Growing Up

Class permeates how Baker and his family members think about themselves and the choices they make. When the U.S. enters the war, Lucy’s first thought is to send Baker out to sell his remainders, extra newspapers he is charged for but hasn’t sold. For Baker’s working-class family, surviving day to day takes precedence over intellectual and political debates. His Uncle Allen respects his cousin Edwin’s impressive job at the New York Times, but the paper bores him. Baker’s subsequent ignorance of world events keep him out of the honor society at school, despite his high academic marks.

While his classmates discuss world affairs, Baker’s bigoted neighbors are preoccupied with why God has upset “the racial doctrine” of “separate and unequal” by allowing Joe Louis to become world heavyweight champion (179). In a rematch with white opponent Max Schmeling (the only man to have previously beaten Louis) Louis swiftly dispatches Schmeling in “the ultimate anticlimax for the white race” (182). Louis’ victory gives black residents “the courage to assert their right to use a public thoroughfare,” and they march down white-populated West Lombard Street with no resistance (182), marking a historical turning point. Baker calls it the first Civil Rights demonstration he witnesses.

Baker’s mother taught him “contempt for bigotry” from a young age (180). She told him people are the same, regardless of race, and race baiters are “poor white trash” (180). Baker is shocked at the overt racism he encounters when he moves from New Jersey to Baltimore, and even more shocked to hear his mother begin to parrot the racist views she hears. He notices how Mr. Simmons treats Baker’s fellow stock clerks who are black and, when he joins the Baltimore Sun, that they do not print news from black communities.

Baker learns from a young age that language shapes reality. As a child in Virginia, he hears the same maxims repeated at key times. They are a common language passed down through time. Their meanings are not ambiguous but an expression of communal values and beliefs: “A man works from sun to sun, but woman’s work is never done”; “Man is born to toil, and woman to suffer”; “Satan finds work for idle hands to do”; “Children are meant to be seen and not heard”; “Little pitchers have big ears” (47).

His mother uses language to influence how Baker looks at people—first his friends, then Mimi. When she wants him to rethink his friendships, she tells him a man is judged by the company he keeps, an economical and subtle way to make him question the value of his friendships. Similarly, she draws Baker’s attention to Mimi’s unsuitable use of makeup by turning a compliment (that Mimi would be pretty) into an accusation (if she didn’t wear so much makeup).

Baker attaches key phrases to significant people in his life. His mother’s key phrases are “have some gumption” and “make something of yourself.” Aunt Pat’s is “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” while Uncle Hal’s is “digging your grave with your own teeth,” which he directs at Allen when he eats food of which Hal disapproves. The phrase “quit telling those lies” is directed at Harold repeatedly. Baker himself repeats “not in the cards” in reference to marriage with Mimi.