Race Pride and Child Agency in School Days

So, I absolutely loved School Days by Patrick Chamoiseau. I don't know if it was because Elmaz predicted I would love it or if I was just utterly charmed by the humor and tragedy of the narrator's childhood. (Probably a combination of both.)

But enough of whether I liked or did not like a text. Let's get to the meat of my discussion.

I was enthralled by Chamoiseau's depiction of race. The narrator's introduction to school was also his introduction to race relations and racism in Martinique. From day one, The Teacher dedicates himself to transforming his students into more respectable black folk, which is really just a white person's idea of what is respectable. But The Teacher's interaction with his students is more complicated; on the first day of class he addresses race pride when Big Bellybutton doesn't know his legal name: "You should be prroud to have a name, you thoughtless boy, you should shout it out loud, because not too long ago, let me tell you, we were slaves and had no names at all!" (pg. 36-7). I know that Big Bellybutton's legal name is probably a name that comes from colonization, but I think it would be disservice to completely write off The Teacher as brainwashed. Another example shows thatThe Teacher believes that only through education can his students escape slavery: "He urged those with the good fortune to be sitting there to appreciate this extraordinary advantage: a golden opportunity, hard-won, not to be wasted. Or else--the cane fields. Sweeping gutters and thumping drums. Lugging sacks of beke goods around the waterfront, raking shellfish from the mudflats of Terres-Sainville, dredging the canals of La Levee. Or worse: winding up in the streets, fretted by ignorance and stupidity. The bestial darkness in which one lost forever the idea of Man" (48-9). There's a lot going on in this quote. I needed to include it all because Chamoiseau gives readers an encompassing picture of what daily life is like for a person of color in the French world. He is also giving readers powerful slavery images: black folks working the fields, cleaning up after the whites, beating drums--all for what? To support the beke's way of life. And the bestial darkness--folks not like whites are more animalistic because whites symbolize what it means to be civilized.

A moment on pg. 45 made me think of Granville from June Jordan's Soldier: "What do I hear--you're speaking Creole? And what do I see--shameless monkeyshines? Just where do you think you are?! Speak properly and behave in a civilized manner". Like Granville, The Teacher wishes above all else to save his students from racism and poverty, and the only way he knows how to do this is to teach them to internalize the racism that is directed toward them from whites. If only his students could act more like white folk then they could rise above the limitations of their race and become successful like the lighter French folks.

In a lot of ways, the educators could be considered race traitors, but Chamoiseau is good at putting us in their shoes, despite the educators being incredibly villainous at times. A very powerful example comes on pg. 72: "Monsieur le Directeur, I speak of your silences, your bearing, your neatness that was proof against all perspiration in spite of the sun's hammerings; I will also recall here your attitude toward school, toward others, toward life, an attitude forged in solemn ceremonies familiar to those who once built cathedrals. N-word, you fled from yourself and, with stubborn determination, held your head high--above the cane fields, the sugar, the watermelon grins, the bekes, the dancing, the drums, the torrents of rum, that life directed entirely toward sticking us forever in the mud." Shivers. Absolutely riveting. Chamoiseau is a master at using rhythmic images to say so much about his/our society.

At school the narrator needs to learn a new language, and Chamoiseau successfully depicts his confusion, his despair. This is a lot to ask from a five or six year old: Learn how to speak perfect French or else have authority figures scream insults at you! You don't pick it up fast enough? The Teacher will flat out ignore you because you are unworthy of his attention.

Random, but I loved how Chamoiseau depicted the father. The father is in only a few scenes, but every line speaks volumes about his character. In what would take another author chapters, Chamoiseau takes only a few lines: "At the supper table that evening, the little boy recounted this business about the apple tree, but no one seemed impressed. The Papa merely wondered wherever did he think he could pick apples, since they all had to be imported to the island by boat in closed crates and arrived half-rotten" (57). Again, there is so much happening in this quote. Readers get that the father is unimaginative and bitter, but Chamoiseau also gives readers a picture of the economic disparity of Martinique. And it's also showing the absurdity of the children reading books written by Europeans talking about apples and forests and castles when none of these things exist in Martinique.

In addition, the childhood experience is depicted so thoroughly and unflinchingly. It reminded me of discusses in my craft classes in which it was agreed that many authors write from the child's perspective to avoid responsibility. As in, writers can have a child do horrendous things but they are safe from criticism because children lack the mental tools to know what is right from wrong or have a complicated relationship to others. Chamoiseau totally disregards this, especially on pg. 123 when the school boys decide to kill The Teacher. The following scenes are hilarious; the children casting spells and their one hundred percent investment in becoming murders. I think a lot of times authors depict children as agency-less, as innocent and moralistic creatures devoid of layers, but here readers see that child are ruthless! The narrator and his peers want more than anything for The Teacher and the director to drop dead. Childhood is such a complicated matter!