Core Post # 4 - Megan Henckel

After completing Dyer’s chapter on Paul Robeson, I am intrigued by Dyer’s exploration into the symbiotic relationship of black and white identity present in Robeson’s image and how such interconnected opposites function together to create a persona of the acceptable, ideal, black star. Dyer explains that Robeson was considered “the epitome of what black people are like” (68) because he satisfied white stereotypes and values while simultaneously being revered by black audiences who viewed him as one who proved African Americans could achieve the same prestige as any white person. Robeson identified as a black individual while doing so within the parameters of a white society, thus establishing a tension between blackness and whiteness. He was constantly resting in the tension of blackness and whiteness and such a relationship is visible not only in the roles he played, but in how he was received by audiences thus informing his universal appeal. Dyer describes how Robeson’s black folk qualities were an example of such tension as they, like Robeson himself, were superficially displaying authentic black culture but in reality were actually a construction of the white imagination and how they created a different interpretation of black folk culture. For example, the song “Old Man River” from Showboat is considered by Dyer to be “the ultimate white spiritual. . . though it is not a spiritual at all” (83). The film depicts a tired Joe singing about the struggles of his race in the typical negro spiritual style that many would typical associate with such feelings about race. The song, however, was not an actual spiritual gleaned from the historic past of black slavery and oppression, but rather it was a song created to suit Robeson’s voice that represented elements commonly heard by white people within spirituals: suffering, melancholy, and despair. Thus it seems as though the song, which was created for a show that encompassed elements of 19th century racism and post- reconstruction era racial tensions, was inadvertently balancing black/white as it was white understanding of history disguised as a negro spiritual.
Dyer makes a poignant statement when he says “to many observers moments and images show Robeson as a white man’s nigger, sacrificing his specifically black cultural heritage to the codes and conventions of white culture” (103). I think what Dyer brings to light in such examples throughout the reading, whether in Robeson’s black folk, atavism, sexuality, etc, is that Paul Robeson’s status as the epitome of the acceptable black man was fueled by the fact that he was able to satisfy the rules and desires of both blackness and whiteness. Whether in roles where he was playing “black character” (such as the African native) based on the white definitions or living in the white man’s world by adopting its clothes, hobbies and practices (for example American football or the white house in Connecticut) Paul Robeson was appealing to discourses that were acceptable to both blacks and whites, always balancing tension between the two while revealing the way they function together to fuel his success.