Sunday, May 3, 2015

Racist Coins?

I enjoyed how Hansberry portrayed the two racist characters in the book, Lindner and (ironically) Murchison. Lindner was very soft-spoken, polite, nervous man, an opposite to a stereotypical racist in every way. It may seem counterintuitive to reference a stereotype in a post of this nature, but bear with me. The way Lindner worded his speeches to the Youngers sort of made me feel like he was only conveying the wishes and opinions of the people of Clybourne Park when that wasn't the case at all. The other racist character, George Murchison, seemed like a paradox. He was African-American, and yet he held himself above other African-Americans on the level of white people. He attempted to give himself the qualities of a stereotypical white person in that time: college boy, nice clothes, "gay" shoes (as observed by Walter Lee). But, to the Younger family, he only displayed a demeanor of trying too hard to be cool. These two men seemed like two vastly different sides of a same coin.

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