White culture has undoubtedly been the staple of the United States for centuries, starting from when the country was first brought into being. From baseball to American pie, many aspects of American culture are associated with whiteness, and a natural fallout from this is that for many, the average American citizen is a white male, as evidenced in a class activity earlier in the semester. But the idea of an American citizen is more nuanced and complex than that. When asked what symbolizes and American citizen, many images pop into the mind, but this image of a white male wins out. He is the most representative individual of a nation that is full of many other diverse cultures. The minorities of the country and their culture are mere afterthoughts compared to white culture, and that is exactly what they are: a supporting cast to the main, white male, actor. However, minorities do play a vital role in driving this narrative forward. As former Chief Justice Rose Bird put it, “It's always the minorities who aren't a part of the mainstream who define what the limits... of the majority are going to be.”
Every good, prototypical story follows the same structure: there is a strong and symbolic hero, a recognizable villain that in many ways is the opposite of the hero, and a slew of supporting cast members that each adds their small, but significant part into this story of the hero. In this paper, I argue that this narrative of the prototypical story can also be applied to American society in history: specifically that Whites are the heroes, African Americans are the anti-heroes rising up against white culture (and represent the opposite of whiteness), and other minorities play a large amount of supporting cast members that take the back seat and are often times forgotten about or victimized. More importantly however, I describe what it means to be an American citizen based on this notion of a story, specifically, that to be an American citizen, one must have an active a role in society that has an analogous role in a prototypical hero story. I will also look at different minority groups in the context of this prototypical story, as well as looking at how this relates to how they “define what the limits” of the dominant white society are.
All good stories have a well-developed villain that stands against the main character and drives the plot forward. But there is more to a good villain than meets the eye. They have nuanced personality and often have good motivations mixed in with the bad. In many respects, when looked at from a non-bias view, the villain can be seen as the hero in a lot of ways. As Brian Klems of Writer’s Digest puts it, “… [good villains] can be rebels in search of freedom or justice, and they’re usually willing to take the law into their own hands. They occupy a gray area between good guy and bad guy…” (Klems, 1). And especially with recent events, we can see how the African American fits into this mold of the antihero. They seek justice and take it into their own hands when the state does not provide it to them. Many images in mainstream media paint the picture as a black versus white battle, a battle strikingly similar to the hero versus villain, where the two are opposites and fight for different causes. But the villain doesn’t stand for just evil; there are aspects of the villain that are redeeming, and if put under more scrutiny, it can be seen why the villain does what they do. Looking back through African American history, we see the causes of the hardships they face today. After the end of slavery in the early 1800’s, African Americans now had to content with the economic and social gap between them and the whites. They had to fight for equal rights, including the right to a higher education. This is well documented in the book Black Power on Campus by Joy Ann Williamson, which chronicles Black struggle on the University of Illinois Campus. An excerpt from the first chapter gives us a good look at how hard it was for African Americans to even get into university:
"For the next several decades, white institutions in the North remained, for all intents and purposes, closed to African Americans. In a few cases, African Americans enrolled in white northern institutions with little fanfare. In others, college administrators, faculty, and students actively discouraged African American attendance. In still others, town residents, however welcoming the local college, forced institutions to close their doors or refuse enrollment" (Williamson, 8).
After becoming free of slavery, it seemed ludicrous to let the former slaves into the most sacred institution in modern society, a place of higher education. Again, the African Americans were painted as the villains and it was their job to fight against the white state. They needed to fight for their place, and of course this led to much conflict between the two groups. The African Americans fought for education and overall equality in the education system, and this fight came to a boil when, “disputes over housing arrangements and financial aid packages erupted… ending in a mass arrest of Black students. The arrests energized the RSA and validated the organization’s call to close ranks” (Williamson, 81). And these fights would continue, making them the perfect villain to the story of the White American hero. Yes, the Blacks would have their occasional victory over the course of history, but still today, they fight daily for equal treatment, and this fight puts them in a negative light.
And no story is complete without accompanying minor characters that play the second fiddle to the hero and villain. In the context of American society, we can see other minorities play this performative citizenship role perfectly. Minor characters are there for momentary relief from the narrative of the main characters. They provide a moment of comedy or action in an otherwise intense story. And most critically, they help the hero progress and improve himself throughout his journey. Because there are many possible archetypes a minor character can take on, I will choose to only focus on two: the character that is destined to be saved by the hero (damsel in distress) and the character used for comic relief in a stressful situation.
And no story is complete without accompanying minor characters that play the second fiddle to the hero and villain. In the context of American society, we can see other minorities play this performative citizenship role perfectly. Minor characters are there for momentary relief from the narrative of the main characters. They provide a moment of comedy or action in an otherwise intense story. And most critically, they help the hero progress and improve himself throughout his journey. Because there are many possible archetypes a minor character can take on, I will choose to only focus on two: the character that is destined to be saved by the hero (damsel in distress) and the character used for comic relief in a stressful situation.
And no story is complete without accompanying minor characters that play the second fiddle to the hero and villain. In the context of American society, we can see other minorities play this performative citizenship role perfectly. Minor characters are there for momentary relief from the narrative of the main characters. They provide a moment of comedy or action in an otherwise intense story. And most critically, they help the hero progress and improve himself throughout his journey. Because there are many possible archetypes a minor character can take on, I will choose to only focus on two: the character that is destined to be saved by the hero (damsel in distress) and the character used for comic relief in a stressful situation.
And no story is complete without accompanying minor characters that play the second fiddle to the hero and villain. In the context of American society, we can see other minorities play this performative citizenship role perfectly. Minor characters are there for momentary relief from the narrative of the main characters. They provide a moment of comedy or action in an otherwise intense story. And most critically, they help the hero progress and improve himself throughout his journey. Because there are many possible archetypes a minor character can take on, I will choose to only focus on two: the character that is destined to be saved by the hero (damsel in distress) and the character used for comic relief in a stressful situation.
The “damsel in distress” acts as a vital artifact in the context of the story. Without him or her, there is no story, no conflict to drive the narrative. In many stories such as the video game Mario and the movie series Taken, the character in distress is helpless female character, who needs a male figure to rescue her. This trope is prevalent throughout story telling and is recognizable to the majority of the public. I argue that the Vietnamese refugees that came to the United States during the Vietnam War fit this archetype to a tee. Depicted as a victim of communist Russia, the Americans felt as if the Vietnamese needed to be saved from this evil being. Then as the tides of the war turned, the Americans needed another narrative to pivot on: now the war was about saving Vietnamese from the war stricken country that used to be there homeland. After the refugee act of 1980, Vietnamese poured into America. The Vietnamese were now, as Yen Le in Body Counts puts it, “a human tragedy of staggering dimension” (Le, 10). That year, the United States admitted 168,000 refugees into its borders. The 1980 act was praised, saying that the United States had a “longstanding commitment to human rights and its traditional humanitarian concern for the plights of refugees” (Le, 10). Now the United States were painted as the hero it was destined to be: a hero that saved hundreds of thousands of lives. And the Vietnamese fit perfectly into the role: the Asian’s feminine nature matching with the “damsel” description of the role. But we must remember it was the United States that manufactured this arc of the story. They created the war and the narrative of refugees that must be rescued. And in the end, the Vietnamese that became citizens in their new home have to act out this role of the rescued.
One of the more minor roles in the story is that of the joker, the character taken least serious. As the story progresses, we see this character less and less, but when we do, it is for relief from a serious situation. Audiences don’t associate this character with good or bad. And unfortunately, that character in United States history has been the Native American. A remnant of the past, in modern culture, the Native American represents entertainment and lost tradition. In present day, they run casinos and are the faces of many sports franchises. But in the mid 20th century, they represented another form of entertainment: live shows. The famous Buffalo Bill show toured the nation. Halftime shows at Illinois football games featured a dancer dressed in Native American clothing, entertaining the crowd. And these shows attracted thousands. Carol Spindel describes it in Dancing at Halftime when she describes a Buffalo Bill show where “fifteen thousand people crowded the streets…to watch the ‘unusual rumble of feet , the prancing of fiery steeds, the waving of beautiful plumes of all colors’” (Spindel, 113). And this was all that culture meant to the Whites and United States citizen, just entertainment that rolled around a couple times a year. The people behind the shows are not important, it is only the surface level details we care about. And this is very reflective of how Native Americans have been treated throughout history. They sadly play a forgotten citizen in the story that features the White hero triumphantly riding horses into the sunset.
All ethnic groups in the United States play some performative role in the context of the story lead by the White hero. Whether it’s a significant role like Blacks as the villains or Vietnamese as the damsel in distress, we all play a role that makes a uniquely part of the story. And it is this, being woven into the silk of the story,hat I think is part of the definition of the citizen. That a citizen throughout history has to perform his or her role in relation to the main character, and without it, they provide nothing, even if they are technically a citizen. It is vital for every citizen to perform, have their own story, and act it out as such in the context of the big picture that is the United States.
All ethnic groups in the United States play some performative role in the context of the story lead by the White hero. Whether it’s a significant role like Blacks as the villains or Vietnamese as the damsel in distress, we all play a role that makes a uniquely part of the story. And it is this, being woven into the silk of the story,hat I think is part of the definition of the citizen. That a citizen throughout history has to perform his or her role in relation to the main character, and without it, they provide nothing, even if they are technically a citizen. It is vital for every citizen to perform, have their own story, and act it out as such in the context of the big picture that is the United States.
Image sources:
1. Plot line: https://eclecticali.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/plot-line.jpg
2. Disney villains: http://www.playbuzz.com/massivemeeting10/which-disney-villain-are-you-like-when-youre-angry
3. Peach and Bowser: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mario-DamselInDistress_2325.png
4. Vietnamese Refugees: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Vietnamese_refugees_on_US_carrier,_Operation_Frequent_Wind.jpg
5. Disney Comic Relief: http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/dxRCQWodrH_l.jpg
6. Native American: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dr4track/images/gallery/native_american.jpg
1. Plot line: https://eclecticali.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/plot-line.jpg
2. Disney villains: http://www.playbuzz.com/massivemeeting10/which-disney-villain-are-you-like-when-youre-angry
3. Peach and Bowser: http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mario-DamselInDistress_2325.png
4. Vietnamese Refugees: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Vietnamese_refugees_on_US_carrier,_Operation_Frequent_Wind.jpg
5. Disney Comic Relief: http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/dxRCQWodrH_l.jpg
6. Native American: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dr4track/images/gallery/native_american.jpg