Sag Harbor: A valuable Coming-of-Age Novel focused on race


Sag Harbor: The Importance of a Coming-of Age Novel about Race

by Linden

        Over this semester, we have read many iconic coming-of-age novels. We read The Catcher in the Rye, a classic said to fully encompass the adolescent experience. Holden Caufield took a position as the underdog denouncing the status quo. But many criticize how sheltered he is as a wealthy, white, young man with his life ahead of him. Through his insulated bubble, racial minorities are often not even considered (or just in the peripheral, described stereotypically). His manifesto may ring hollow to those not included in his small world of privilege. The Bell Jar was another staple coming of age novel. Similarly, Ester Greenwood makes a compelling statement about how gender and mental health is stigmatized. However, she too has her share of cringeworthy moments of racism and homophobia. There is one scene where she describes a black nurse exclusively as "The Negro," with stereotypical descriptions of "big, rolling eyes" and phonetic spelling to mock his speech (Plath 179-182). Using these kinds of racist tropes detracts from the novel's accessibility. Fun home was a step in the right direction, representing gender and sexual identity in a story coming to terms with grief and family dynamics. However, it barely mentioned racial identity at all. Black Swan Green had a valuable moment in "Knife Grinder" that spoke on how people form mobs and outcast others. In the chapter, he thinks critically about his privileged Anglo identity and speaks about his immersion with the neighboring Romani community. That's as close as the previous books have gotten to speaking on growing up and navigating racial identity.

    Enter Sag Harbor. This novel makes it explicit that race is a central theme. Young Benji Cooper is a black teenager who goes to a majority white school in Manhattan and Sag Harbor, a black community in the Hamptons. Through his pivotal teenage years from 16 to 18, figuring out his complicated racial identity is inevitable for his coming-of-age experience. In chapter two, he speaks on his unique identity and how it makes it hard finding his place in a racially divided world:

"Black boys with beach houses. It could mess with your head sometimes, if you were the susceptible sort [...] You could embrace the beach part -- revel in the luxury[...] No apologies. You could embrace the black part --  take some idea you had about what real blackness was, and make theater of it, your 24-7 one-man show [...] Or you could embrace the contradiction, say, what you call paradox, I call myself. In theory. Those inclined to this remedy didn't have many obvious role models." (Whitehead 72).

Benji notes how people tend to divide themselves in archetypes, based on race, class, gender, or however else oppression has historically split communities. And when you don't fit the mold of your assigned group, it can make you want to mask the parts that don't align and push the fraction of you that fits. 

His paradox reminds me a lot of my own experiences. My old middle school was extremely racially divided. That's just how it was, people only would hang out with people of their own race. But I wasn't sure what to choose as a person with a white dad from Missouri and a middle-eastern mom from Lebanon. What was even more problematic is that I was distanced from both of these groups. My mom never had the time to teach me Arabic, and she married a non-muslim man which is a big no-no. And my dad has been very distant from his hillbilly roots ever since he left to go to college. So I was an outsider no matter who I was with. But masking was only going to make things worse, putting on an unauthentic facade to check a box. Benji is cynical about the possibility of forging your own identity, or at least recognizes the challenges saying, "Those inclined to this remedy didn't have many obvious role models". Benji mostly fails in his attempt to "reinvent" himself over the summer. But he does succeed in coming to terms with the parts of his identity for better or for worse. In a way, part of growing up is realizing that it's worth it to pave your own identity instead of checking a box. 

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