Sunday, October 5, 2014
Matters of Identity
It seems that when people don't know you, you can be who ever you want to be. It may be fine at first but as time goes on people may find out who you really are. The story of Incognegro seems to illustrate this point, at least to me. Johnson takes this matter and ramps it up a bit by putting serious consequences on it. The story seems to be a sort of warning against using your identity to deceive people. I say this because out of all those who assumed different personalities only Zane came out alive, this includes Francis. Do you agree that Johnson's Incognegro is a warning against taking on different identities in or order to deceive? And if you do agree consider this, even though Zane's assumed identity was doing a service to the community by pointing out those who attended lynching, do you think that it was justified according to the message highlighted in the book?
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If there is one thing that I cannot tolerate, it is racism, especially when it has happened and happens in our country that claims to be of freedom. When I first heard the stories about racial injustice of America's past, I couldn't believe we would do something so inhumane. And opening the book to the first few pages, where the lynching was being performed, just worsened my opinion about the south during the early 20th century. Yet when seeing how Zane was deceiving everyone just by his light colored skin gave me inspiration and a good laugh. I do believe that Johnson is giving the reader a warning about how dangerous it is to assume different identities to deceive others, but I doubt that he is protesting against this tactic. This is a strategy that has been used in the past and will continue to be used in the future. In my opinion, deceiving the enemy in anyway is necessary if you wish to bring a brighter future for everyone else. Zane was doing this so that the lynchings of innocent people would stop. I don't see anything wrong with this tactic, only that is it dangerous (but that's the risk you have to take). You have to be willing to do whatever it take for injustice to be stopped, even at the cost of your own life.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that the theme of the freedom of anonymity, and any condemnation of it, really holds up within the context of racial prejudice, especially at this extremity. Zane's brother was relatively unknown, and nonetheless unfairly persecuted. Rather, the text suggests that (white) people don't care who are beyond immediate signifiers. It is this blindness that allows Zane to go undetected just because of his paler complexion. There's an obvious risk in the specific instance of deception, but I wouldn't say that the novel is arguing against such actions. Hard not to justify an attempt to save a lynch victim.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think there’s any textual support for Incognegro as a morality tale against “assuming different identities”. (and at the point in the book which we were assigned for today, only one character has died and we don’t even know who it is)
ReplyDeleteWhat the text does point to is a much more surface level “revelation” by Johnson: identity is fluid (or ‘open-ended’ as our protagonist so ham-fistedly spouts off). That’s really it. He’s using a decades-old trope of mistaken identity in detective fiction, and mashing it together with a very shallow-end-of-the-pool examination of racial/gender identity.
The problem with what he’s done is that none of his characters feel like real people, so it’s impossible for us to care about them in a way that would make this tactic viable. Our protagonist is a flat reporter who’s being ‘dragged back in for one last, big story’ but really has no inner life. The antagonists are Disney villains. The foils are cardboard stereotypes of ‘hillbilly’ white southerners.
And this is all in a story that’s supposed to be about the complexity of identity? Give me a break…
The use of different identities wasn't the focus but more like using your resources. Because Zane had a skin tone that would let him pass as a white male, he was able to get to the focus of everything: lynching in the south. The fake ID was just a support to what people could assume about him. Using his resources for a later point that will help his brother.
ReplyDeleteI like where you're going, but I think I have to agree with Max in that I don't see anything supporting it being a morality tale. I think it's simply high-lighting this story of a man who bravely tried to expose some of the corruption and horror that existed in our nation's past. I don't see it as a warning at all, more as a plot device to tell this story of investigation. I do like the idea, and as a concept it's really cool. I agree with Max in that everything seems to be very flat, but I don't dislike it. In this story, people are representing more over arching themes rather than real characters. Since it's such a short book, I think this actually works really well. He isn't concerned too much with fleshing out the characters. Rather, he wants to emphasize the over arching evil, and the heroic-ness his main character is utilizing to try and defend those who are being oppressed. I would definitely love some more character development for Zane, and maybe that will happen in the second half, but as is, I'm not too bothered by it.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that Incognegro took place in a time of much racial tension I don’t think it serves as a warning for identity so much as it shows the struggles many black people had to go through in the 30s based solely on their appearance. This is especially true for mulattoes as they had to choose whether they wanted to identify as black or white and often it wasn’t a real choice if they wanted to survive. Zane did he had to survive at the expense of how he wanted to live his life. The narrative is much like the other comics we read in class in which they show us the past for what it is rather than try to bring about a moral for the readers.
ReplyDeleteI think I can understand the point you are trying to make about the consequences of assuming another identity, but I think there's a lot more to the narrative then a moral warning. I think at this point in the story the author is trying to show a society teeming with racial tension and violence. "Passing" ( is Zane's way of using his random genetic appearance to his advantage. He is going undercover not to hide his identify for own sake but seek justice and legal accountability. Zane is eager to make a name for himself instead of hiding in the shadows with his journalism. Hiding his identity is only a tool and a dangerous own at that.
ReplyDeleteI think that Johnson is giving us a warning, but in a slightly different sense. Zane went undercover in order to discover the truth about lynchings and to bring that truth to the public via the newspaper he worked for. He clearly put himself in grave danger every time he went undercover, but it was for the greater good. The problem is that he became too emotionally involved, meaning he could not create and maintain a believable identity. Johnson's warning here is that it is not inherently bad to create an identity with the intent to deceive (the police do it, after all), but it needs to be done for the right reason. Simply trying to entrap people isn't enough; rather it must be done for a greater good.
ReplyDeleteI think there is definitely a message about the consequences involved in taking on false identities. I am not sure if it a message against doing this completely, or maybe a warning that there are troubles involved, so make sure to do it right. I think Zane's taking on a new identity is completely justified. Deception is understandable when a life is on the line. However, deception in mystery novels like this varies case-to-case depending on the characters the audience sympathizes with. In this case, the audience follows Zane and therefore sympathizes with him, so far at least.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the major things that Johnson tries to explore with Incognegro is that one's sense of identity can be a dangerous thing all unto itself. In the era that the story takes place in, people were condemned from birth based simply upon the color of their skin - itself a major foundational element of one's identity. Likewise, certain other people were afforded unbelievable power and luxury because of their identities, including the ability to get away with very public murder.
ReplyDeleteWhat rarely happened was an opportunity for someone to transcend these two realities of identity and explore them both equally. In that way, Incognegro is a grim look at what it's like to walk a mile in another man's shoes.
If there is a warning here, I think it's a warning of expectation based upon superficial identity. White, black, rich, poor, man, woman… there is more to being human than hitting certain conditional social/cultural/racial check boxes. We're more complex than that, and to break anyone down into such simple terms is not only doing them a disservice, but actively limiting your own understanding of the world around you.
I agree with Chris. This story is more than just the warning about false identities. Due to setting in time, one can achieve a "false" identity by one purely not believing in what you say you are. Back then there were no checks or ways to truly find out a strangers identity, they didn't have facebook stalking back then. But identity was either something you were bestowed from genetics, race, class or gender, but also something you had to bestowed upon yourself. One could simply act much different than they truly are in time Inconegro was set, and no one would have no way of knowing, if they are strangers. I think this is an interesting book to read now, with all those people who use the Internet as a way to falsify identity and fool others, for good or bad.
ReplyDeleteI personally don’t think that the story serves as a warning against taking on different identities, if anything, it seems to commemorate taking on different identities. Zane is seen as a superhero. It states, “I am incognegro. I don’t wear a mask like zero or a cape like that shadow, but I don a disguise nonetheless” (18). And just like any other modern superhero, – Batman and Superman - Zane puts his life on the line in the name of justice. His cause is noble, and I would also say is justified by what has been highlighted in the book thus far. In other words, I don’t think it is the stories intention to accuse Zane of any wrong doing on his part because he is doing what has to be done in order to shed light on truth and ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the outside-the-box question posted, but I don't feel that the author has constructed a morality tale on the dangers of taking on different and deceptive identities. I'm not sure if I buy into the whole notion that Zane is being deceptive just because he can pass for white. He is a reporter exposing the atrocities of racism and even putting his life in jeopardy. Perhaps (to me) the biggest piece of evidence to refute the posted question can be found in the author's notes stating that not only was he a black boy that could pass for white, but that he has two twin children; one dark skinned and the other light. He knows that society will view them differently solely based on random genetics. I think this is the bigger moral here.
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ReplyDeleteIt does seem like Incognegro utilizes the Shakespearean trope of mistaken identities throughout the novel. Carl gets the worst of it, having been lynched, and perhaps this is because he not only pretends to be white, but British. Francis pretends to be a man, and Michaela pretends to be dead, and both of them end up dead in the end.
Yet while I agree that the novel sends out a warning about hiding one's identity, I do not think Incogengro is condemning this idea. Michaela hid her identity for the wrong reasons and perhaps deserved her death. But Carl was merely trying to assist Zane in rescuing his brother and ended up giving his life for this cause by taking the fall for Zane and claiming to be the legendary Incognegro. So I think that Johnson commends using a secret or hidden identity for the greater good, although he certainly warns of the dangers of such a lifestyle.