Langston Hughes

Hughes, Langston. The Ways of White Folks. NY: Vintage, 1990.

Hughes' white folks are seen, of course, in terms of their dealings with African Americans. He's sympathetic with individuals, but unsparing with systemic problems. There are several stories.

As follows:

"Cora Unashamed." Black servant Cora Jenkins sympathizes with the young white lady she has raised when the latter gets pregnant out of wedlock. The white parents, her bosses, feel only horror and fear. The girl gets a back-alley abortion, then dies of the complications. Cora finally busts out and criticizes the whole lot of them, breaking up the deeply hypocritical funeral, and is fired.

"Slave on the Block." A bohemian artist couple with some mysterious source of income have some kind of romantic notions about African-Americans which comes out in their art. They pay their servants to pose for them and so forth. They're kind in some ways, but remarkably thick-headed, and deeply patronizing. When a more aggressively racist friend comes over and they back the friend, the servants get fed up, tell them off, and leave.

"Home." A musician comes home from Europe to the American South because he may be dying of tuberculosis. He attracts the attention of a local music teacher, who arranges that he play concerts and so forth, though most of the population don't get the classical numbers that have become part of his repetoire. She hails him in public somewhere, and he's beaten to death by passing whites for talking to her.

"A Good Job Gone." The narrator has lost his job because his white employer has gotten himself into trouble chasing after the black women he dictates to. One of them rejects him, and over the course of a few weeks he goes nuts.

"Rejuvenation Through Joy." A preacher who's passing for white sets up a cult exploiting some fantasy of African "naturalness" and spontaneity and joy as a healing procedure for nutsy whites. It finally falls through, of course.

"The Blues I'm Playing." A white female philanthropist underwrites a young black female musician for some time, but demurs when the girl intends to get married. Also, the philanthropist seems to think she can dictate how her charge plays. Hughes makes a neat finish. The girl plays "O, if I could holler / Like a mountaing jack, / I'd go up on de mountain / And call my baby back" -- to which Mrs. E answers "And I would stand looking at the stars." This is clearly intended as a cultural observation, with white folks as somehow apart from life.

"Red-Headed Baby." Here Hughes stays close to the white, red-headed sailor who is the focalizer throughout. After several years, he's revisiting an African American woman whom he pays for sex; his thoughts are shot through with racism. When he arrives, he's welcomed. But his amours are interrupted by a little red-headed African-American baby. Though no one accuses him of being the father or asks him for anything, he has no stomach for the procedure, and he leaves, with no real perspective on his own behavior at any point.

"Poor Little Black Fellow." When a servant dies, the son is adopted by the rich white folks. They raise him in apparent kindness, though he doesn't fit into their white neighborhood nor with the African-Americans raised in lower-class circumstances. They take him to Europe, where he meets people for whom his blackness just isn't very important. His adoptive parents react bizarrely, suddenly becoming very strict and not allowing him to socialize at all, though no explanation is given for their unprecedented behavior. So the boy leaves, deciding to stay on in Paris.

"Little Dog." A severely depressed woman has the building janitors bring bones for her dog. She falls in love with the married African-American who brings the bones. To avoid responding to this, she moves out, eventually dying with no friends.

"Berry." A corrupt home for crippled children fire their African-American help at the first opportunity. He leaves without his wages, glad to be gone.

"Mother and Child." A married white woman gives birth to a black child, and the father's family gets prepared for the onslaught and probable lynchings.

"One Christmas Eve." The white family arrives late on Xmas eve and underpays their African-American servant, who leaves to try to shop for her family. She brings her kids to the stores, where the youngest is frightened by the storefront Santa. To make him feel better, she tells him it isn't really Santa, just a "theater for white folks."

"Father and Son" is dealt with in the Pauline Hopkins entry.