GRGR(4): "I Wanna Be Black"

[David Morris]

David Morris wrote:
>>(62.38) A woman turns to look at him from a table.  Her eyes
>>tell him, in> the instant, what he is.  The mouth harp in his
>>pocket reverts to brass inertia.  A weight.  A jive accessory.
>>But he carries it everywhere he goes.

Paul Mackin:
>Silly me, I thought the woman was a stuck up Radcliffe girl who
>was snubbing Tyrone for his low social status. The same one possibly
>who in her well bred way left the cherry in her drink glass for the
>slightly gauche T to filch. Thus I drew a different conclusion but
>you may well be right.
>
>It does seem like the staff is black and  the clientele white. In
>any case the white men's room referred to doesn't ring true. I never
>saw  white rest rooms except in the South. In the North the ONLY public
>rest rooms would be for whites only.
>
>I may be overlooking something.

I suppose it could be read that way too, but that'd sure take away the
racial guilt implications in that line, which are later echoed in "Cherokee"
"one more lie about white crimes."

The scene starts with:
(62.20) Black faces, [then] white tablecloths, gleaming _very sharp knives_
[then...] yowzah/sho nuf [then...] White college boys [then...] Two [black]
bartenders [in front if a mirror that swallows the light in the room]
[then...] Slothrop can't even see his own white face [then...] A woman turns
to look at him from a table [for the first time, no color stated.  Why?]

It's interesting to see the sequence above Black, White, Black, White.

Also, does it actually say "white mens' room" in the text?

David Morris