Unwieldy Inheritance: Issue of Conformity in “Black Men in Public Spaces” and “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English”

This article discusses the issue of conformity in “Black Men in Public Spaces” by Brent Staples and “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English” by Garry Engkent. It explores how identities are defined by various factors and how non-conformity can lead to marginalization. The article also highlights the importance of contextualizing literary texts for interdisciplinary approaches.

Issue of Conformity 1
Unwieldy Inheritance: Issue of Conformity in “Black Men in Public Spaces” and “Why My Mother Can’t
Speak English”

Issue of Conformity 2
Identities in a society are not always defined by ways of legal norms that ascribe statuses to an
individual. Identities entail multi-dimensional definitions. They are determined by caste, colour, creed, race,
geography, language and, mostly, to what degree is one able to conform to normative of the society.
However, there are no clear categorisation of these as well. An individual can be non-conforming if he/she
cannot speak the dominant language and, supplementing this fact can be the different religion to which
he/she belongs. An individual can be called non-conforming if he/she is “coloured” differently from the
populous dominant and, supplementing this fact can be his/her gender. Therefore, a woman from a minority
community is “doubly in shadow” because she is a woman in a patriarchal society and one who belongs to
the populous minor. (Spivak, p. 84)
For interdisciplinary approaches toward literary texts, such as identification of non-conforming
issues, it is important to locate the concerned text in particular context. Thus, in light of the fact that “Black
Men in Public Spaces” by Brent Staples that appeared first in 1986, contextualises various issues of the
apartheid, the Great Migration as well as the Emancipation Proclamation. So the “unwieldy inheritance”
(Staples, para. 2) that the narrator talks of in his essay “Black Men in Public Spaces” includes his own self
not as an individual but as a collective representative of the inheritance of a past heavily loaded with racial
prejudice, perpetual struggle and extreme violence that had overwhelmed the country of America for
decades. The “woman – white” (Staples, para. 1) made the narrator “feel like an accomplice in tyranny”
(Staples, para. 2). Seeing a tall black man in jeans and jacket at night made her feel afraid, violated in
anticipation and, she took him as one of those “young black males [who are] drastically overrepresented
among the perpetrators of ... violence” (Staples, para. 5). Irrespective of the fact that the narrator had grown
up to be “one of the good boys” (Staples, para. 6) even after witnessing gang-warfare, street knifings and
murders, the “language of fear” (Staples, para. 3) has been imposed upon him in due course. He has been
successfully ‘otherised’. Following a long history of racial clashes up to the point where the blacks have
been stereotyped as vulgar (rap music), ugly (white superiority) and criminals, African-Americans have
been subjected to marginalisation from the dominant white classes of the country. Staples goes on to give
other instances where he has been unjustly subjected to racism until he accepts the fact that he shall always

Issue of Conformity 3
be the ‘other’ in a community of whites and declares, with much pathos, that “Black men trade tales like this
all the time” (Staples, para. 10).
Marginalisation occurs to the diaspora more often than not when the government is unable to keep up
with increasing number of immigrants who pose challenges to existing employment structures and economic
standards. Then there are the prejudicial barriers when individuals are in constant resistance to change, to
modernisation that questions their existing set of values, to dominant cultures and to language. Such barriers
are what is dealt with in Garry Engkent’s “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English” that appeared first in
1991. Engkent’s cousin says to him, “You can’t expect the elderly to renounce all attachments to China for
the ways of the fan gwei, white devils” (Engkent, p. 130). The devils are white. The whites are the devils.
Engkent’s mother has been double marginalised. Being a woman, she has been restricted to adopt the means
of the New World. Her husband tells her, “If you need to know something, the men will translate for you. I
am here; I can do your talking for you” (Engkent, p. 131). She is not required to step out of the kitchen. The
men can do the talking. The nature of her husband’s imposition raises the question of social identification.
He is resistive toward the ways of the “fan gwei” and fears that the latter will superimpose upon his own
cultural and traditional values. So, he talks of the English teacher, “Once she gets through with them, they
won’t be Chinese women anymore – and they certainly won’t be white either” (Engkent, p. 132). But he also
says “To survive in gum san, you have to speak English” (Engkent, p. 131). Therefore, what we have here is
a representative member of diaspora living in a limbo. He fears of losing his cultural identity or being lost in
that of the English speaking people but, at the same time, values the importance of adapting to the new.
The clash between the old and the new, between the majority and the minority is one that has
survived ages and will, most probably, continue to exist. Racial identification issues and concerns relating to
the diaspora have led to many counter movements across the world. Liberal acceptance of different
communities and permitting the self, freedom from historical prejudices may be the slow but steady
solutions to these complications.

Issue of Conformity 4
References
Engkent, G. (n.d.). Why My Mother Can't Speak English. In E. C. Karpinski, Pens of Many Colours: A
Canadian Reader (pp. 129- 134).
McLeod, S. (2008). Social Identity Theory. Retrieved from Simply Psychology :
https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html
Nayar, P. K. (2010). Critical Race Studies. In P. K. Nayar, Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory (pp.
217-240). Pearson India Education.
Spivak, G. C. (n.d.). Can the Subaltern Speak? In P. Williams, & L. Chrisman, Colonial Discourse and
Post-colonial Theory A Reader (pp. 67-111). New York: Columbia University Press.
Staples, B. (n.d.). Black Men in Public Spaces.
Vertovec, S. (2015, June 1). Political Importance Diasporas. Retrieved from Migration Policy:
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/political-importance-diasporas