Mindfulness

In communications, there is a term called “self-monitoring”. Self-monitoring means that an individual pays more attention to his or her behavior in a situation. For example, if an individual is speaking to her ex-best friend, she may take more notice of how tense she feels during the interaction. However, if she is speaking to her best friend, she will be more mindful of how relaxed and content she feels while in the friend’s presence. Through this process, the individual can choose to change their behavior if they feel the need to better fit in with the social scene (Adler, Rosenfeld, & Proctor, 2018).

This term came to mind because of an exchange in Percival Everett’s novel I am Not Sidney Poitier. The conversation occurred between Violet and Not Sidney. Violet is an African American woman who has a lighter skin tone than Not Sidney. She is also the Larkin family’s housekeeper. At the time where they are conversing, Violet is in the kitchen preparing a Thanksgiving meal for the family. Not Sidney questions her about her opinion of skin color, commenting, “Most of the people in this house seem a bit crazy. You might be one of them. So, here it is. Do you have a problem with my skin color?” (Everett 154).

Not Sidney says “Violet, you and I are pretty much the same color”. To which she responds, “No, we’re not’ she snapped. ‘I’m milk chocolate and you’re dark cocoa, dark as Satan’” (Everett 155).

While a guest in their home, Not Sidney feels targeted as a considerably darker African American man and finds his darker skin tone often the topic of conversation. Even while they are both African American, Violet makes Not Sidney aware of the physical differences between their complexions.

After this conversation with Violet, Not Sidney finds himself looking at the complexion of a few of the arriving Thanksgiving guests. He begins to categorize each of the guests. Categorization “is the act of sorting and organizing things according to group, class, or, as you might expect, category”, which plays well into Not Sidney Poitier’s sudden categorization of skin colors (Vocabulary). He begins to categorize himself and the guests by the darkness or lightness of their complexion. This is an example of both categorization and self-monitoring since he is aware of his behavior in distinguishing between the guests’ skin tones.

Not Sidney says, “I nodded to each one in turn and was sickened that I had been so influenced by my experience in this household that I caught myself gauging the skin tones of the guests. Large Reverend Golightly was the color of coffee with a generous helping of cream. Slightly more cream had been added to Mrs. Golightly” (Everett 155).

Both his interaction with Violet as well as his sudden behavior are ironic since he is typically an individual who is classified on the basis of being African American.

Irony, according to Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray’s The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, is “a contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality… A discrepancy may exist between what someone says and what he or she actually means, between what someone expects to happen and what really happens, or between what appears to be true and what actually is true” (217).

This occurrence is especially ironic for two reasons. The first, as mentioned, is that typically he is the one who is classified by his skin color. In so many of his encounters, Not Sidney is belittled or is judged by the color of his skin. For instance, earlier in the novel when he and a man named Patrice, a prisoner, are escaping a bus full of prisoners, Not Sidney and Patrice converse about why each of them got arrested in the first place.

Patrice, a Caucasian man, explains that he stole a car and drove the car into his girlfriend’s living room because she was cheating on him. Then, he asks why Not Sidney was arrested.

“Apparently it’s illegal to be black in Peckerwood County,” Not Sidney says. To which Patrice responds, “If it ain’t, it oughta be” (Everett 55).  

Especially in this example, Not Sidney’s arrest exemplifies that he faces obstacles because of the color of his skin. He, as an African American man, is categorized by that under the law and is therefore punished solely because of his skin color.

Additionally, it is ironic since Not Sidney is now the one who is mindful of his categorization of African American people on the basis of the light or darkness of their complexion. When he first meets the Larkins, an African American family, he observes their light skin, which is already one observation. Then, while he is in the kitchen with Violet, he comments on her skin tone. And last, when he is meeting the guests who have come for a Thanksgiving meal, he internally describes and compares each of their complexions to each other before actually conversing with any of them.

As written in my most recent blog post, The Prevalence of Racism, racism is still an issue in society. In applying each of these terms, self-monitoring, categorization, and irony, Everett implies that often times, people of different skin colors and/or ethnicities often perceive others in that sense. Without having had engaged in a real discussion with Violet, Not Sidney could sense that there was an existing issue already because his skin tone was darker than hers, which led him to categorize himself and others. Without having met the guests, Not Sidney used a self-monitoring process to become aware of his mental process in categorizing the guests by their complexions. Without having actually done anything, Not Sidney knew he was arrested quite simply because of his color.

Thursday theme – This Masquerade

Today’s theme song in ENGL 203-04 is “This Masquerade” by Leon Russell. It’s from Russell’s 1972 album Carney. Lyrics here.

At the song’s heart is the familiar idea that humans put up barriers between themselves and others in the form of masks. This “lonely game” of deception keeps us from making real contact with one another, and the result is especially problematic if we allow ourselves to play the game in a romantic relationship. In such a relationship it’s essential that we allow others access to the “real” self that lies behind the mask. Only when we let our masks fall can there be genuine “understanding” between us, the kind of understanding that’s an essential condition of love. Continue reading “Thursday theme – This Masquerade”