Last post, I started looking at race in Judy Blume’s Wifey. Today, I want to continue that exploration by looking at the ways that characters in the novel deploy language to cover up their racism when referring to African Americans in the novel. Language becomes a thread weaving its way throughout the novel, masking, for the public, the racist attitudes behind the words. All of this reminds me of individuals who, once they can’t say “n*****” publicly shift their language to use terms such as “democrat” or “Cadillac” or other terms that play upon stereotypes.

The ways that language masks racism comes up after Myra, Sandy’s sister, relates the story of individuals robbing her and her husband at machete point at their home in Jamaica. Myra calls her assailants “fucking schvartzas,” a Yiddish racial-slur referring to African Americans. Once individuals recognized what the word meant, Enid, Norman’s mother, chose to invent a word that would convey the same racism. The narrator states, “Ductlas. Enid claimed she had invented the word because they had figured out what schvartza meant. This way she could say, Do you have a decent ductla? How does she iron? My ductla eats me out of house and hime. I have to hide everything. And they would never guess what she was talking about.”

Enid denies individuals such as Norman and Sandy’s domestic worker Mazie any humanity, not just through her use of coded racist terms but also through the use of “they” when referring to African American domestic workers. On top of this, Enid relies on stereotypes when seeking a domestic, joking about domestics eating her out of house and home and complaining that individuals steal from her. These comments highlight her racism and that racism manifests itself in other characters throughout the novel as they take up “ductla” and use it when speaking about African Americans that they interact with over the course of the novel.

Enid calls Roger, the golf pro at the club, a “ductla” after he greets Norman and Sandy at dinner one night. After he leaves the table, she asks, “They allow ductlas in here?” Norman pushes the comment aside telling his mother that Roger is a good golf pro, but his comment doesn’t reassure her. The use of the term infects Sandy and Norman as well. Thinking about how those in her life will react once they learn about Sandy’s extramarital relationships, Sandy thinks about how her mother-in-law will call her a “Whore” and a “Harlot” before proclaiming, “Just like a ductla!” Here, of course, Enid’s hypothetical thoughts equate Black women with hypersexuality and promiscuity, something a good Jewish girl such as Sandy would never partake of. The language may change to mask its true meaning, but the true meaning remains.

During an argument, Norman yells at Sandy that he wishes she could change places with him for one day because she has no idea how stressful his life is running a chain of Pressman’s Dry Cleaning Establishments which “catering to the Black is Beautiful in Cleaned and Pressed Clothes business.” Norman is, essentially, the business owner who comes into the community, reaps the benefits, then takes the money out of the community. He is the person James Baldwin describes in “Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White.” Norman screams at Sandy, “Christ, you have no idea . . . dealing with ductlas day in and day out . . .” Sandy cuts him off, telling him, “You mean blacks.” But, Norman persists, saying, I mean ductlas!” Norman profits from the Black business he gets at his stores, yet he dehumanizes his customers, viewing them as beneath him and not as individuals but merely as profit. He has imbibed his mother’s racism and her language to “mask” that racism.

Norman never rids himself of his racist attitudes in the novel. As Sandy and Norman prepare to move to their new house, Norman makes a list for Sandy to do in preparation. The final list item reads, “Arrange for live-in Ductla for the new house.” Norman, like Enid, cannot bring himself to dispose of the racist language that he uses and to humanize individuals, even those who work for him. Instead of asking Sandy to arrange for a live-in domestic, he uses a racist slur to tell Sandy what he wants her to do and who he wants her to hire.

Norman’s and Enid’s use of “ductla” to refer to African Americans highlights the ways that language conveys meaning and attempts to cover up overt racism. It’s Lee Atwater, an advisor to Ronald Reagan, saying in the early 1980s,

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*****, n*****, n*****.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*****” — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N***** n*****.”

The language gets coded, but the meaning remains. The racism inhabits the words because the racism inhabits the psyche. The shifting of words has not removed the language from the mind. It has adapted the language to mask the mind, to try and conceal its meaning behind a seemingly benign veneer of a made up word or a coded word that, through its intonation, imbibes itself with stereotypes.

We need to think about language and interrogate it, looking to the ways that it masks the sinister and the vile. As I’ve written before, “We do come to the table with connotations, and we must ask ourselves, where do those connotations come from? What do they mean? Are they real? Are they there to create fear within us?” We must confront coded language and call it out, making individuals confront the sinister nature of the words they use to try and conceal their heart. If we don’t do this, we will be left with seemingly benign words that function as codes for those in the know to mock and harm individuals. We must critically interrogate the rhetoric and words we hear.

What are your thoughts? As usual, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.