for survival via some form of initia- t ion. However, these inflicted modes will be influenced by historical context and will vary from generation to generation. Once again, the sameness-otherness dichotomy reappears to underscore the conflicts between Jake Sr. and Jr.

There is still yet another excellent example of Jake Jr.'s initiation into African American manhood which occurs after his family's upwardly mobile move to a white neighborhood in the North Bronx: "Living in Riverdale, I began, for the first t ime in my life and with no effort whatsoever, to terrify ordinary pe- destrians" (87). He then speaks of his frightening power to bring "flashes of terror, paralysis and pan ic . . . I felt that an outside world I'd known nothing of had come crashing in on our secure, ethically cultured lives" (88).

64 J o u r n a l of Afr i can A m e r i c a n M e n

Jake Jr. expresses his shock and dismay at the moment in every African American man's life when he is "Hortonized." Re- ferring to the 1988 presidential campaign, Willie Horton was an African American man whose unkempt face and presence were used to terri fy voters into electing George Bush in place of Michael Dukakis. Horton was a prisoner released on fur lough in Massachusetts when Dukakis was governor. After his furlough, Horton ended up in Maryland where he raped a white woman and the Republicans exploited the fear of the African American rapist to terri fy voters. This "power" that Jake Jr. speaks of is an impotent power--restricted in scope, circumstance, and magnitude. This race-gender paranoia creates in Jake Jr. an internal dissonance because his self-concept renders him not as the vic- timizer, but as the victim. It should also be noted that the appli- cation of Hortonisrn occurs in a transclassist form, i.e., it is applied to all African American men, regardless of class status. However, the onset of realization is probably later for most middle class African American men.

The last two stages, achievement and resolution will be covered in later sections as they are more applicable to those themes. Suffice it to say, for Jake Sr., he achieves manhood when he successfully creates his own rise to status in the business world. However, our later discussion will probe the authenticity of his achievement. In terms of resolution, his bedside sermons are indicative of a certain amount of resolution, yet again, there is also a subtle ethical ambiguity which presents itself and questions the authenticity of his resolved inquiry. All of this wil l be discussed in the section pertaining to the African American middle class.

Concerning Jake Jr., his achievement seemed to begin occurring as Jake Sr. spent more of his time away from the household: "In Dad's absence, I came to fill a special role in the family, dispensing advice and support, smoothing over misunder- standings among others" (111). He replaced his father as the "man of the house," yet he still possessed an unresolved role as a son requiring nurturance and guidance as well. However, he truly began to achieve manhood when he separated from his father and chose his major at Harvard. Perhaps wri t ing and En- glish would be considered a " faggot job" by some, but Jake Jr. remains unmoved when he is not longer controlled by his father's economic machinations. He further achieves a sense of manhood, when he begins to break rank at Time magazine, also to be discussed later. Of course, the total i ty of the memoir itself serves as a resolution point for Jake Jr., the immensity of which wil l be discussed in the final section.

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INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

The relationship between Jake Sr. and Jr. falls into a larger category known as Intergenerational Relationships. Very little work has been offered in social science to give us clues as to how they work among African American men. It is especially crucial to f rame the father-son conf l ict w i t h in this intergenerational context as family relationships among African- American people have been fluid enough to encompass a notion of "extended family." This family structure in many ways is con- tradictory to the "normal" white familial notion of the "nuclear" family. However, residual tribalism from the African continent has served to create a more comprehensive notion of family and therefore familial conflicts must also be understood in this context. Probably the best examination of intergenerational conflict was completed by David L. Dudley in his book My Father's Shadow: Intergenerational Conflict in African American Men's Autobiography. In his provocative prose, Dudley notes:

My Father's Shadow examines a line of African-American men's autobiographies from Frederick Douglass's work to Malcolm X's, including also Baldwin, and Eldrige Cleaver. I identify among these writers a kind of Oedipal conflict wherein each rising writer faces and overcomes his predecessor in the tradition. This predecessor, besides having writ- ten an autobiography establishing a powerful "1" somehow threatening to the younger writer, often occupies a position of power in the black (and sometimes white) community that the younger man would like to have for himself. To use Harold Bloom's expression in The Anxiety of Influ- ence, the young autobiographer must overcome the older in order to clear imaginative space for himself.

This passage from Dudley's book offers a glimpse into the conflictual relationship of the two Jakes. As African American men, there is the sameness aspect of the relational dichotomy in effect which is certainly the primary purpose behind the bedside chats wherein Jake Sr. "could now kick back and pass on the fruits of his knowledge to his first-born son and namesake" (17). In essence, what we have here is an intergenerational transmission; the moment the oral histories of survival are passed on to empower future generations. This emotional transmission often provides the foundation from which the next generation can begin to create its own world. Since Jake Sr. did not have the same opportunity, it is especially commendable that he would break the cycle and try to instill a sense of empowerment in his son, who unfortunately is clueless of the situation: "1 didn't know


why he seemed to take a greater interest in me in the past eigh- teen months. Perhaps it was because I'd reach the same age Dad was when his father dropped out of his life. Whatever the reason, I was flattered every time he sat down to talk" (29). Yet elsewhere he also notes that he always has to prepare for the replayed scenes of "an extended boozy monologue, another retelling of the Myth of Dad" (18).

In actuality, Jake Jr. seems to contradict himself. It seems that sometimes he's flattered by his father's attention, and other times he is oppressed by it. The very ambiguity of this attrac- tion/rejection dichotomy is crucial to this memoir and crucial for examining intergenerational relationships in general. In his book My Father's Shadow, Dudley notes that for a variety of these men, such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin or Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammed, the younger man initially transforms the elder into a surrogate father figure and seeks emotional close- ness with him. However, at a certain point, the younger male discovers that to actualize his true identity, he must break ranks with his elder, creating an emotional chasm, which is sometimes irreversible.

This emotional ambiguity underscores the final conflict between father and son creating their five-year rift. Jake Jr. is at Harvard, no longer restrained by his father's "totalitarian state" (93). He decides to major in American history and literature; however, "only one person stood between me and my goal" (96). Jake Sr. denigrates his choices and demands that he substitute them for "marketable skills" (101) eventually manipulating his son by threatening to w i thho ld f inancial support and '~ (97). Initially Jake Jr. acquiesced. However, Jake Sr. began to experience financial hardship and subsequently was incapable of financing his son's education, giving Jake Jr. the opening he needed to break away. Supported now by financial aid, Jake devotes his time to his passion, which is writing. Yet this vocational conflict is also rooted within a psycho-historical misunderstanding. Jake Sr. is representative of a pre-lntegrative African American psyche one which experienced multivarious barriers and hardships, due to systemic racism. However, while this group fought for transformation and status, they assumed that the following generation would choose the options that offered them the most opportunities. Therefore, for Jake Sr., a major in business would have been appropriate. However, what the pre-lntegrative group does not understand is that it fought for freedom of choice, and the following generation has the right to choose, even if its choice does not offer the status and prestige the pre-lntegrative groups preferred. These complex is-

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sues of choice, freedom, and vocat ion underscore much intergenerational friction.

Subsequently, father and son experience their supreme blow-up as Jake Jr. stands up to his father, who, watching, his familial and financial world crumbling around him, explodes in a cathartic moment of rage and fury:

What the hell is your problem? What kind of shit are you trying to pull? You wanna hate me cause of what happened with your mother?... Children can't hate their parents! I'm not gonna have it! Maybe you saw me go a little crazy that night.. . But we're not gonna have this fucked-up father- son bullshit! I don't have time for this crap! I won't allow i t . . . You think you're smarter than me? Do you! You can't find you way to the bathroom without me!" (103)

After the many years of repressed pain and suppressed frustration, Jake Sr. rages at his son, yet in reality, he is raging at the American society which created the context for his tirade. Correctly, he notes that the conflict between he and Jake Jr. is rooted far beyond tuit ion payments. Simultaneously, he is impacted by: his inferiority with white men, his failed relationship with his wife, h/s non-relationship with h/s father, as well as his inferiority and competitiveness with Jake Jr. This raging moment of irrational fury seems to be a reaction to his lack of formerly held control. In denial he seems to be incapable of comprehend- ing that this "father-son bullshit" is already present, and his anger towards his son is seemingly indicative of the fact that Jake Jr. is confronting him with the reality of his situation. Most criti- cally, Jake Jr., the young upstart, is threatening the secure des- potism which Jake Sr. has created, and is therefore a threat to his sovereignty. When Jake Jr. claims his vocational freedom, the kingdom of Jake Sr. is rendered obsolete.

It is crucial to note that Jake Jr. rarely mentions any Intergenerational relationship in the first half of his memoir, other than with his father. Besides his other African American male heroes, he does mention Dr. King. When his familial situation became unbearable, he would often envision a visit from Dr. King at night assuring him of brighter days ahead. This could be viewed as the "spiritual mentor" prototype where a literary connection occurs despite the fact that the two men have not met and may never meet face to face. Nevertheless, it seems that Jake Jr.'s only other intergenerational relationship with an African American man occurs with the man he euphemistically refers to as "Survivor." Survivor had manipulated his way throughout the T/me bureaucracy and was rewarded by becom-


ing the Chicago Bureau Chief. He was highly respected by the management powers that be and had received numerous con- cessions from them as well. Survivor assumes the role of Jake Jr.'s mentor and supplies him with the resources necessary to navigate Time's crocodile-infested waters.

However, Survivor proves to be a life-saver when Jake experiences an existential crisis at the magazine. Jake is assigned to author his first cover story on "Underclass Families" and under Survivor's tutelage, he creates a probing story of depth, ana- lyzing the social, political, and economic forces that perpetuate the problems of these families. Unfortunately, the editors sought a piece that illuminated the self-perpetuated "social pathology" of these families, and they opted to kill the story. Jake Jr. is de- stroyed. Yet, Survivor flies in from Chicago offering consolation and an alternative plan to refurbish the story, using the same information, highlighting the crisis of African American men, entitled "Native Sons," which is accepted by the editors. Survi- vor models for Jake the pol i t icalwrangl ing necessary to transcend the white patriarchal bureaucracy. He provides consolation, presence, sanctuary, and political maneuvering.

For the first t ime in Jake's life he is free to trust an intergenerational relationship requiring neither silence nor compro- mised integrity. Had Survivor been absent, it is certainly possible that Jake would have drowned in his rage like his father, and become yet another casualty of hegemonic racism. However, Jake not only survives at T/me, but he matures and thrives as well. More importantly, it is only after he interacts positively wi th another African-American male, that he can grasp the sameness element in his relationship with his father and begins to f ind the compassion necessary for a reversal of estrangement.

Subsequently, Survivor is transferred to New York as Time's first African American senior editor, which also affords more interaction between him and Jake Jr. Jake Jr. is assigned another story on the African American middle class. Jake rejects this assignment as he sees it as a continuation of the tokenized condition of African American people, minus the depth and criti- cism. Dramatically, he expresses his disgust and frustration wi th Survivor--creating a prototypical scene in which the young, recently converted hothead seeks revolutionary transformation immediately becoming hopelessly cynical when it is not immi- nently forthcoming. In contrast, you have the older veteran who offers the rational voice of experience, by retelling the history, pointing out the progress, and preaching hope:

"It's like I tell my sons," Survivor said, putting his feet up on his desk. "Racism is there. Racism is always going to be there.

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Racism is like hurricanes. If you live in a place where there are hurricanes, you can sit around wringing your hands and crying about how the hurricanes are going to wipe you out, or you can take the proper precautions, fortify your house, take intelligent steps to defend yourself against the hurricanes." (151)

Clearly, Survivor has his situation well in hand. However, it is also important to affirm both aspects of the struggle; first, the overwhelming hopelessness and powerlessness in which Jake detoxes the rage from his system, and second, the stage of the "Resigned Warrior" represented by Survivor, who has clearly earned his euphemism. But it must be noted that these two critical processes occur in the memoir in the context of an intergenerational relationship; one which benefits the older man, as well as the younger man.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

While Gender Development is crucial for a holistic understanding of the father and son conflict, there are other factors affecting the psyche development which require a brief analysis. Modern psychology, as descended from the 19th Cen- tury school, has been rendered obsolete in terms of its relevance towards African Americans. In 1968, a group of African Ameri- can psychologists, in recognition of the dearth of psychological research on racism as a mental health issue, formed the Associa- t ion of Black Psychologists (ABP). Dedicated to the eradication of the "deviance model" generally applied to African Americans, the ABP continues to carry out racial-specific research to aid in the development of African Americans. However, two major aspects have been ignored during these last thir ty years: 1) the psychological development of gender differentials between men and women, and 2) the psycho-historical differentiation between those African Americans born prior to the Civil Rights movements and those born during or after the period. These two issues will be the focus of the analyses of Bourgeois Blues.

As noted earlier, Jake Sr. originated from the southern agrarian climate of Shingley, Georgia. As a "poor ole country nigger," (17) Jake Sr. experienced the overt racism of the Jim Crow laws, and the blatant discrimination which characterized race relations in the early 20th Century. He was raised among a t ight knit community of southern Afr ican Americans who, though poor, still managed to create a quality of life which offered him the foundation necessary to make greater achievement and advancement. Jake Jr. notes that "race and class were at the core of one of the most painful conflicts in Dad's l ife"


(12). Additionally, Jake Sr.'s psyche was also shaped by his poverty, his vocational tokenism, abandonment by his father, military service, etc. Most importantly, Jake Sr.'s psyche was developed during the pre-Civil Rights era, creating a specific psycho-historical context.

By contrast, Jake Jr.'s "first home was the St. Mary's hous- ing project in the south Bronx" (33). As a child of a northern urban industrial area, Jake Jr. was far removed from the humble southern beginnings of his father and only later in his life is he cognizant of the regional differences that affected their relationship. While traveling to his parents' birthplaces, he seemed ill at ease and was excluded by his cousins due to his strange style of speaking. However, after repeated trips, "we grew more comfortable with each other and I came to feel a strong connection to the people and places down south. But I also recognized for the first time how different I was from my parents, what strikingly dissimilar worlds we had grown up in" (31). Not only was he cognizant of the geographical distinction, but the historical, relational, and psychological differentiations as well.

For Jake Jr. was born in 1961 and began his private school training in 1966. This was during the height of the Civil Rights movement with the March on Washington, Civil Rights ACt, Vot- ing Rights ACt, etc. He is among the first faction of African Ameri- can children to be integrated in the north, and this partly skews his perception of race relations and cultural power. Having only white teachers and mostly white student peers, Jake Jr. developed a worldview which did not fathom white people as enemies nor realized the impact upon the bonding of the African American community. Integration was a huge experiment which many thought to be the panacea for the African American situation. Responding to the wave of publicity after the Brown vs. Board o f Education ruling and the infamous doll study of Dr. Kenneth Clark, social scientists wanted to observe the effects of assimilation upon African American children when they were placed into the white educational system, which was assumed to be superior. However, desegregation was understood as in- terchangeable with integration--an incorrect assumption; accessibility did not mean assimilation. Afrocentrism was vocal about this from the beginning. Unfortunately, the conflict between father and son is complicated by these confusions. Despite the status into which Jake Jr. was born, he was highly naive as to how this history blinded him to the racial context of his family relationships, and he grasped mainly the otherness aspect of the racial dichotomy. This blindness was an unexpected effect of integration.

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Yet another major factor affecting the father-son relationship is the latter's latent discovery of racism as a present, insidious, malevolent force with acutely destructive powers: "At sixteen, I'd never been the victim of overt racism." However, he also notes: "But the older I got, the more I found that the color of my skin was the dominant factor in how people judged me and judgments were getting harsher all the t ime" (13). This latent awakening of the impact of racism is most definitely a factor in his integrative psychological underpinnings. Prior to the Civil Rights movements, it would have been impossible for any Afri- can American man to have neither experiences of overt racism, nor a consciousness that it exists. Growing up down south, Jake Sr. was pounded with both knowledge and experience and a major part of their conflict is this; Jake Jr. doesn't understand racism and manhood as it was, and Jake Sr. doesn't understand it as it is. This psychohistorical duality permeates the essence of their conflict.

A conspicuous absence from the memoir is Jake Jr.'s lack of information about his peer relationships. He mentions earlier in the text that a lot of his friends were white. However, he does indicate a long-term relationship with his friend Roy, a seven-foot African American man who shared many post-Inte- grative experiences with Jake, especially the difficulties and frus- trat ions of documenting racial authent ic i ty. Yet, even his constructions of his peer/age patterns begin to change as his latent awakening of the permanence of racism begin to snow- ball:

And while I had always liked to believe there was little dif- ference between my relationships with white kids and black kids... I was becoming more aware of the special dimen- sion of intimacy I shared with my friends of color. There was a comfort, a knowingness, a sort of exultation among us. (84)

Yet, as his consciousness grew, Jake Jr. experienced phe- nomenal emotional disturbances which accompanied his illu- mined insight:

I'd discovered that first year of college something I had not known was in me: an anger. I didn't really know where it came from; I didn't know what to do with it; but I carried it with me all the time. (93)

In this passage, Jake Jr. experiences an absolutely crucial revelation: the discovery of an internal rage which is racial and gender specific. This rage encapsulates a lifetime compendium of abuses, slights, and pangs from many sources, including the


world, his father, friends, peers, women, etc. This rage represents a lifetime of denigration, eventually culminating in the denigration of the self. This rage had been building inside Jake Jr. for years, and ultimately required an external catalyst, which in this instance was Harvard, "a dull, cold, segregated place" (93). Jake Jr.'s detoxification occurs when he is beyond his father's "totalitarian state" (93) and is readily liberated to experience all aspects of his repressed consciousness. His choice of the totalitarian metaphor is apt, in that due to distance, his father's authoritarian "emotional curtain" is lifted, and he can experiment with his long-desired autonomy.

Another crucial area of psychological development occurs when Jake Sr. lashes out in fury at his son, as his financial and familial worlds are crumbling. When he finishes raging at Jake, initially because of the necessity of paying his Harvard tu- ition, Jake has a major discovery:

I feel that in the next second, my father is going to strike me. And then it happens: the sudden realization, a dead certainty I feel, and see mirrored back in my father's eyes as doubt. No, I do not hate my father. I do not think I'm smarter than him, or better; but I am at nineteen, taller, leaner, and twenty-nine years younger than my father, and if he lays a finger on me, I will jump all over him. And looking into my father's eyes, I can see that he doesn't like his odds. (103)

This is a major developmental moment for Jake Jr.--the moment that the son physically outgrows the father and when the last bastion of familial totalitarianism is rendered obsolete. At this scene, the final barrier is broken, and Jake Jr. meta- morphosizes from the quivering child awaiting punishment, to a quasi-adult, capable of potent forms of retaliation and recrimi- nation. This changes the whole status of their relationship and Jake Jr. notes that "the lines have been redrawn" (104).

Finally, in terms of psychological development, it is important to reiterate that this memoir emphasized the sameness aspect of the relational dichotomy, and that Jake Jr.'s coming to consciousness is also a male developmental issue. Due to racial and cultural hegemony, Jake Jr.'s primary foci of interaction lie within the internal functioning of his familial household. By contrast, Jake Sr.'s primary foci of interaction lie within the external world of hegemony based upon his southern pre-lntegrative background. Both men do not understand the holistic nature that encompasses both the internal and the external into a synchretic combination, all impacted by interpersonal and systemic idiosyncrasies. This memoir blatantly confronts White, Western psychological formats which champion familial segre-

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gation in the face of unresolvable conflicts. In this case, identity and ancestry are linked via intangible mechanisms of metaphysical interconnections, having as their end result the survival of a race.-The recognition by Jake Jr. of the need to accept his father as a partner of survival is a crucial moment of relational existential unity.

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS

It would be impossible to analyze Bourgeois Blues without a look at the various means by which class status impacts the story. Rarely are we ever given stories detailing struggles of middle class African American men, and Jake Jr. offers us a penetrating glimpse of this phenomenon.

Despite his status, education, advancement, and self-run business, it is very clear that Jake Sr. is still ashamed and stigma- tized by his humble beginnings. There is an overpowering emp- tiness which seems to fol low him like a dark rain cloud that simply won't let the sun shine through. At the conclusion of the absurd "respect and shoes" exchange early in the book, Jake Sr. rambles on the tangential topic of power, concluding with the demonstrative "1 understand power" (32). And yet, despite the confidence of the statement, the rest of the book portrays him as a very powerless human being. But it seems that Jake Sr. is attempting to deceive himself by seeking ful f i l lment in the temporal rewards of material possessions and status. In essence, he has become a slave to the white patriarchal system; a system that requires him to participate in vapid white boy games and ridicules his deceptive belief that true equality will ever be at- tained. While he continues to play, the male powers that be consistently conceive of more imaginative forms of disenfran- chisement and exclusivity. What Jake Sr. does not grasp is that he is a journeyman upon an existential quest, and he is allow- ing white hegemony to draw up the map.

This insatiable quest for power and status of Jake Sr. manifests itself in several ways. In one humorous scene, he tells a would-be evangelist that he's a "Lamarist" who "believes in the power of Jake Lamar" and that "money is my God" (44). Fright- eningly so, Jake St. sounds almost like a white man whose sense of manhood is entangled by the processes of acquisition and possession. Jake Jr. shares with us his father's stubborn desire when his business collapsed during a recession. He rejected a good position with a local corporation because "at forty-two, he found the idea of work ing for somebody else unbear- ab le . . . Dad could only accept success on his own terms. Despite

74 J o u r n a l of Afr i c an A m e r i c a n M e n

his belief in assimilation, the notion of working in a vast, white institution repelled h i m . . . More than acceptance from whites, my father needed to be his own man" (70). Certainly, one could take issue with Jake 5r. for placing his pride above the immedi- ate needs of his family. However, Jake Jr. "secretly admired him for it" (70).

Nevertheless, his at tempt to be accepted in the white world became an unhealthy obsession, bordering on addiction. Additionally, this "statusholism" is socially acceptable within a competitive and cut-throat environment. By internalizing white cultural norms of success, he is imprisoning himself wi th in an external ethic and value system, which blinds him to the relational and metaphysical realities that destroy his interpersonal identity. Without a conferral of manhood via rites of passage, he places his faith and trust in the symbols of "The Man." In this memoir, mobility and status become the tools that destroy family relationships and complicate the bonding process between father and son.

Again, as before, Jake Jr. has a whole other take on his class status. Growing up middle class, Jake Jr. does not carry the scars and stigmatizations associated with a humble lower class beginning. While his first home was in "the projects" of the south Bronx, eventually the Lamar clan resettles in Riverdale, an up- scale section of the Bronx. As a member of the second African American family there, Jake Jr. experienced the "petty annoy- ances" of suspicious shopkeepers and the stiffness from parents of his white friends. In fact, "among a lot of white kids, black- ness conferred an instant coo l . . . I sensed that to many white adults, my being black was sort of a bonus--here was a kid who was smart, friendly, and black. What a pleasant surprise it was to them! These were attitudes born of prejudice, of course. . . I thought, in fact that by simply being myself, I was helping sub- vert stereotypes.., the trouble was getting white people to stop abstracting you, to stop turning you into a symbol, to stop ask- ing you to explain" (83).

This "abstraction" process eloquently articulated by Jake Jr. metamorphoses itself into a variety of forms--many intangible and all tokenistic. It is the central characteristic of racism as it exists today. Racism rarely manifests itself in the covert and brutal forms that it did in the time of Jake Sr.'s youth. Racism now must be understood as an ethical construct--insidiously in- grained in the deepest kernels of the interrelationship of self, community, and cosmos. These kernels exist somewhere between the maneuvering of simultaneous justice on the one hand, and narcissism on the other. However it is also crucial to note here

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that a major factor in the interpretation of racism is the mass media, whose influence exploded during the 1960s. The media, especially, television, defined racist activity as that of overt and intentional action. Therefore, after numerous pieces of legisla- tion had been passed, curtailing the enactment of overt actions, many people assumed racism to be extinct. Therefore, as Jake Jr. had his coming of age in the 70s, he was clueless as to how racism worked to undermine African American manhood. Sans the historical, critical, and interpretive skills necessary to process the covert encounters with racism, Jake Jr. internalizes its brutality.

As he matures, Jake Jr. begins to understand the subtle manipulations that undermine his manhood, and he develops an early resolve:

For the first time, I felt that I had something to prove to my white peers, determined to make sure that if I was accepted at a prestigious college, nobody would be able to accuse me of being anything less than worthy. (85)

So, like his father before him, Jake Jr. sets off on a jour- ney, seeking his "holy academic grail" at the most prestigious institution of them all, Harvard University. But immediately, he knew something wasn't right: "Never had I felt my otherness to whites so acutely. . . 'You don't sound like a black person.' 'Who am I supposed to sound like?' I asked, 'Uncle Remus'. . . But Af- rican Americans at Harvard were often made to feel like un- wanted party guests who had been reluctantly invited to the party, against the better judgment of the hosts. So I could understand how many black students preferred to keep to themselves... " (94-95).

At Harvard, Jake Jr.'s lessons in racial politics continued. As a partner in academic prestige, he is still seen as an "objecti- fied other" which forces him to establish his racial authenticity and academic validity. However, these cultural litmus tests were also administered by the African American students, and Jake Jr. becomes a victim of his own racial grouping:

Yet I rarely felt comfortable in circumscribed black cliques. They (other African American students) seemed to go through college always on their guard, expecting racism at every time. I didn't want to live my life that way. (95)

Here lies a most critical aspect of the post-Integrative middle class. Not only is one excluded from white circles, but sometimes from African American circles as well. This "double marginalization" is a destructive feature which many middle class


African Americans must endure for survival purposes. A major irony however is evident as a result. Seemingly, the post-Inte- grative generation should be existing at the height of their freedom, but in fact many endure a cultural isolation, often creating a "social limbo" (95). This constant battle to prove one's racial authenticity maintains an "affective enslavement" leading one to constantly appropriate mechanisms of endurance. Jake Jr. notes: "1 felt that my social place had been pre-assigned".. , so "ultimately, I wound up being more guarded than anyone" (95).

As if the isolation at Harvard wasn't enough, Jake Jr. finds himself donning a business "disguise" and "corporate camou- flage" (109) as he searches for employment after graduation. The subtle indignities continue as he hears "Your chances of getting a job here are enhanced by your being b lack . . . " and "how grateful I should be just to be considered" (113). As an "Affirmative Action baby," Jake suffers the patronization of the post-Affirmative Action years, yet subsequently lands a position at Time magazine, as only the second African American writer employed there. He notes that others who had applied could not adapt to "Timestyle" (113) or "failed to fit in" or were "oversensitive" (114); all of the familiar buzzwords of tokenistic deception.

Time after time, Jake Jr. was exposed to the slings and arrows of a covert racial hegemony--events which he failed to see due to his cultural blindness and middle class comfortability:

But whenever I thought about what happened, I became angry all over again--and disgusted with myself. Disgusted by my naivetE, my grandiosity. Because I had thought I was immune. I thought that any white person who actually knew me couldn't possibly hold my race against me. Hadn't I gone to Harvard? Wasn't I the two things that magazines like 7/me always cited when judging a black person acceptable: "ar- ticulate" and "non-threatening"? I realized that there was a ferocious black tax in this country; but I'd allowed myself to believe that my education, my sociability, my bourgeois credentials made me exempt. Deborah's parents taught me that every black person, sooner or later, one way or another, had to pay. (116)

For the first time, Jake discovers that his race is still an obstacle, despite his having "done the right things." He also discovers the deeply penetrating ethical ramifications of racism, and its effect upon his relation to himself, as well as his family. He realizes that racial subjugation occurs in white supremacist ontological notions of life and despite his class status and pristine behavior, he is still considered a nigger. His recognition is merely latent.

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So, established at 77me magazine, Jake Jr. continued to mature and evolve. However, without contact with his father, his new standard of manhood was now measured by the paternalistic hierarchy of Time. He was at the bottom of a hierarchy which included staff writers, associate editors, senior editors, and concluded with the managing editor and the editor-in-chief. He initially began as a ghost writer for the opening publetter, which was signed and presented as that of the upper management, but later was transferred to the "Nation" section. Stuck with other Harvard grads, he discovered his facility for "Timestyle" (122), yet found that he had to create "a certain detachment from the other articles I wrote; the writ ing that was important to me, I did at home, in my notebooks, after office hours" (122). These self-bisections proved to be a necessary survival mechanism as he was the solitary African American in his department. His alienation coerced his creativity.

Jake Jr. notes that all of this took place during the "Reagan Iovefest" (123) of the 1980s. Time had praised "The Great Communicator" as he set forward a potent style of "Gippered" masculinity which hearkened back to the days of yore. At the magazine, Jake worked with such folks he euphemistically refers to as "Minuteman," "Lifer," and the "Baron," all shallow symbols of narcissistic patriarchy. "Whiteshirt," barely acknowledges him; at a writer's luncheon, Whiteshirt extols the fact that it was great being with "a bunch of w h i . . . " and em- barrassingly seeing Jake Jr. he rephrases and says, "a bunch of men talking about sports" (125). Whiteshirt also refused to "look me in the eye" and was unimpressed by Jake's work. Elsewhere, he notes that Jake has "a good understanding of the English language" (126):

Well, I thought to say English is my first language after all. But I said nothing. I just stay in my chair, choking back my anger. I felt completely powerless. I assumed that if I complained about Whiteshirt, I would simply be considered "paranoid" or "oversensitive." I could have asked for a trans- fer to another section; but that, I decided would look like defeat. Besides, it had been more than eleven months since I'd joined the "Nation" and there was a chance that, at the end of the year, I might be rotated to the back of the book. In the meantime, it seemed that the only thing I could do was to silently loathe Whiteshirt. (126)

Here again we have a variation of the "screaming silences." In essence, Jake Jr. is on a "journalistic plantation" re- construction style. Supposedly he has freedom, but to do what? His advancement possibilities are hinged upon his articulation


of oppression; he must be silent to advance. Yet his silence carries three centuries of oppressive and violent historical legacies which inform and threaten his ontological existence. These silences would one day crack under the pressures and manifest themselves in possibly disastrous and destructive ways. Eventu- ally, the screaming silences came to a head when Jake Jr. was assigned a story on the governors and their response to the Reagan budget cuts of the early 1980s. Whiteshirt wanted the focus to be on the creativity and frugality of the governors; however Jake wanted to focus on the damage the Reagan cuts were wreaking upon the states. In a flagrant violation of his bosses orders, Jake remained true to his integrity:

I knew a stunt like this would damage my reputation among the editors. But I realized something else, something that I felt gave me an edge over the white men in dark suits: I wasn't afraid of them. They spent their lives fearing each other, but not one of them could frighten me. And I knew I had my father to thank for that. Dad had scared me so much for so long that I simply didn't have any fear left for any- body else. (127)

This is perhaps one of the most critical passages in the book. In one paragraph, Jake Jr. intertwines manhood, racism, intergenerational relationships, and class with his relational revelation. His intellectual epiphany reattaches, integrates, and co- agulates all of the psycho-social complexities of every ethical field of play. As they impact each other, Jake Jr. reverses his original mechanism of othered detachment from his father. Again, prior to the integrative years, it was easier to visualize the interrela- tionships due to overt evidences of historical residue. But subse- quent to the Integrative era, the complex interrelationship between the interpersonal and the systemic is more covert, and therefore less recognizable. It takes this clash with Whiteshirt for Jake Jr. to understand how his relationship with Jake Sr. has imparted to him the emotional resources to withstand the hegemonic nature of patriarchal racism. In essence, he bonds with his father's sameness as patriarchal victim, and has a per- ceptual shift which ceases to understand his father as just an opposing force of restrictive will. Jake Jr. is empowered, because he survived his fear of his father, which is much more necessary than the temporal and innocuous battles with the white over- seers at Time.

Jake Jr. achieves a momentous liberation of heretofore unmentioned existential proportionswdespite his lower status within the Time hierarchy. As long as he does not consider himself a slave, then he will never be a slave. Another way to refer-

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ence this event is to understand it as a "Mookie Moment." Mookie is the main character in the fi lm "Do the Right Thing," directed and acted by Spike Lee. After spending the whole movie in dialogue with Sal, the pizza parlor owner, on racism, Mookie picks up a trash can and throws it through the window of Sal's pizzeria in reaction to the brutal police slaying of his friend, Ra- dio Raheem. Mookie's action, in turn, sparks a riot creating bed- lam and chaos and turns the Brooklyn neighborhood into a ghetto inferno. The "Mookie Moment" is highly spontaneous-- it is the moment when all dialogue ceases and it becomes necessary to act out the overwhelming rage about the sorrowful racial condition of the country.

Jake Jr. experiences his "Mookie Moment" figuratively. At this point in his life, Jake Jr. finds that justice must become a liberating reality in the presentmnot merely as an afterlife re- demption. This is the moment when enslavement ends, and existential liberation begins. But even more importantly, he thanks his father for creating a difficult relationship, which of course was unintentional. Jake Jr.'s strength not only emanated from the bedside chats, but it was the whole of the relational break- age which assisted in destroying his chains of oppression. If fear of his father did not destroy him, then he was strong enough to withstand his fear of patriarchy. Though he had separated from his father, Jake Sr. was an omnipresent specter hovering over Jake Jr.'s upwardly mobile climb.

But of course, with liberation comes consequences. Jake Jr. knew that his blatant disregard could lead to termination from Whiteshirt. Yet, he asserts his integrity over and beyond his employment capacity. However, despite his boss's tirade, he was not dismissed, and even sensed more respect from him. Yet eventually, Whiteshirt leaves Time and continues his antagonism of an African American correspondent of another press.

"Minuteman" becomes his new boss and appoints himself as Jake's new mentor; in other words, the "Great White Fa- ther" prototype. While Jake continued to achieve mobility, he noted that the senior editors always interpolated a r ightward slant into his articles, which partially annoyed him: "There were many articles that I later wished my byline had not appeared on, but the sheer kick of seeing my byline in //me magazine every week numbed the pain" (132). Again, he sounds somewhat like his father in that despite his pain, his need for prestige and power was also strong. He realized that some amount of compromise and discernment is necessary for survival, but he also had to balance it all with his integrity. He also experienced a situation when Minuteman called him "Bro":


"Bro? The word clanged as it left his lips, giving me that queasy feeling I always got when white people tried to talk ' black' to me." (137)

Subsequently, Jake Jr. is assigned the infamous story on "Underclass Families" as discussed earlier, and "as the lone black writer, I was particularly wary of being used" (139). Of course the lives of many African Americans are filled with references to the "only African American" or the "first African American" or even the phrase "non-threatening African American." Jake Jr. wisely realized that he was constantly exploited to salve whi te liberal consciences which led to the "perfect solution" for an assimilative race-baiting society. After the ensuing controversy when Jake's story was killed and Survivor helped to rewrite it as "Native Sons," Time ran Jake's picture in the magazine wi th the quote: "1 was reminded that I was fortunate to grow up in a two-parent home and have access to a good education" (148). But on further thought, Jake adds:

After the interview, I winced at what a fatuous line I had given the writer. But then, I thought, it was true wasn't it? I had been lucky to go to Fieldston and Harvard. And though I could hardly bear even to think about my Father sometimes, he had given me the tools and the support I needed to make my way in the world. After all, what sort of model had he had? He never saw his father after age thirteen. Had Dad really done such a terrible job? Deciding it was better not to think about it, I quickly shut my father out of my mind again. (148)

Again, another complex inter twin ing of themes, but Jake's consciousness is impacted by his recognition of his middle class status. In examining the lives of these "underclass" African American men, Jake begins to discover his disconnection from these men, and meditates upon his sense of class-based distance and attributes. He had received numerous resources as a result of his upwardly-mobi le existence and it took a relat ionship among his opposites-- lower class African American men and white patriarchy, to develop an honest appreciation of his gifts. It is crucial to note that neither Jake Jr. not his father ever mention the idea of using their status to improve the lot of the Afri- can American community. This is understood by most African Americans as a necessary ethic to live by. At one point, Jake notes that his friend Roy is invested in the community and he admires him for his "social conviction" (131). In some respects, both Jakes represent the shallowness of the American Dream. It seems that they had assimilated into a narcissistic ethic representative of

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the American culture which tried to restrain them from achievement. Despite the internalization of the American ethic, both Jakes are still marginalized from American culture and in a sense, they have both marginalized themselves from the African Ameri- can community.

It is also important that during the 77me magazine phase of his life, Jake Jr. had no direct contact with his father. How- ever:

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hoped my father was reading my articles. Every success I achieved was a measure of revenge against him. I would show him that I did have marketable skills, that I could make it without him; see Dad! Hah! Aren't you sorry now? Aren't you proud of me? Don't you love me? (133)

Jake Jr. finally comes to consciousness when he writes on "Native Sons." Race, gender, class, and intergenerational relationships create a juncture whereby he discovers his privileged position, identifies with his father, and empathizes with him as well. This is much more than an identity crisis; it is an ontological crisis of existential realities.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Bourgeois Blues is a fine example of the difficulties of psychohistory; how internal psychological development is impacted by external and historical events. In his author's note, Jake Lamar Jr. notes that his book is "neither fic- tion nor journalism, but a work of memory. . . " (3). However, what makes this memoir so excitingly unique, is that it is a log of relational memory which serves as a psychological catharsis for its author--indeed for a whole generation. Jake Lamar Jr. deftly weaves a story of love and pain, anxiety and separation, and in doing so, offers us a portrait of a holistic analysis which understands the interconnectedness of existence.

Gender Studies has been highly deficient in terms of its focus upon African American men as it has unfortunately decided that class is superior to race and gender and has devoted much of its energies to this area. However, while the systemic aspect is crucial for psyche development, so too are the interpersonal and intrapsychic components. As a matter of fact, the whole field of analyses effectively renders the discourse on Gen- der as male as superfluous at best, which creates a very subtle form of marginalization called "genderism." This exclusion of African American men in the form of genderism is addressed in the writing and presentation of Bourgeois Blues. For Jake Jr. in-


timately examines the symbolic relationship of the intrapsychic and systemic structures. Normally, social scientists have understood the systemic structure to be of singular importance as it encapsulates the interpersonal and intrapsychic. Instead, Jake helps us to create a new model; one which understands these structures to exist in a lateral, egalitarian, mutual and recipro- cal relationship. These spheres are in constant interaction, and at times, it is necessary to focus on one or the other, but has to be done as a means to one end, not the end itself.

Bourgeois Blues is not merely an autobiography, but it is the recoverance of numerous existential truths personified in the articulation of a relationship; that of an African American father with his son. As such, American racism, in its many for- mations, becomes an actual character in their life drama. Jake Jr. presents himself and his father as journeymen along the historical continuum that is the genocidal relationship of Ameri- can culture to its darker male objects. The history is as savage as it is long. It is like a chemistry project; if you mix two molecules of hydrogen and one oxygen, two different gasses, you will form a combination liquid, which is water. However, you would not analyze this liquid using the same methods as you analyzed those gasses separately. Therefore, Gender Studies needs to create epistemological methods which understand race, class, and gender as manifesting themselves as both an internal process and an external process creating a wholly other product.

The sameness-otherness relational dichotomy of the father and son dominates their source of conflict. Yes, they are both educated, middle class, somewhat comfortable African American men. However, Jake Sr. has inculcated all of the val- ues and experiences of his southern, agrarian, segregated, poor youth. By contrast, Jake Jr. is raised in middle class surroundings in a northern, urban, integrated environment; he never experiences overt racism until he goes to college. But most importantly, they are birthed in two separate cultural climates which creates dissension and distance. Jake Sr. arrived when America was struggling to avoid its nagging problem of race, especially through a focus on external threats and enemies, namely fascism and com- munism. By contrast, Jake Jr. arrived when America had deceived itself into believing that its race problem was resolved. In both cases lies a cultural deception too enormous to ascertain, yet destructive in its duplicitous behemoth manner.

Truthfully spoken, Bourgeois Blues is a memory of a world as well; a world of deceit and conflict, as well as a war of status and assimilation. The conflict between father and son is a mi- crocosm of the conflict between justice and oppression-laced

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hegemony. Jake Jr. is presenting his findings from the "Great Experiment" of integration. Perhaps most notable of those findings is his naivet~ of the permanence of racism. A pre-lntegrative psyche would have understood an inherent subjugation due to race and gender, yet Jake assumes that change has ushered in progress. Most pre-lntegrative prophecies had assumed that systemic advancement addressed via legislative and government dictates of public policy, would render transformative power. Supposedly, if one worked hard and did the right things, then race would become a non-factor ~ la Clarence Thomas. There- fore, Jake Sr. focused upon the external world as the primary field of battle, while Jake Jr. could focus only upon the internal world as his external realities were not sharpened until his move to Harvard. Their fields of emphases are posited within the historical realm of their separate psycho-historical constructuring.

For five long years, there was no conscious contact between father and son. Yet, despite this direct exile, the fact is that neither one was capable of extracting the other from their consciousness. Jake Jr. notes:

These were the times when I felt abstracted from myself, when the past became the present and I imagined I could hear my father's voice inside my head; when I wondered how his mind had shaped my mind, where my father's way of thinking ended and my own way began. (12)

These were the times indeed. Jake Jr. could not escape. His father was in his breath, his lifeblood, indeed in his very soul. Escaping from this relationship was impossible for Jake Jr. as intergenerational relationships are inescapable. It is not possible to live in the past, but is is crucial to live with the past. "Forget the past" echoes the chant of white psychology which annuls difficult interpersonal relationships with a dose of historical am- nesia. Psychologically, white culture is very consistent as it continues to repeat the mistakes of its past. Jake Jr. cannot forget about his father, and indeed, the older he becomes, the closer he finds himself moving towards his father. As his first standard of African American manhood, his father occupies a pivotal role as he attempts to maneuver his way through the difficulties of life. Unfortunately, it takes Jake Jr. 27 years to acknowledge his fortune. On the other hand, Jake Sr. has not acknowledged his unresolved familial issues especially revolving around his father's abandonment. His fear-provoking rage results from his repres- sion of these incidents and transforms him into a controll ing despot who overcompensates and smothers his son's individual- ity and identity.


Yet the strength of this memoir is that Jake Jr. unearths the mysteries and bonded frustrations between his relationship with his father and his relationship wi th racism. Jake Jr.'s f low- ering into manhood is assumed when he unlocks the depths of struggle and compromise inherent in such a complex relationship. Each generation of African American men must develop coping mechanisms which help carry them through these mysteries and frustrations. For Jake Sr., his ambit ion and his arrogance seemed to be the coping mechanisms he developed to survive. Unfortunately, most of the time, he is portrayed as a narcissist, who only cares for his family as they related to him. However, despite his successes, despite his status, and self-made entrepreneurship, Jake Sr. was a very unhappy man. It seems that the twin powers of acquisition and possession are only so potent, and still he continues searching for some fulf i l lment that transcends temporal materialism.

Essentially, it seems that the story of Bourgeois Blues is one of metaphysical proportions; indeed proportions that transcend time and space, status and title, and all matter betwixt and between. As a role model, Jake Sr. was very good, save for his treatment of his wife. However, as an ancestral spiritual guide, he fares less than satisfactory. The spirituality of manhood asserts a bonding of the past with the present as preparations are made for the future. It is this "spiritual" sense of the relationship which Jake Jr. comes to discover:

Try as I might to suppress the past, memories of my father came rushing back like bad dreams. Usually, I'd tell myself I didn't give a damn about Dad or what he thought of me. Other times, I felt an almost desperate need for his approval, his sponsorship in the world. Then I'd decide I didn't want his emotional support. Just an acknowledgment. I just wanted him to recognize me, to say, yes, you are my son, you do exist. I thought of the difficulties I had had as a black man in a white society, and felt a new awareness of just how hard my father's life must have been. But then the anger I felt toward him would return, more powerful than ever. Alone at night, in my small apartment, I began to feel abstracted from my own life. Haunted by my father, I was becoming a ghost to myself. (158)

Spirituality is a difficult word to deal wi th in academia. In ancient Hebrew, the word for spirit was "ruach," which trans- lated into breath. In ancient Greek, the word for spirit was "pneuma," the root for the word pneumonia, also focused upon breathing or life-giving breath. Jake Jr. had a metaphysical con- nectedness to his father, who in turn had one wi th his parental lineage, and both Jakes eventually are connected to the immen-

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sity of cosmos and universe. The act of relating intergene- rationally becomes an act of transcendence beyond the chores and grinds of everyday existence. Despite racism, fatherly pain, and the frailties of human nature, two men of like-bloOd, like- genes, like-skin and like-difficulties, are still able to reach across the chasm of time and space and grasp one another in their sameness-otherness struggle. Two warriors, resigned, tired, perhaps forever strained, but nevertheless, together.

References / Coner-Edwards, Alice F. and Jeanne Spurlock. (1988).

I I

Black Families in Crisis: The Middle Class. New York: �9 Brunner/Mazel Inc. Dudley, David L. (1991). My Father's Shadow: Inter-

generational Conflict in African-American Men's Au- tobiography. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lamar, Jake. (1991). Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir. New York: Summit Books.

Staples, Robert. (1982). Black Masculinity. San Francisco: Black Scholar Press.

bourgeois blues: intergenerational relationships and manhood as post-civil rights discourse

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