BrownGirl Speaks

Schuyler's 1931 satirical novel, Black No More, tells the story of Black insurance man Max Disher who undergoes a procedure that makes him the permanently white Matthew Fisher. This novel explores how race is a social construct that can be altered and manipulated by those with power to suit their needs.

From the commentary on the often caricatured features of Black folks being inaccurate and how dialect is regional not racial to the scathing criticism of such Black luminaries as W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP, George Schuyler wrote a brilliant and poignant piece that is unflinching in its attack on the idea of race. I found myself laughing out loud through most of the book especially at his satirization of Dr. DuBois as Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard and completely ripped his intentions as a "Race Man". The name alone is golden! Max, now Matthew, goes on to infiltrate a white supremacist group and marry a white woman he fell for while still a Black man. Everything about American society is turned upside-down as droves of Blacks flock to Dr. Crookman's sanitariums to experience "chromatic emancipation". It doesn't take long for the true whites to become frantic about issues such as Black babies born to seemingly all white pairings and for the Blacks who've "crossed over" to realize that white might not be right.

George Schuyler was a conservative Black author and journalist. He was also a big proponent of miscegenation as a means to eradicate the race problem in the U.S. He and his white wife were the parents of child prodigy and pianist Phillipa Schuyler.

Challenges:
African Diaspora
POC Reading