Whites always Win

Goldie Barajas

English 1B

3/7/11

Whites always Win

            The story “Snuff Dippers” from the book The Big Mama Stories by Shay Youngblood is a story about Big Mama experiencing and witnessing a close to death racist attack. The attack being made by a white police man favoring the accusation of a white man and his girlfriend against a black woman by the name of Emma Lou, riding the #99 bus who dared spit snuff, a nicotine product, at the white man‘s girlfriend. The story takes place in Northend, Georgia in 1957 while Big Mama and other women worked as maids for rich white women. Therefore, the story “Snuff Dippers” is a good portrayal of the struggles blacks had to overcome in order to survive in a town in which  the law favored whites. 

            As far as for the theme of the story, I would say it is Racism. The author presents the theme pretty straight forward by using all of the storytelling devices. Now from all the storytelling devices she used the two that made it clearer to me, as a reader, to find the theme were conflict and the 5 ways to portray a character. The conflict being external, between the people in the bus and the force of racism manifested through the white police man and the white man with his girlfriend. In the story the bus driver struggles to protect the women in the bus from this police man who insists on killing all of them if they do not speak up about who spit on the white woman. The bus driver stands up for them but that didn’t save these poor women from being called all sorts of denigrating names and from being thrown rocks at just because they were black. Nevertheless, the 5 ways to portray a character, and the character being the police man, helped me understand the theme of racism furthermore. Having the police man’s dialogue and actions set the story’s theme. For example, when the police man says, “They a bunch of niggers and one of em spit on a white lady. I don’t know where you from, but we don’t tolerate disrespect from our niggers here in Georgia, or from nigger-loving foreigners” this definitely shows racism because it demonstrates how white people have no respect towards black people and how blacks are looked down upon. In addition, when the white man in the Cadillac starts to attack the black women by throwing rocks at them and the white police man does not act upon it his actions show no concern towards blacks whatsoever which I see as racism.

            Furthermore, values manifest in this story. Big Mama, for example, values storytelling, and snuff. I conclude this because Big Mama takes the time to tell the narrator about the time she experience death being so close. Also, when the narrator interrupts Big Mama when telling the story and Big Mama responds, “Hold on, Chile, I’m getting to it. A story ain’t something you just read off like ingredients on a soap box. A story is like a map-you follow the lines and they’ll take you somewhere.” this shows that Big Mama values the fact that she is telling a story and that a story has a purpose. Moreover, the fact that Big Mama sends the narrator to by snuff for her and that she has dipped snuff in front of the narrator many times indicates that Big Mama values it. In addition, when Big Mama is getting ready to tell the narrator the story of the bus incident, she starts the story by defending herself and stating that “Snuff ain’t no worse than they cancer sticks..” therefore, this shows Big Mama sees snuff dipping as nothing harmful and perhaps something valuable to her.

            Nevertheless, African American Motifs are present in the story “Snuff Dipper.” Motifs such as: Political Philosophies and Strategies for Freedom within segregation. Whites live in a different town than blacks and whites didn’t ride in the same public bus as blacks this showing how blacks are being segregated from whites. The next motif present is Religion. At the end of the story Big Mama talks about God and his book of life referring to God recording all the wrong doings people do on Earth, which is implying the significance of religion in daily black life.

            In conclusion, reading this story was of value to me because I value stories. Stories teach me about the unknown or about what used to be. Reading this story reminds me of my grandma’s stories and how although I was not in that certain time or era I could still live through the story and see the significance of it through the narrator or author. In this case, the author of the book might have experienced racism or any sort of discrimination for being an African American woman. I conclude this because although her stories are fiction, a part of who she is needs to be manifested in one way or another through her writing. I believe one’s writing always reflects some of one’s identity and that is of value to me. It is valuable for me to be able to learn about someone or life in general through a story because this keeps me aware and well rounded in my knowledge. More importantly I learned about what a Big Mama is all about: a storyteller, someone with great faith and strength to overcome whatever comes her way.