Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2018), 208 pages
Description
"The landmark comic satire that asks, "What would happen if all black people in America turned white?" It's New Year's Day 1933 in New York City, and Max Disher, a young black man, has just found out that a certain Dr. Junius Crookman has discovered a mysterious process that allows people to bleach their skin white--a new way to "solve the American race problem." Max leaps at the opportunity, and after a brief stay at the Crookman Sanitarium, he becomes Matthew Fisher, a white man who's able to attain everything he's ever wanted: money, power, good liquor, and the white woman who rejected him when he was black. Lampooning myths of white supremacy and racial purity and caricaturing prominent African American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois, Madam C. J. Walker, and Marcus Garvey, Black No More is a masterwork of speculative fiction and a hilarious satire of America's obsession with race. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member dandelionroots
Extrapolating from the contemporary, pursued experiments in the 1920's by Dr. Yusaburo Noguchi, Schuyler satirizes American society envisioning the impact a widely-available, black-to-white physiognomic conversion therapy would have on said society. He burns us all, even I can feel the heat from 90
It's just so absurd - and not in the almost comforting, obviously exaggerated, highlighting-the-ridiculous-end-of-a-current-path way (there's still time to veer from this madness!); but in the sickeningly palpable, this-is-our-reality scream that can only drive us more insane.
Dark humor at its finest - staring at inconvenient truths. Revisit the dedication once you've finished.
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years later. Almost a century has not provided much societal progress towards skin color's irrelevance because, as Schuyler blatantly lays out, the mass obsession is just a convenient lie to distract from power grabs by a few individuals.It's just so absurd - and not in the almost comforting, obviously exaggerated, highlighting-the-ridiculous-end-of-a-current-path way (there's still time to veer from this madness!); but in the sickeningly palpable, this-is-our-reality scream that can only drive us more insane.
Dark humor at its finest - staring at inconvenient truths. Revisit the dedication once you've finished.
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LibraryThing member wrobert
This novel can be read equally as a satire and a classic science fiction novel. The premise is that an invention is created to make African-Americans appear to look 'white'. The novel follows the life of one of the first men to be transformed, Max Disher, who transforms himself into Matthew Fisher
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to marry a white woman who rejected him. This trajectory allows him to both marry the woman and become an important member of a white supremacist group. The novel explores the social, economic and political impacts of race by imagining the chaos that would occur if the racial binary was removed. Despite Schuyler's conservative reputation, the book emphasizes the role that race plays in the economic exploitation of capitalism. Perhaps the only element that reveals Schuyler's conservative streak is the fact that the novel seems to be fairly cynical about structurally transforming the world it describes. The novel is also a fairly open satire of many of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois. Schuyler's prose style is fairly pulpy, but it works well for the satire, and although this review doesn't necessarily reveal it, its a pretty funny, if occasionally disturbing, novel. Show Less
LibraryThing member AlCracka
This minor classic from the Harlem Renaissance (1927) is a satire about a guy who invents a serum that turns black people white. Everyone soon is, and we end up with the inevitable conclusion that "we're all niggers." The prose is sometimes clunky, but the satire is well-crafted and effective.
Theme but not plot spoiled ahead:Be ready for a shockingly violent conclusion; it's a pretty drastic shift in tone, and not really an effective one.
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(Side note: this is the logical end point for a surprising number of books from the era about passing for white, including Nella Larsen's "Passing" and Jessi Fauset's "Plum Bun.") I dug it pretty well, although I don't think its relegation to the margins is unjustified. Theme but not plot spoiled ahead:
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LibraryThing member eurohackie
The struggle was real with this one. It's supposed to be satire, but it reads as all too real to me.
This slim novel poses the question: what happens if the color line can be erased? Will it take all the horrors of racism out with it?
Julius Crookman, a prominent Black physician, has patented a
This book is deeply, deeply, deeply cynical, which is not something I was expecting given that it is categorized as science fiction. I thought there would be more discussion/exploration of the change of identity that goes along with the change of race, but instead the focus is on how the "color line" is a false flag; that those who are invested in fanning the flames of hatred because it lines their pockets will find new and more insidious ways of doing it, and how the political class will twist it to their advantage. In this novel, Black society collapses because the masses want to be white. The old white guard doesn't like this, because they don't have an obvious enemy anymore: they can't point poor/lower class whites to the other races anymore as a scapegoat for all their ills. The KKK dies out, but another, worse organization takes its place, whipping up paranoia and hysteria, turning man against man because who can know if they were ever "pure" white or are an interloper into the race? The desire for, and ability to prove, racial purity absolutely explodes.
There are no winners here; every character in the book is horrible. The first American Black man to "change races" immediately starts working for the nu-KKK in the worst kind of example of pulling the ladder up behind him. He only cares about how much money he can make, no who or what will be hurt in the process. Not even the prospect of his wife having a black baby (because the process only leaches the skin of the person, it doesn't change their DNA) is enough to slow him down. How awful.
Perhaps the worst part of all is that this novel very grimly predicts the future. How little has changed since the 1930s. Politicians and "the elite" have it all too easy in turning people of the same classes against each other based on something that no one can control or even see. The only thing the author didn't predict was the switch of Southerners from Democrats to Republicans in the 1960s - swap the labels in this book's future scenario and it's all too real and ugly.
This slim novel poses the question: what happens if the color line can be erased? Will it take all the horrors of racism out with it?
Julius Crookman, a prominent Black physician, has patented a
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method of leaching the pigment from skin, based on the very real nervous condition vitiligo. He can turn Black people white - and even change their features to those of the Nordic peoples, allowing them to "fade into the majority population." He calls this process Black-No-More, and puts it within reach of the masses.This book is deeply, deeply, deeply cynical, which is not something I was expecting given that it is categorized as science fiction. I thought there would be more discussion/exploration of the change of identity that goes along with the change of race, but instead the focus is on how the "color line" is a false flag; that those who are invested in fanning the flames of hatred because it lines their pockets will find new and more insidious ways of doing it, and how the political class will twist it to their advantage. In this novel, Black society collapses because the masses want to be white. The old white guard doesn't like this, because they don't have an obvious enemy anymore: they can't point poor/lower class whites to the other races anymore as a scapegoat for all their ills. The KKK dies out, but another, worse organization takes its place, whipping up paranoia and hysteria, turning man against man because who can know if they were ever "pure" white or are an interloper into the race? The desire for, and ability to prove, racial purity absolutely explodes.
There are no winners here; every character in the book is horrible. The first American Black man to "change races" immediately starts working for the nu-KKK in the worst kind of example of pulling the ladder up behind him. He only cares about how much money he can make, no who or what will be hurt in the process. Not even the prospect of his wife having a black baby (because the process only leaches the skin of the person, it doesn't change their DNA) is enough to slow him down. How awful.
Perhaps the worst part of all is that this novel very grimly predicts the future. How little has changed since the 1930s. Politicians and "the elite" have it all too easy in turning people of the same classes against each other based on something that no one can control or even see. The only thing the author didn't predict was the switch of Southerners from Democrats to Republicans in the 1960s - swap the labels in this book's future scenario and it's all too real and ugly.
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LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
This is a smart and gracefully written read. For anyone interested in considering race theory or race relations in the United States, or for anyone who appreciates satire, this is a must-read. Both frightening and understandable, the book draws you in easily, and holds you almost despite yourself
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until the inevitable, and yet surprising, end result. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member KurtWombat
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s was an explosion of African American expression across a wide spectrum of arts. Unfortunately, that blossoming didn’t last because it had to exist largely outside the dominant white culture and many of venues for that expression either dried up or were on
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their way out by the time the stock market crashed in 1929. A personal favorite Zora Neale Hurston died virtually penniless when she should have been afforded the opportunity to write up to her last breath. There is a similar explosion going on today but this time the African American experience is saturating the culture at large and creating its own space—gaining more control over its content, distribution and profits. Within this new wave is the concept of Afrofuturism. The largely science fiction form re-imagining of the African American Past, Present & especially Future is quite a departure for a culture traditionally trapped into seeing the world one day at a time. If you are constantly being told your present has no value, then you don’t spend much time imagining your future. The term Afrofuturism was coined in 1993 and is generally considered to have germinated in the 1950’s but I’d like to make the case that its seed was planted with the Harlem Renaissance novel, BLACK NO MORE by George S. Schuyler. Noted essayist and scholar Schuyler presents a world where African Americans are given the option to be turned white and thus, be black no more. For the purposes of the novel, virtually every African American takes advantage of this offer and most of the novel is America trying to adjust to the new landscape during a presidential election year. Schuyler uses this gimmick to take shots at both sides of the racial divide. One point driven home particularly well and quite reminiscent of today is the cultivation of racism as a means to congregate votes. The often thin lines between the Klan and the Church, the Church and politicians, the politicians and the businessmen and businessmen and the Klan are explored throughout. Owing to Schuyler’s background, much of the BLACK NO MORE could be mistaken for an extended non-fiction article more than a novel. This is a mixture of strength and weakness—lending more credibility to the goings on but less attachment as a reader to the participants. This novel is thin in spots because it often rushes where it might linger a little longer in order to get to the next satire. It also glosses over any second thoughts about a community abandoning its entire history to make a satiric point but it does achieve a kind of brilliance in the end—the white culture is so twisted in knots over racial identity that eventually to be too white is to be considered suspect. Many shades of satire are shared here, much of it quite funny, including the darkest possible to necessarily remind the reader of the worst places racism can lead. I happened upon this by chance having never heard of it or the author before. Would be a shame if it could not be lifted up by the current rising tides of expression. Show Less
LibraryThing member Osbaldistone
A fine writer with tongue firmly in cheek start to finish. Schuyler tells a compelling what-if story with masterful command of dialogue. The fleshing-out of character with description and dialogue that pulls the reader along for the quite believable actions and reactions that logically
Totally fun read, but you may wince as much as you'll laugh, for the story would require only minor changes in the setting to read as if taken from today's news.
I highly recommend this quick read.
Os.
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follow.Totally fun read, but you may wince as much as you'll laugh, for the story would require only minor changes in the setting to read as if taken from today's news.
I highly recommend this quick read.
Os.
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LibraryThing member pitjrw
American society has placed its citizens in the position of unavoidably considering the proposition, "What if I had been born a different race?" In 1931 George Schuyler imagined black Americans being able to move beyond idle speculation of this question to having a real option to become "white".
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His Harlem Renaissance novel, Black No More, posits this scenario as a mechanism to satirise American racism, politics, and avarice. In the novel a black entrepreneur invents a treatment that allows African Americans to become "white" resulting in their near disappearance from American society. The story outlines the disruptions this epoch change causes. As can be expected the primary target is white racism but politicians of all stripes, the black intellectual class, and the frustrations & illusions of ordinary blacks have their moments in Schuyler's cross hairs. The satire is very broad and stylistically displays its roots that are jarring to those accustomed to lighter touch. Santop Licorice is the Marcus Garvey-like Back-to-Africa movement. Walter Brybe is the Attorney General. Dr.Crookman is the inventor of the Black No More treatment. Schuyler scores some telling points invoking a racial fluidity that actually exists in contradiction to the imposed caste system. Show Less
LibraryThing member barbaraduncan
There were a lot of interesting ideas in this book. Unbelievable that this was written when it was. How did we not know about this sooner? It was a very good read.
LibraryThing member JerseyGirl21
This is a thought provoking read. It would be great as a book club read or as a Black Studies class book. I loved it!
LibraryThing member Genetic_Blend
“Black No More” was written in 1931 by George S. Schuyler. The story revolves around character, Max Disher a Harlem dandy who frequents nightclubs. He falls for a beautiful, wealthy white woman, who rejects him. When a new scientific procedure called, “Black No More” is invented, Max is
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first in line to receive the treatment and undergo “chromatic emancipation”. Max Disher now becomes Matt Fisher and makes the move to Atlanta to find this woman of his dreams. Eventually, he rises to the top of a racist organization. As a white man, he becomes very wealthy, and marries the woman who rejected him as a black man. Two and a half years later, Black No More becomes so popular that almost everyone turns white. As a presidential election approaches, racial purity becomes a central issue, with a secret report released on the eve of the election showing that most whites have some black ancestry. A satire novel, this really is a social commentary and gives us a lot to think about, even today, almost 100 years later. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1931
Physical description
208 p.
ISBN
0143131885 / 9780143131885
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