Illustration, Cotton Fields, and Howard: A Response to Clear as Black and White

Some of us can infer early on that the neighbors of Eighth Street are black from the illustration on the cover page and the numerous references to Howard University. The figure on the cover, presumably Sharon, has full lips and a bell-shaped nose which indicate African heritage. However, the image is not a photograph but an illustration which allows the artist a lot of creative license. The moment in Bad Neighbors when Sharon describes her new feminine appeal is when some readers glean the predominant race on Eighth Street:

"And Sharon, coming rather late to this awareness of her womanhood, had begun to take             some delight in seeing boys wither as they stood close enough to her to smell the mystery that had nothing to do with perfume and look into the twinkling brown eyes she had inherited from a grandmother who had seen only the morning, afternoon, and evening of a cotton field" (Jones 73, Column 3).

So to answer your first question Alexis: After this sentence I knew that the neighbors were black.

But to answer your second question takes a longer answer. I highlighted this sentence and tried to understand why the author decided to veil the race of the neighbors on Eighth Street in this manner. I was unsure of the race of these neighbors until I read the words cotton fields. I wondered why Jones did not make it obvious that the characters where black to his readers who do not associate cotton fields with slavery. It comes down to race and class. I believe that the race of the neighbors on Eighth Street is far less important than their social class. The race of the neighbors on Eighth could have been easily been substituted but I believe that the story would have remained the same. The overall impact of the story would have been the same.

Why do you think Jones did not hit us over the heads with the race of the neighbors on Eighth? Why does Jones focus on social class more than race in his story?
 

The Appearance of Class

"[Terence] was to excel in anatomy and dermatology when he got to Howard's medical school, but genetics and neurology would nearly cost him his future" (40).

In "Bad Neighbors" by Edward P. Jones, the people of Eighth street determine the quality of a person by their appearances. They drive nice cars and peer at each other from behind "brocade curtains" (36). They go to church, but only on holidays and special occasions. They judge each other's worth based on their material possessions. Terence judged the Benningtons quite severely, calling them trash and spitting on Derek Bennington's car. Terence, with his protecting his father's parking spot, his loveless marriage to Sharon Palmer, and his general demeanor, is all about appearances. He didn't bother, unlike Sharon, to get to know the Benningtons. He chose to judge them on their apparent poverty, lack of class, and on their atypical family situation, without seemingly realizing that he, himself, came from humble means. And even though Sharon knew the Benningtons were worth more than her parents and her future husband thought, chose to marry one of her class, rather than the man that she actually loved.

These people allow their lives to be run by their idea of what class is. They marry people they don't love and they move from neighborhoods that they love to live in, just to prove that they themselves are not of humble means and are worth more than the world gives them credit for.

Is class mostly based on appearances? And, if so, does that mean that we discount more worthy people because they don't fit our idea of class?

Clear as Black and White

"I wanted to keep this clean," Derek said. "But white trash won't let me."

(Jones, 82)

When Sharon faces the threat of possible rape and sexual harassment from three students, the author provides one of the first direct citations of color and race within the elements of the "Bad Neighbors". Throughout the story, there is an ambiguity of race, leaving it to the readers to assume and imply each character's race. From first glance, I found the Benningtons to be a parasite on the neighborhood, I found them to be an oddball amongst the suburban backset. We assume they come from hard times, and do not have strong financial means, and the lack of interaction with fellow neighbors allows a sense of mystery, as they evade public eye. The reader only sees disapproval and disgust amongst the neighbors, who eventually push the Benningtons out. Ironically, Derek saves Sharon's very life at the end, leaving him possibly with mortal wounds. In regards to the confrontation of the students and Sharon, the reader can only assume the students verbally harassing her had darker motives, but Derek arrives right in the nick of time, like a night in shining armor. He saves the damsel in distress, clearly contrasting the social class duality found throughout the short story. This trashy, vulgar individual comes to be one of the few gentlemen seen throughout the story. He is true to his nature, cold and stoic, and has a certain moral code not seen amongst other characters. Now, I assume the Benningtons are of African American descent and come as individuals in the working middle to lower class. This family is seen as a plague upon the community, as troublesome individuals who upset the neighborhood balance. The author clearly contrasts this upheaval of the family with the life-saving acts of Derek to purely portray the racism and constraint society holds in regards to meeting the status quo. The author comments on the overall superficiality and racism the country still faces, even within racial groups. George P. Jones purposely utilizes ambiguity of race as a social commentary on the racism and oppressive nature society is still stained with, over a hundred years after slavery was abolished, and equality of rights achieved. 

Discussion Question: 

What race do you think the Benningtons were as well as surrounding neighbors? If George P. Jones blatantly noted the race and color of character, how would the overall impact of the story change? Would the story be less effect or more so?

Love Thy Neighbor

In the short story "Bad Neighbors,"Edward P. Jones illustrates a story of the classism and prejudice a family experiences when they move into a "good" neighborhood. For the most part, this story excludes racism because the neighborhood is predominately black, because of this Jones leaves the reader with an excellent way to examine class within racial boundaries. I have chosen two quotes that contrast the meaning of being a "good" neighbor and beg the question of what being a "good" neighbor truly means. 

"He had heard, too, that the police there were brutes, straight out of the worst Southern towns, but he had come a long way since the boyhood days of helping his father deliver coal and ice throughout Washington. 'Dirty nigger coal man and his dirty nigger coal son,' children had called them. And that was in the colored neighborhoods of maids and shoeshiners and janitors and cooks and elevator operators. But he was a thousand lives from that now, even though he wasn't anybody's lawyer." (43)

"We are the future, Lane Stagg had proclaimed at a final dinner party at the Sheraton Hotel for the good neighbors. Who was left there now? Bad neighbors, her father had called those who came after them. Bad neighbors." (46)

Lane Stagg represents a man that has turned from his past and left his experiences completely in the dark. Even as a man that once excluded from his own neighborhood he cannot learn from his past and start a new, more kind cycle due to the shame he carries about what he once was, a working class boy from a working class family. The Stagg's have the opportunity to be "good" neighbors to the Benningtons, but instead exclude them into the judgmental, category of "bad" neighbors and attempt to replace them with "more agreeable people" (42). Although the other neighbors pasts are not examined, the reader can assume that at least some of them have come from hardship and discrimination, most likely racially or economically. The neighbors actions completely disregard the golden the rule, that all "good" people must follow, "do unto others what you would have them do to you" (Matthew 7:12). This causes the reader to examine who the "good" people really are in this story and how "good" people should behave. 

In the closing moments of the story, Derek Bennington and Sharon Palmer Stagg reconnect in the climactic moment of story. Derek acts a "good" neighbor and saves Sharon from a group of drunk boys attempting to sexually abuse her. In this moment Jones ironically makes the former "bad neighbor" into a "good neighbor" by being Sharon's savior. This again causes the reader to reexamine the meaning of "good" in this story.

What is Jones telling the reader about the Benningtons, or people like them, in the final moments of the story? What is Jones telling the reader about the "good neighbors"?

Class v. Love

In Edward Jones' "Bad Neighbors," class plays a big role in determining the view of the Benningtons on Eight Street. They were of lesser means, and their neighbors had no problem or qualms. Sharon seems to be the only neighbor with a desire to see the Benningtons for who they really are, but she inevitably buckles under the weight of want for upperclassness and her relationship with the Benningtons fades away in favor for a relationship with the college boy, Terrance Stagg.

Years later, Derek Bennington will say to Sharon, "I lied. I lied. Red wasn't a bad color It was way good enough for you. Any color you put on is a good color, didn't you know that? You make the world. It ain't never been the other way around. You first, then the world follows."

This is a moment of tenderness from the tough Derek as his true feelings are surfacing verbally. Later on, we read that the gift Sharon received one Christmas from Neil might really have been crafted by Derek and delivered by Neil. This reinforces the idea of a longstanding love for Sharon by Derek, who even all this time later is still gentle toward Sharon.

My question is, what significance does class have in relation to love? Why do many people, and in this story Sharon, wish to marry the callous doctor rather than the sincere underclass neighbor?

-ing words

Moment: [She held up her uniform up before her. She stared at her name tag and found it hard to connect herself with the name and the the uniform and the naked person they belonged to. Am I really who they say I am? Bleeding. Bleedin. None of Derek's people had ever used the "g" on their -ing words; one of the first things she herself had been taught early in life was never to drop the "g". The "g" is there for a reason, they told her. It separates you from all the rest of them, those who do not know any better.]

I selected this moment because it deals with the association between proper grammar, names, clothing, skin color, and wealth with a certain class of individual. Throughout the story, the narrator mentions the fact that the "good neighbors" on Eighth street looked down on the Benningtons for being a different class of people. When Sharon questions if she really is who they say she is I finally understood that this story is more of a commentary on the different ways in which societies, neighborhoods, and individuals create their own perception of class. I took this passage to mean that they refers to the "good neighbors" of Eighth Street that would have looked down on her love for a man that used -ing words. When Sharon was young she saw class through the lens of her neighborhood, but as an adult, Sharon questioned whether the Benningtons were actually "bad neighbors" at all. The dialects, the stereotypes, and racial slurs used in this story were all meant to get the reader thinking about what class of people the Benningtons might belong to and how their class affected their career choices and love prospects.

For Discussion:
1. Do you think that that the Benningtons where actually bad neighbors or where they simply thought to be bad for being of a different class?

2. After Sharon had finished her introspection, I found myself wondering whether she would continue hating what her father hated, the Benningtons and the digital clock, and stay in her relationship with Terence or actually go through with her fantasy of murdering Terence in his sleep and seek Derek. Why end the story with the expensive digital German clock?

The Monsters are Due on Eighth Street

"After Riccocelli had gone, Derek went up and down both sides of the street shouting to the neighbors to come out and confront him. "Don't be punks!" he shouted. As he neared the Palmers' house, Grace came around the corner, and she and Amanda and Neil, who had been standing in the yard, went to him. "We got babies in that house, man! It's winter, for God's sakes!" Derek shouted. Sharon opened her door and came out onto the porch, but she was the only neighbor to do so. "We got sweet innocent babies in that house, man! What can y'all be thinkin?" His family was able to calm him, but before they could get him across the street the police arrived." (pg. 10)

 Jones here illustrates how far the neighbors on Eighth Street are willing to go to hurt the less fortunate Bennington's. Rather than acknowledging the hardships they face both financially and culturally, the neighbors always felt that the Benningtons never belonged on their street, and now have an opportunity to exile them. 

What was Derek's, the usually stronger more confrontational of the family, purpose in emphasizing that there are babies in the house?

Do good fences really make good neighbors?

The ambiguity of race in the story was very telling, and Jones, by slowly introducing the theme, captured the reader to figure out such complexities. Language, word choice, and tone reflect one’s education level, economic status, and life style, and this story utilizes the power of language in a very interesting way. It is not only used to confuse and intrigue the reader, but also to present how such a minute thing such as how one talks can distinguish the “good neighbors” from the “bad”. 

After finishing the story, one moment especially stuck in my head, one of disappointment and disdain, “Neil and [Sharon's] brother forever had the look of true believers who had to start every sad morning by learning all over again that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus did not exist (Jones, 73).” Sharon equates the new neighbors with her family member on the first page, and I did not realize how significant and prophetic that was until the end of the story. It set the reader up to expect disappointment from things that appear one way with what may actually be something else entirely. Furthermore, the non-linear structure of the story mirrors a sort of memory, leaping forward and hypothesizing about how events could have taken place “in another universe” while telling the long drawn out story about a neighborhood block. When Sharon spoke to Derek it was the first time the audience got colloquial cues as to what race the Benningtons may be, especially through Derek’s outright use of Ebonics. It wasn’t until after the fight between Terance and Derek that I realized it was internal racism, blacks versus blacks, and from there the line was drawn between the good and bad neighbors. But Sharon never made such a distinction, she was different, more accepting, from the quote about Neil and her brother, to being the only neighbor to answer the door. Most importantly, the quote introduces a tone of remorse and sadness, a type of coming of age story where innocence is shattered and people are never fully understood. I wonder if it was Jones' intention to portray Sharon as a soft spoken hero type caught in society's misconceptions who never was able to find her voice, or whether Sharon was meant to portray weakness and corruption.

Superiority Complex

"Two days later, the Prevosts, at 1404, were robbed, with a television the most expensive thing taken. No one said anything, but the neighbors knew it had to be Derek.  The next week, the Thortons, at 1414, had their car stolen. The car was only a Chevy, five years old, but that was not the point, said Bill Forsythe, at 1408. His wife, Prudence, had complained about what a noisy heap the Thorton car was and that the neighborhood was well rid of it. A man's property is a man's property, Bill said, even if it's one skate with three wheels" (74).

            Jones highlights the cruel dynamics of class hierarchy within, one can assume, a neighborhood devoid of racial diversity. The Benningtons' arrival on Eighth Street created a rift in the neighborhood's class distinction. The Benningtons were viewed as occupants of a significantly lower social status than the "veterans" of the block. From the beginning, the Benningtons were scrutinized for their lack of nice things; they had ratty, beat-up furniture, which their neighbors suggested was not worth moving into their new home. However, once the "good" neighbors found miscellaneous items stolen from their homes they became outraged, even if it was a "noisy heap" of a car. Bill claims that a car or even a broken skate is a man's property no matter its condition and firmly believes that man has a right to own useless items. The neighbors became hypocritical in thinking that their dingy belongings were of better value or significance than the Benningtons'. Their superiority complex had driven them to value their property, no matter how dingy or insignificant, above the Benningtons' home furnishings, which the neighbors concluded they should not have bothered to bring.

How else are the neighbors hypocritical with respect to their actions versus the Benningtons?

Separate and unequal

“Even before the fracas with Terence Stagg, people along both sides of the 1400 block of Eighth Street NW could see the Benningtons for what they really were.

The moment sets a tone of transgression as the narrator describes neighbors distinguishing themselves from the Benningtions upon arrival. The moment is significant for the author’s argument because it segregates the Bennington family from the rest of the neighborhood people. This segregation allows the story to revolve around the themes of class and race.

If the Benningtons were upper class would the surrounding neighbors still “see the Benningtons for what they really were?”