A Racist Cycle

Chesnutt reveals the intensity of the issue of slavery as perceived in the aftermath of the Civil War. Contrary to the intentions of the post-Civil War period he highlights the policies that continued to limit the power of blacks in the South. Much like Twain he employs satire to reveal the hypocrisy not only within a society of racist white Southerners, but within the African-American community itself.
He traces the issue of slavery first in his short-story “What is a White Man?” The title itself is kind of ironic because it is a question that at this time and age would not have required so much emphasis on thought, but in the post-Civil War era this was a question of actual relevance and importance. He outlines this form of slavery as one that existed through the implementation of policies. that restricted blacks racially. The desire to dictate the who held citizenship seems pretty pointless, especially as Chesnutt traces the different attempts by the varying Southern states to define what distinguishes a black man from a white man. The pointlessness is his aim because he wants to reveal the hypocrisy in the societal decisions and how no matter what attempts African-Americans and abolitionists made in achieving greater political and social rights for blacks, they only resulted in policies implemented to restrict blacks racially. For example, he acknowledges how “before the civil war the color-line, as fixed by law, regulated in theory the civil and political status of persons of color” (124). Yet, after the war he states “these laws have been mainly confined…to the regulation of the intercourse of the races in schools and in the marriage relation” (124). In a sense his tone seems to imply the failure not really in the efforts of the African-Americans and abolitionists, but the failure of their effect on racist white Southerners.
The ironic situation that Chesnutt presents is one in which degradation does not solely exist between whites and blacks, but it becomes a tool of oppression among blacks. “The Wife of His Youth” highlights how the issue of race had become so important in deciding one’s status in society that some blacks aimed to become absorbed into the white race. Mr. Ryder, the main character, recognizes that “our fate lies between the absorption by the white race and extinction in the black” (149). What is even more ironic between the idea of oppression between whites and some African-Americans is the statement that: “Self-preservation is the first law of nature” (149). This idea has been connected to the many atrocities that haunt not only the history of the United States, but Germany and all the nations of the universe. Yet, Chesnutt portrays this form of slavery among the black race to show how racism continued to evolve into different forms. From racial laws that distinguished between black and white to social organizations among African-Americans that excluded people of their own race, Chesnutt reveals the cycle of racism that exists throughout history among both whites and blacks.