Madeline Marbury

Phillips

English 101-022

18 April 2016

"Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor is a short story that takes place in the 1960's and is about a man and his mother and their interactions with strangers on a bus one night. The man, Julian, is a recent college graduate who accompanies his mother on a bus ride to a weight reducing class. The story takes place shortly after the integration of public transportation and while Julian's mother is openly racist, Julian is racist in another way that he does not even realize. Julian prides himself on being liberal and open minded for the time period when it comes to the social issue of race. He attributes this quality in himself to being educated and enlightened and he looks down on people like his mother who do not seem to share this quality that he believes he possesses. Julian attempts to show everyone just how not-racist he is by doing things like moving to take a seat next to a black man and trying to strike up an unnecessary and unsolicited conversation with him. What Julian does not realize is that what he perceives as being helpful and gracious to people of color is actually something that is not appreciated and is in many ways unwanted. Julian's actions and the responses of the other characters in the story show the general issues in the progress of the Civil Rights Movement and the tensions between black people and white people at this point in history when segregation had recently come to an end. 

When the story begins it is mentioned that Julian graduated college a year before and knows exactly what he wants to do, which is to be a writer. He has not yet made progress in that area and is a typewriter salesmen while the story is being told. Julian's mother repeatedly mentions that it is okay that he has not yet become a writer yet. She says "You've only been out of school a year. Rome wasn't built in a day." This alludes to the fact that while the 13th Amendment abolished slavery about 100 years before this story happens, African Americans are still not equal to white people, and many people -- like Julian's mother -- are okay with this. At the time, the general attitude in America among white people was that the sluggish rise to equality that African Americans were experiencing was okay, when really it should have been happening much faster. When Julian and his mother board the bus, there is another white woman and she and Julian's mother exchange a few words about how nice it is that there are no black people on the bus, telling the audience that these women represent racist white people in America. When Julian's mother tells the other woman about Julian and his slow progress towards writing, the woman responds, "Well that's nice. Selling typewriters is close to writing. He can go right from one to the other." This relates once again America's attitude that there is no rush. Julian can take his time becoming what he plans on becoming and America can take it's time with slow progress towards racial equality because both things will just happen eventually because that's the general plan.

When Julian and his mother first get on the bus, there are not yet any black passengers and Julian's mother strikes up a conversation with another white passenger commenting that they have the bus to themselves. The narrator continues to express Julian's thoughts of disgust about his mother and the other passenger and talks about how well Julian has turned out despite being raised by a small minded mother. A black man -- who Julian notes is well dressed and is wearing a diamond ring, to his surprise which shows how low his opinion and expectations of African Americans really are--gets on the bus at the next stop and as he sits down, the woman Julian's mother was talking to gets up and moves further away from him. Julian immediately gets up and takes her place near the man, who by this point has begun to read a newspaper. Julian asks him if he has any matches solely to talk to him, not because he actually needs any matches. Julian talks to the man in an attempt to teach his mother a lesson and he thinks that he is doing a good thing, when in fact he is only bothering the man who clearly never wanted to talk to him. Stokely Carmichael gave a speech in Berkley, CA in 1966 where he explained to the crowd that integration was, "an insidious subterfuge, for the maintenance of white supremacy," (Carmichael 6). Carmichael, and many people, specifically the group he represented (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) believed that integration was not actually as helpful as people wanted it to be. They believed that it was somewhat of a tool used by white people and the government to placate African Americans for the time being with the idea that now you could sit next to whoever you wanted on a bus or go to the same school as a white person. Julian in the short story is one of those who believe that with integration, real progress has been made. He believes that black people and white people are all of a sudden truly equal and that it is his job to show his mother this simply by attempting to strike up a friendly conversation or deigning to sit next to a black person on a bus which further shows how unequal black people and white people are because he clearly sees himself as above them. 

Many initiatives that were created in order to integrate in the 1960s were largely ineffective and therefore were somewhat of a joke. In 1968, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., The Fair Housing Act became a law. It was created as a measure to assure African Americans that they now had access to equal housing and could not be discriminated against by landlords and lenders based on their race. Senator Edward Brooke, the first black man in the U.S. Senate, wanted to use the law to "integrate cities and suburbs, reversing the effects of decades of housing discrimination, discrimination that had often been perpetuated by the federal government," (Semuels). Brooke also said, "The prime carrier of galloping segregation has been the Federal Government. First it built the ghettos, then it locked the gates, now it appears to be fumbling for the key," (Semuels). By this Brooke meant that the intentions of the Fair Housing Act were to correct the obstacles that African Americans faced in finding housing, but the "fumbling for the key" meant that the government struggled with the actual execution of these corrections. Initiatives like the Fair Housing Act were in theory well intentioned, but actually did not successfully solve the issue and so were not really appreciated. This is similar to Julian's efforts on the bus in the short story. He wants to help the other white people on the bus see African Americans as their equals but his actions end up not actually helping anyone and just like the Fair Housing Act, his half-baked effort also ends up being somewhat condescending to the African American characters. 

Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society by Michael K. Brown analyzes the current political and economic standings of minorities in America and cites the 1960's and it's many attempts to create a "color-blind" society as a front for something entirely different. "the efforts made under the guise of ameliorating racial inequality have been implemented to enhance white accumulation of social, political, and economic capital at the expense of people of color, primarily blacks," (Julie Novkov). What this means is that while many of the efforts to create equal opportunities for African Americans in voting, education, housing, or employment appear to be attempts at helping to finally equal the playing field for the races, they have actually in the long run contributed to the disenfranchisement of African Americans and the perpetuation and institutionalized racism by making people think that things are really equal for everyone when they really are not. Flannery O'Connor relates this idea to the reader through Julian's personality and thoughts. Julian's pride about having a large mind and being "free of prejudice and unafraid to face facts," (O'Connor 240) show how, just like the American government and white people in general, he is patting himself on the back for something he has not truly and successfully done. Julian truly believes that because he thinks that he is not racist, he is not a racist even though what really matters are the actions he takes. Just like the government in the 1960s believed that creating a few laws to help African Americans equal in the eyes of the law would be enough to actually make them become equal to white people in society. It all comes down to execution. As good as someone's thoughts can be, it doesn't matter unless what they do actually accomplishes their goal. When Julian thought he was doing the black man on the bus a favor simply by talking to him, he was wrong, because in reality that did absolutely nothing for the man but annoy him as he tried to read his newspaper, just like how many of the laws put in place in the 1960s did not actually accomplish anything despite their good intentions.

At the end of the story Julian's tries to give a young black boy a penny and the boy's mother ends up striking her and giving her what the reader can assume is a stroke. The black mother is offended when Julian's mother tries to give her son petty change because it is condescending like many of the initiatives the government had put in place. When Julian's mother begins to have a stroke Julian panics and reverts back to what seems to be his former self. He finally does not have all the answers and endless lessons, but actually has no idea what to do. He fumbles like the American people when it was realized that the acts and initiatives were not enough and riots began.

"How Desegregation Changed Us: The Effects of Racially Mixed Schools on Students and Society" is an article by Amy Stuart Wells. The effects of desegregation in schools is discussed in this article and Julian's mother comes to mind. In the beginning of the story, Julian's mother defends herself to her son by claiming that she knows who she is and where she came from, therefore she is a good person. This can be seen when she says things like, "if you know who you are, you can go anywhere," (O'Connor 236) and again when she says, "but I can be gracious to anybody. I know who I am." (O'Connor 236) where she claims to have come from is from former slave owners, and to her, her heritage justifies why it is okay for her to be racist. To her it is simply the way things are done. In Wells' article, a boy from a Texas high school is quoted saying, " ... Growing up in a racially integrated school, I think, was invaluable for me. I just feel ...  it helped my people skills. It gave me the ability to relate to just about any person and feel good ...  and to be sincere, not putting on an act ...  I can't put enough value on it." (Wells "How Desegregation Changed Us: The Effects of Racially Mixed Schools on Students and Society"). To this boy, those who are not white are so inherently different that now, because he went to high school with minority students, he can relate to anything with his perfectly honed people skills. This is a form of ignorance that can be seen in both Julian's mother and this Texan boy. They act as though their upbringing and experiences with people of color has created a type of attitude and skill in them to be able to deal with anything that might come their way. A person's relationships and interactions with one group of African Americans -- like the people you go to high school with or the people who live in your neighborhood -- does not sum up the relationships and interactions that a person will have with the entire race.

Julian and his mother in "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are characters who are very different from each other in some ways, like how they view themselves in relation to race issues, but are also incredibly similar in that they look down on others based on how they see themselves. Julian's mother sees herself as superior because she is a white person and Julian sees himself as superior because he thinks everyone else around him is small minded and has so much to learn from him. Julian's actions are metaphors for many parts of the Civil Rights Movement and the initiatives and laws established during that time. While Julian and the initiatives and laws were somewhat well-intentioned, nothing was actually accomplished with them.

Works Cited

Wells, Amy Stuart. "TC Media Center from the Office of External Affairs."How Desegregation Changed Us: The Effects of Racially Mixed Schools on Students and Society. Teachers College Columbia University, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.

Semuels, Alana. "Has America Given Up on the Dream of Racial Integration?"The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.

Novkov, Julie. "5 Ways Integration Underdeveloped Black America - Page 4 of 5 - Atlanta Black Star." Atlanta Black Star. University of OregonUniversity of Oregon, 09 Dec. 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.

O'Connor, Flannery. "Everything That Rises Must Converge." The Carolina Reader. Ed. USC Columbia The Department of English. USA: Hayden-McNeil Publishing, 2015. 235-246. Print. 18 Apr. 2016.
