The Ways of White Folks

This book is a collection of short stories by Langston Hughes published in 1934. The stories of many different black people’s point views in which they discuss how they deal with all of their struggles. The book was examined in the beginning of Prof. Baker’s Social Justice in Modern and Contemporary Literature course. Students examined three of the stories from the collection and those are Cora Unashamed, Slave On A Block, and Passing. Each of these were written from very different point of views for the simple fact that not all black people lived the same lives. Black people became divided when they were enslaved due to gender, age, and skin complexion. Wealth was no longer a factor since they had everything taken from them. These differences developed some tension between these different groups of the black community along with the very evident tension between the black community as a whole against the white community for them oppressing their community for hundreds of years.

Langston Hughes’ purpose in creating this collection of short stories was to write to and for black people while also discussing “the ways of white folks, I mean some white folks…” In doing so, he told these stories based on the general experience of black folks during the time of segregation. To give a brief summary of these stories that were named, Cora unashamed tells the story based on the experience of an African American woman who was raised in a poor town. She was forced to provide for her family by working for a white family who treated her unfair. The story progresses with how she behaves towards the family in response to their treatment. In the beginning, she is quiet and takes everything from them because all she was worried about was keeping her job. In the end, she had had enough with all the chaotic events that had occurred which resulted in her calling them out for their absurdness. Slave On A Block tells a similar story but focuses on the white family in the beginning and later puts focus on the black people who worked for them whom had eventually gotten tired of being taken advantage of.

Passing tells the story of a man who struggles with his identity in which he is mixed with both black and white. Otherwise identified as a mulatto. He talks about what it is like to live in the white world as he passes for a white person due to his extremely light complexion. It is a struggle for him because he does not get to associate with his mother and siblings which is mostly from fear of being judged by others.

While this collection consists of fictional stories based on the black versus white experience, they are based on real-life experiences in which there are people who can certainly relate to these experiences. The story of Passing may be the most relatable story in the modern era as their are still people who struggle with their identity and are often met with negativity because of it. The stories of Cora Unashamed and Slave On A Block are more relatable for the older generations than the young.