Watts article "the little man"

[jbor]

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html

> The fact that it might happen
> more frequently when the applicant/victim is black is, at this point,
> not the issue.

But if it's "the little man" and his "smiling" racism which is being
described, as isread correctly notes, the fact that the rejected job
applicant or tenant is black is *precisely* the issue; how can racial
discrimination in this scenario be something which happens "more frequently"
to blacks than whites? It's something which happens to blacks, period.
Pynchon's (simple) point is that they've ended up poor because they're
black, not vice versa.

The literary "you" is the rhetorical self-address of a young black Watts man
throughout the entire article, and it is established in its first usage in
the preacher's statement in paragraph 3. It's always quite easy to
distinguish this "you" from the standard colloquial "you" which addresses
the reader-as-hypothetical-visitor (isread's "tourist" thing, which I think
I'm getting the drift of a little more clearly now).

"The Man" is the way the people of Watts think of the police; "the little
man" is the way they think of white middle class employers, social workers,
politicians, landlords, kerb crawlers etc etc. Pynchon's point, and it's an
apt one, is that "besides protecting and serving the little man, the cop
[i.e. 'The Man'] also functions as his effigy". In 1966 it's "The Man" and
"the little man" in tandem who discriminate against black people and work
together to keep them poor, marginalised and angry.

best