The "well dressed Negro"-Great Gatsby

[AK84]

In The Great Gatsby when Myrtle is hit by a speeding car, one of the witnesses who identifies (what turns out to be Daisy driving Gatsby’s) car is described as “well dresssed Negro”.

I have always been puzzled by this line; whats it supposed to signify? Perhaps the individual is supposed to be well-off; a professional like a doctor or a lawyer. Since this man is never seen again or before, seems to to be way too much info for a throw-away line. What is the reader supposed to take away from it?

Is it that while a black man’s testimony against a white man won’t normally fly, an educated professional black man’s statements won’t be as easy to dismiss? Casual racism?

[Merneith]

This seems to be the passage in question:

@The Great Gatsby

A pale well-dressed negro stepped near.

“It was a yellow car,” he said, “big yellow car. New.”

“See the accident?” asked the policeman.

“No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster’n forty. Going fifty, sixty.”

“Come here and let’s have your name. Look out now. I want to get his name.”

Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson, swaying in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice among his gasping cries:

“You don’t have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know what kind of car it was!”

Watching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms.

“You’ve got to pull yourself together,” he said with soothing gruffness.

Wilson’s eyes fell upon Tom; he started up on his tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom held him upright.

“Listen,” said Tom, shaking him a little. “I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coupe we’ve been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn’t mine–do you hear? I haven’t seen it all afternoon.”

Only the negro and I were near enough to hear what he said, but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes.

“What’s all that?” he demanded.

“I’m a friend of his.” Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson’s body. “He says he knows the car that did it . . . it was a yellow car.”

Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom.

“And what color’s your car?”

“It’s a blue car, a coupe.”

“We’ve come straight from New York,” I said.

Some one who had been driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away.

“Now, if you’ll let me have that name again correct----” Picking up Wilson like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and came back.

From here:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/fitzgerald/gatsby/gseven.html

In general, for the time and setting of the novel, a “well-dressed negro” would most likely indicate a man who was dressed rather flashily, probably out for an evening’s entertainment. “Negros” of that era would have been expected to be servants or, at any rate, very poor people. I would assume, without seeing the passage, that in describing him like that, Fitzgerald was implying that the man was trying to look sharp and above his station. It might also have implied that the man had been out on a spree.

It would probably not have indicated professionalism or reliability.

Note that the full quote is a “pale well dressed negro”. A pale negro, in this context, implies a man who has enough white ancestry to have light skin. Light skin negros in this context, sometimes tried to pass as white. Consider this pale negro, who wears fancy clothes but isn’t trying to be anything he’s not, and who stopped to help, next to the character of Jay Gatsby, who didn’t stop and who wears fancy clothes while pretending to be a man of honor and class.

At the time of the novel’s settings, acting with honor and class was called, “acting white”. (Remeber the phrase, “that’s mighty white of you”.) The pale well-dressed negro is someone who is actually in a position to “act” white, but he’s showing more integrity than the actual white man, who’s a weasel and lacks integrity.

[WordMan]

Well, the scene is all about Tom asserting his power to turn attention where he wants it to go. So I would ask how that sketch of a description supports that intent? Perhaps it was a persona that would be accepted as a reliable witness but whose social power would be low and not a threat to Tom?

[hogarth]

@AK84

Is it that while a black man’s testimony against a white man won’t normally fly, an educated professional black man’s statements won’t be as easy to dismiss?

That’s how I read it; the guy isn’t just riff-raff, he’s a moderately respectable witness.

[Kimstu]

@hogarth

That’s how I read it; the guy isn’t just riff-raff, he’s a moderately respectable witness.

Right. Remember that in that era white people wouldn’t refer to a black man simply as a “man”. It was necessary to put the race label on him so that nobody would make the mistake of thinking he was white.

Notice how other strangers in this same passage are referred to simply as “some one”, “two men”, “a hurried doctor”: unidentified people default to white males unless explicitly specified otherwise, and if they aren’t white males then the writer has to specify otherwise.

@Merneith

In general, for the time and setting of the novel, a “well-dressed negro” would most likely indicate a man who was dressed rather flashily, probably out for an evening’s entertainment. “Negros” of that era would have been expected to be servants or, at any rate, very poor people. I would assume, without seeing the passage, that in describing him like that, Fitzgerald was implying that the man was trying to look sharp and above his station.

I don’t think I buy that, on the basis of an earlier passage which definitely is describing black people that the narrator considers “flashy”/“above their station”:

The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. […]

As we crossed Blackwell’s Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.

“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; “anything at all…”

The “pale well-dressed negro” in the accident scene, on the other hand, seems to be regarded by the narrator as simply an ordinary person (except for being black, natch). The fact that he’s light-skinned and well-dressed is just reinforcing the impression of an average respectable person (which would be taken for granted in the case of a white character, unless it was explicitly stated that he was dirty or disreputable-looking).

[puddleglum]

Since white and black people moved in different social circles the fact that the man is black would indicate that he was a disinterested observer. His being pale and well dressed would lend his testimony credence.

[jtur88]

nm