Question: How does King portray the Groveland boys (or Groveland Four) when we first meet them. Why does he do this?
While King chooses to paint each of the falsely accused suspects in a different light I am most intrigued by the story of Charles Greenlee. King immediately lets us know that Greenlee had nothing to do with the crimes and was simply waiting for a friend to come back with clean clothes when he was questioned and soon thrown in jail simply for being black and alone late at night. King takes us inside the mind of Greenlee showing us though Charles's eyes what the process of abduction, confusion, panic, and eventually torturous physical abuse was like all in the span of a few hours. The grotesque and graphic descriptions of Greenlee's torture induced confession lead one not only to the disturbing conclusion that he himself had to endure this, but looking at the nonchalance of the torturers, the fact that this was a common practice in such places. One interesting contrast here was the participation of Sheriff Willis McCall, who just pages before seemed a hero for having preventing a lynching, in the torturing of Greenlee. Through McCall's willing participation, King helps to show the skewed sense of justice in the South, and the strong sense of vigilante justice, through citizens taking the law into their own hands. This seems like a theme in all of the cases that Thurgood Marshall investigates. While he uses legal leverage to work for the rights of blacks in such places, the whites who resist him use a mob mentality to avoid clashing with the law and in some cases (such as McCall's) those resisting Marshall are the law.
Of course the topic of race relations and friction can connect this to Heart of Darkness, but i feel that on a deeper level both texts show that whites (who consider themselves superior) believe wholeheartedly that the atrocities they are committing are nothing more than justice on the way to the achievement of a higher purpose. In the case of the Congo this higher purpose is to "civilize the natives" while in 1950's America it is the effort to protect white women from the "terrifying sexual threat" of black men. Both King and Conrad expose horrible injustice which at the time, many thought justified and right.
I think it's definitely a case of "White Man's Burden" in the sense that, as you said, white people are sort of taught that it is literally their duty to make other races civilized/"as good" as they consider themselves to be. In Heart of Darkness, there doesn't seem to be any thought to the fact that they are both kicking the Africans out of their own land as well as claiming this land for themselves. It's just the way imperialism worked, which seems like the root of racism. Obviously this is getting a little off-task, since this book doesn't exactly explore the root to this level, but it's interesting to see how these events in history (Belgian imperialism in the Congo, slavery and segregation in the US) are extremely similar when observed in this way.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly. Out of all the Groveland Boys’ stories by far the most heartbreaking is Charles Greenlee’s. In the beginning of Chapter 5, “A Trouble Fixin’ to Start”, we first meet Charles Greenlee, and he is immediately subjected to Sherriff’s McCall’s injustice. Although he was by no means, the worst off Groveland Boy, a larger sense of innocence and injustice is equated with Greenlee because of his entire lack of involvement with Norma Lee. Another powerful scene for me, involving Charles Greenlee, was at the beginning of Chapter 12, “Atom Smasher”. McCall first threatens Greenlee’s life and then forces him to answer interrogative questions and make false confessions. When Greenlee is brought back to his cell, the other Greenlee Boys sit in silence as he cries. For me, this epitomized the degree of emotional suffering Greenlee was subjected to.
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