Atonists can't dance, and maybe E.L. Doctorow can't either
Both Mumbo Jumbo and Ragtime depict the experience of African Americans in the early 20th century. Mumbo Jumbo centers around the way white people understand and interact with African culture. Ragtime focuses more on the general climate of the early 20th century, but the plot centers around race relations and a black man struggling with the oppression he faces. An important detail to note: E.L. Doctorow is white, and Ishmael Reed is black. Is Ragtime a manifestation of the exact relationship Reed aims to expose? While Ragtime does an exquisite job of creating a nuanced character in Coalhouse Walker, he and his followers do feed into common stereotypes of black people, especially if you consider the time in which E.L Doctorow wrote the piece. Mumbo Jumbo highlights the way that African Americans and especially their culture gets written off in various ways: people tend to denounce that which they don’t understand. E.L. Doctorow is attempting to write a story centered around...
