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It is hard to argue with Daniels' plea for frank, person-to-person communication. Daniels' long lament about "lazy and stupid" blacks is a shocker on stage, coming from the middle-class academic. "Can't people admit they feel this way?" the dean asks. But to what end? If such bluntness led to any meaningful dialogue on race, it might be worthwhile, but it is more likely simply to legitimize the expression of bigoted statements that have been thankfully dampened out of guilt, shame or "political correctness." These sentiments may mask real feelings, but sometimes frankness or honesty can simply be an excuse for sloppy thinking or crude prejudice.

The key issue is not so much objectification, political correctness or some aspect of identity politics as it is who has power to define social identities and relationships -- white-controlled corporations, media empires, universities and political organizations. Facing up to objectification ultimately necessitates contending with powerlessness, either submitting to it or struggling against it. That struggle with powerlessness may lead as readily to personal pathologies, such as Simon's notes, as political movements, whether it's Students for Tolerance or the minority student organization. On the other hand, although whites in "Spinning Into Butter" may agonize over how to deal with blacks in their midst and what is the appropriate terminology and conduct, they do not confront the fact that they still have disproportionate power in the college and society, even with their ambiguous power to "do good."

The world of Wilson's jitney drivers -- operators of illegal but crucial taxis in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where Wilson grew up -- is surrounded by whites, at times penetrated by whites and always heavily influenced by whites, but there are no white characters to the drama. Indeed, for all the deleterious effects of the white-dominated power structure on the lives of these men, one of them suggests that most whites don't even know they exist -- just as the whites in "Spinning Into Butter" barely know any black people.

Wilson, whose work ranks in the pantheon of American playwrights like Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams, once again brilliantly sketches memorable characters and provides a realistic slice of black American life. As in other Wilson plays, the drama of the African-American community is nearly self-contained here, but this world exists within a society that can -- and does -- reach out and destroy both black individuals and communities. Whatever the complications that the white administrators in Gilman's Vermont college have in dealing with blacks, they pale by comparison with the dilemmas faced by blacks dealing with the whites who hold so much power over their lives.

Becker, a retired steel-mill worker, runs a jitney station, serving the unofficial taxi needs of the black community. The jitney drivers themselves are a rich collection of troubled but hard-working men who transcend their easy identifications -- an angry young man who is frustrated, but trying to be a successful husband and father; an amiable drunk with memories of being a tailor to black stars; a gruff gossip; a player with a sentimental streak; a philosopher of self-improvement. Life at the jitney station is a series of constant hustles, negotiations over small change, limited opportunities and bigger, often faded dreams. The "car service" offers the men a living and a sense of independence that is threatened by the city's plans to tear down everything on the street in the name of urban renewal.

Yet Becker, who provides the initiative and order for the jitney station, faces a more personal crisis. His son, Booster, is about to leave prison after serving 20 years for murdering his well-to-do white girlfriend.

Booster's act ultimately kills his mother and his relationship with his father as well. Becker is bitter that his son, a good student who had started college, threw away a promising career, but Booster had seen his father's lifetime of hard work and submissiveness to white landlords and bosses as making him "small."

Betrayed by his girlfriend, and caught in the web of her father's deeply hypocritical views of sex and race, Booster had thought that by seeking revenge he could redeem his father and make the Becker family name "big" again -- as his father appeared to the young boy within the confines of the black community.

Father and son never reconcile, but they indirectly attempt to redeem themselves to each other. Becker decides to organize the jitney drivers and fight urban renewal. "We can keep playing by their rules as we have been," Becker says. "But they change the rules. We've got to do something else." Yet Becker never gets to try his new strategy, falling victim to his rigorously responsible work ethic. As the dispirited drivers praise his father, Booster reflects that all he ever knew about his father was how hard he worked, and for the first time contemplates stepping into his empty shoes.

One of the beauties of Wilson's plays is the economical way in which he presents complex characters as believable but imperfect human beings. They are characters as universally human as those in any great drama, yet deeply rooted in African-American culture and history -- as much black Americans as Ibsen's characters are Scandinavian or Moliere's French. They are trying to live out their dreams -- of family, happiness, livelihood, sexual fulfillment and personal pride -- but within a context that limits and intrudes upon their actions. The city's elite can condemn their neighborhood and destroy their business. Landlords threaten the roof over their heads and the stature of parents in the eyes of their children. Whites control access to good jobs. Even when blacks succeed in school, when they reach out and make personal connections to whites, they face betrayal. But while "Jitney" does offer some understanding of Booster's rage, the play is clearly unsympathetic to his actions, which destroyed him and his family and did nothing to right any wrongs. Implicitly, it argues that the solution is rather for blacks to work together politically and to create their own base of economic and cultural power.

Quite rightly, neither "Spinning Into Butter" nor "Jitney" attempts to provide full-blown political analysis, let alone a 10-bullet program of action for eliminating racism. Both Wilson and Gilman have made serious efforts to provide realistic portrayals of how the conundrum of race plays out in American life. In their hands, the tragic flaw in American life becomes the stuff of great drama.
salon.com | August 16, 1999

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