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Eid Alajmi
Professor Jaclyn Hymes
English 113B
December 7, 2015
Racism World
Adam Mansbachs Angry White Boy, the Miscegenation of Macon Detornay: A Novel,
exhibits not only social issues found in the United States but also shows its more negative
effects on the American society. Macon Detornay, the protagonist, gives a message for what he
believes as white hypocrisy towards the Blacks, only that he came from a Jewish family. The
book gives us the idea of Mansbach feeling on the white culture. The thesis of the novel: To
define hybrid-identities, show the issues between the blacks and the whites, and let other
response to the social issue. Topics of novel were raised to the present things that happen in
American societies, such as stereotyping, racism, identity formation and othering, and prove
Macons actions, ideas and decisions which has made him famous leader not only in the fictitious
world of the novel, but also in the real world. Macon, indeed, is the poster child of hybrididentity, and the frivolity that lies beneath the apologetic surface of the white American culture.
I believe that writer trying to give voiceless people the voice to fight racism by using Macons
actions against the white American culture.
One of the issues addressed in this novel is stereotyping. Mansbach was trying to show
the realities that happens the American society, so he put it in the novel by introduce the main
character, Macon. Macon is indeed the poster child of stereotyping. As Jewish young man,

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Macon acts as a Black person, and enter black culture in his life, the language he use or the
words that he use in public, and even the decisions he make about other people from his type and
another types of people. This makes him a stereotype a white boy pretending to live like them.
This is an act of stereotyping, as person pretends as member of another culture which he actually
is not. He also performs the right justice only for his black brothers and not fair with the white
culture that gives him the racism. Like he is trying to be judge for his black culture even if they
are wrong.
Cultural requisition is another issue that is showed in Mansbachs novel and it gives
Macon his distinctive characteristic in the story. He is trying to be black culture and to have their
culture so much, and trying to become one through his performances, such as in speech, in life
action, and in reaction to events, he talks to other people the way the black normal person talk,
and even he uses dirty words in his speech. Macon feels truly about racism, and what he had
acquired by listening and believing in the culture he appropriates. This performance of his in the
novel defines his hybrid-identity, a Jewish person who imitates the black culture. So this made
him like a new person who feel is reborn with new identity for something he believe on it.
He makes reckless decisions in order to make white society apologize to the black society
but in a very specific way. He uses violence in order to achieve his goal, only to promote more
racism. As a cab driver, he performs as a righteous black man by insult his white passengers
which he describes as beastly, assaults them with nasty words, and stealing their stuff. All these
show his racism he has against the whites (Perez 37). This show how Mansbach creates a
character with good intentions but bad form of justice, and show a hint of how racism has created
this type of culture. The idea of race that the whites are demons, the blacks often oppressed, and
those between the division lines has to struggle in order to keep up with the confounding

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elements of cultural disparities. So the character played the role of showing his feeling against
the white and his feeling for his black culture.
The idea of race, on the other hand, shows that cultural appropriation is already diffuse in
American society when Mansbach wrote his note in the novel. It show how the American society
has embraced the black culture. Macon is the prefect representative as a white man, love to
Listening to hip-hop music, wearing a different type of clothes, having a different perspective on
life. Macon had learned the most from Jihad, the big-entrance-making uninvited drop-in
neighbor the audience loved: a Newport smoking, monologue-spitting horologist with matching
Nikes for every Rugby shirt he owned (15) Gives a definition of the black culture the same
culture that Macon idolizes. This image show us the black culture in the eyes of Macon, and the
doctrine that has made him listening to Jihad and other characters which influenced him to let the
whites apologize for their hypocrisy in the novel.
Issues that is happening in the novel made Mansback experience every instance he can
get into to expand his right over the whites and focusing on the black culture. Macon want to
impress his black roommate at the university by showing off his biceps with the tattooed dates of
the King verdict. This performance explains a lot about Macons identity. He wants everyone to
see him as a black person by his actions. Macon want from the white Americans apologize to
black Americans in day he called National Day of Apology. This show how a white Jewish
person such as Macon performs being from different race (Perez 39) but solidifying his stance
as a black person makes the performance a commentary on American society in Mansbachs own
reflection way.

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Mansbachs form of defining mixed race issues through Macon also asserts the ideology
of race in his novel. It should be noted that Macon is white, Macon is Jewish. But his doctrine
delve in black American history. This hybrid-identity that Macon has developed especially in his
love for hip-hop, that show that freedoms given to people of mixed race in America. This makes
Macon and the whole novel a commentary of what America has become; the blacks seem to
assimilate into white American culture. Torika Bolatagici (2004) defines, people such as Macon
are living in another space, wherein the cultural phenomenon a third mixing of undistinguishable
racial qualities but has indeterminate origins and home (76). Macon the character is showing
what Manscbach thinks of the miscegenation that has been and still in America at the present. In
fact, Mansbach showing the solution for the issue that never end for many years and Macon is
the one could fix it.
This leads to explanation that Macons actions are suggestive of how identity can be
formed by acculturation and appropriation that can result to hybrid-identity. The main tenets that
Mansbach has created in his novel, create a new image to show the people issues of race by
white person who acts as black. Mansbach gave voice and action to Macon to serve as the
representative of the mixed race for those who have suffered from othering and other who cannot
know identity of their own. The way that Mansbachs made Macon a white man go in to black
culture and fight any form of racism around him and to be hero that is a great description of the
novels intention to make the readers open their eyes of the others, of those who are having
problem between the whites and the blacks.
Based on observing the novel, it is apparent that Mansbach has written a commentary
about the American society and not just the whites but also the blacks and everyone who is in
between. On the other hand, black American culture is represented through Macons appearance

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by his speech, his behavior, and shows how it can affect a person despite the color of their skin.
The actions that Macon has created significantly define him as a black person. This third space is
neither black nor blue, and is celebrated in the fictional world where Macon lives. In the most
exaggerated form Mansbach gives the readers a chance to identify the different racial stereotypes
and the different identities that are represented by each character and see how America is feeling
todays with this social problem. Mansbach let Macon talk about his reflections of righteousness
and his feeling of the whites and why they must apologize for it. All this makes the purpose of
the novel: The intention to enable the readers to realize that they need to open their eyes about
the mixed race, and slowly covering the original sets of cultures found in the American societies
and other societies.
.

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Works Cited
Bolatagici, Torika. Claiming the (N) either/ (N)or of Third Space: (Re)presenting Hybrid
Identity and the Embodiment of Mixed Race. Journal of Intercultural Studies 25.1
(2004): 76-85.
Mansbach, Adam. Angry Black White Boy, or the Miscegenation of Macon Detornay: A Novel.
San Francisco: Broadway Books, 1st ed. 2005.
Perez, Laura. In the Middle, In Between: Cultural Hybridity, Community Rejection, and the
Destabilization of Race in Percival Everetts Erasure, Adam Mansbachs Angry Black
Whyte Boy, and Danzy Sennas Caucasia. Diss. Howard University, 2011. Web. 28 Oct
2015.