When Will the Watcher Turn His Eyes Away?: A Discussion on Class and Systemic Racism in TEWWG

Bryonna LeBaron      
Ms. Harris
ENGL 2017-64187
22 April 2022

When Will the Watcher Turn His Eyes Away?

Who are you to judge?

When one girl’s desires backfires and

she’s thrown into a loveless marriage

because someone claims she doesn’t know

what love is?

When she leaves fame and faces

her shame for finding- not love-

but a sense of self that no one

can give?

When her Watchers

callout against the White Flight

just as she left Eatonville and

tell her she classed off?

When a trial is broken into

Black and White and

a fight to find the truth?

            This is Janie’s truth. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God judgment establishes a class system, contributing to a larger discussion today about implicit and explicit bias as a result of systemic racism. Hurston, although there is little direct confrontation about race, includes both Black and White groups who place themselves at a higher position to judge Janie, further separating themselves into classes. Systemic racism is "so embedded in systems that it often is assumed to reflect the natural, inevitable order of things" (Braveman). Today, systemic racism is apparent in many forms of daily life such as political, legal, economic, health care, school, and criminal justice systems (Braveman).

            Pheoby becomes a significant character because she is the one who watches Janie’s story unfold. Pheoby also differs from the rest of the Eatonville townspeople as she does not audibly express her dislike towards Janie and her decisions. This is a form of implicit bias. According to the article “Systemic Racism: Individuals and Interactions, Institutions and Society,” implicit bias is defined as “unconscious inference” (Banaji 9). Pheoby is among a group of people who try to persuade the way she thinks about Janie. Implicit bias can be just as dangerous as explicit and it takes many shapes. One recent form is the George Floyd case that involved an unarmed Black man dying after a white officer kneeled into his neck. (Mason). Most recently, there were reports of systemic racism in Canada against Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, the Chantel Moore shooting and Ejaz Choudry (Ahmed). This is implicit bias because of the long-ingrained belief that when a colored person does something, people's first thought is that it is harmful to someone (Mason). 

            At the beginning of the novel, Hurston compares the townspeople to judges. Pheoby says that “Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin’ in de same place” (Hurston 37). The porch people are regarded as “Mouth-Almighty,” because they place themselves in a higher position to judge Janie. There are also many references to the townspeople sitting still, like when Janie is walking by and they do not say a word until she is inside the house. This also signifies the unwillingness to reach out and find the truth from Janie’s perspective. This can be interpreted as a form of explicit bias or “conscious racism” (Banaji 2).  The porch people make their misconceptions known to Pheoby and Janie is also aware of their prejudices by the way they conduct themselves around her. Explicit bias exists everywhere today in verbal or nonverbal expressions. One example is that "Racially segregated housing creates racial isolation, with disproportionate costs to Black Americans’ opportunities, networks, education, wealth, health, and legal treatment" (Banaji 1). According to the Fair Fight Initiative, in education "Black students are three times as likely to face serious disciplinary action when compared to a white student who committed a similar infraction" ("Systemic Racism"). Bias and class and racial segregation affect more than just the surface issue and spread throughout other areas of life. 

            The trial is a form of explicit bias and judgment. It is noted that the colored people were speaking against Janie “all together like a choir’ (Hurston 234). This means that, despite their lack of knowledge about Janie’s life, their bias spreads quickly throughout the group. This is the notion that race is a social construct. The townspeople are only thriving off their own preconceived notions, while during the trial, Janie finally unveils the truth to the rest of the jury and White audience. This is significant because the townspeople are only focused on what they know rather than what is true. 

            Finally, Ms. Turner and her discussion with Janie is an attempt to separate Janie from the townspeople and Tea Cake. Ms. Turner expresses her prejudice towards Black people, though Janie explains that “We’se uh mingled people and all of us got black kinfolks as well as yaller kinfolks” (Hurston 184). This is a similar conversation that Pheoby has with Janie earlier when Pheoby says that “He don’t know you’se useter uh more high time crowd than dat. You always did class off” (Hurston 154). Pheoby states that Janie cannot be with Tea Cake because Janie is too good for him. This is yet another form of bias because it means that Janie is placed in a separate class from the townspeople.

            The final form of bias that comes from Their Eyes Were Watching God is seen from the audience, as they too are involved in the story and constantly, both implicitly and explicitly, judging Janie’s decisions and questioning her affairs. Like Janie, today people of color face a structural system that is centered around class and bias. Janie’s voyage on the horizon is ultimately unreachable because of the preconceived biases that she faces from the townspeople and her husbands. By the end of the story, Janie accepts that she is alone to face the criticism and can do nothing to stop it.

 

             

Works Cited

Ahmed, Naveen. "Systemic Racism in Policing in Canada." Urban Alliance on Race Relations. 18 March 2022. https://www.urbanalliance.ca/systemic_racism_in_policing_in_canada

Banaji, Mahzarin R., et al. “Systemic Racism: Individuals and Interactions, Institutions and Society.” Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, vol. 6, Dec. 2021. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ulm.idm.oclc.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00349-3.

Braveman, Paula A., et al. "Systemic and Structural Racism: Definitions, Health Damages, and Approaches to Dismantling." HealthAffairs. Feb 2022. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. E-book, HarperCollins, 1937. https://uniteyouthdublin.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/88253919-their-eyes-were-watching-god-by-zora-neale-hurston.pdf.

"Systemic Racism" Fair Fight Initiative. Accessed 28 Apr 2022.