Race

Is such a small word.

It sounds unimportant and it just rolls of the tongue like any other world, but in reality it holds more weight than many multiple syllable words.

Zadie Smith shows how the question of race, the existence of race, the institution of race . . . well, how race in general affects everyday life in On Beauty. People like to believe that race isn’t as important as it seems. Unfortunately, it is, if only because people think that is is/should be. Also, Smith cleverly deals with racial stereotypes.

Howard is white and Kiki is black. This is made known to the reader in a backwards way near the beginning of the book, so the reader is aware that conflicts involving race will arise eventually. The workings of the interracial relationship between a white man and a black woman have been explored in countless books and movies (my personal favorite being Guess Who), all of which relay the same message; that interracial relationships are complicated by complications not found in one race relationships even if the people involved in the relationship “don’t care” that their significant other is of a different race.

When Howard cheats on Kiki with a small, white, fellow professor she thinks it says something about what he is really looking for:

“‘Could you have found anybody less like me if you’d scoured the earth?’ she said, thumping the table with her fist. ‘My leg weighs more than that woman. What have you made me look like in front of everybody in this town? You married a big black b**** and you run off with a f***ing leprechaun?’”

She also mentions in this exchange how she gave up everything for him—she suggests that she gave up being black for him. She says that her life has pretty much been white-washed and she was okay with it because she loved him and he loved her. Now that he had an affair with a white woman she’s not okay with any of it anymore.

And then there are their kids. Jerome and Zora are very intelligent and go to top colleges, which already causes them to beat the stereotype for African-Americans. They are well-spoken and refined—people would probably call them “Oreos” because apparently if you speak well you “act white.” The difference between the speech of Zora and Carl is well-illustrated, and I think their interaction is supposed to show the varying degrees of blackness (you know, just like there are varying degrees of whiteness). Is race as important of a factor as to how people turn out as environment and upbringing?

Well, in Levi’s case, I guess the answer would be yes. Levi thinks he’s a thug, which is actually really comical. He has a British, art professor father and lives in the suburbs of Boston, yet he wears a do-rag and wears his pants super low (“LOOKING LIKE A FOOL WITH YOUR PANTS ON THE GROUND” :). He even adopted a Brooklyn accent . . .? One of the most memorable passages in the book so far dealing with race deals with Levi. His boss brings out the “n” word—he tells him to stop acting like one. Levi is first stunned, then confused, then furious. He quits on the spot.

If I were going to write a paper based on this book, it would most definitely deal with the race question. Zadie Smith seems to have a lot to say about it.