Jonah’s Gourd Vine and the Origins of Racial Stereotypes

I recently finished reading Jonah’s Gourd Vine, a classic Black American novel. Published in 1934, Jonah’s Gourd Vine is Zora Neale Hurston’s debut, exploring themes of love, infidelity, and the complexities of Black life in the early 20th century. The novel follows the life of John Buddy Pearson, a philandering preacher, and his long-suffering wife, Lucy. The story is semi-autobiographical, reflecting Hurston’s own experiences and those of her parents, who migrated from Alabama to Eatonville, Florida. Starting with John’s tumultuous childhood, marked by domestic violence and poverty, leading him to seek work on a plantation owned by his biological father, Alf Pearson, John navigates his relationships with various women, including Lucy and others like Big ‘Oman and Mehaley. He struggles with his dual identity as a preacher and a “natchel man,” highlighting the tension between his spiritual duties and personal desires.

I got a lot of mileage reading this novel. When the powers that be of high culture want us to read less books by dead white men, this is exactly the kind of book we are being asked to read instead of Huckleberry Finn. And true to that alternative canon, this book is rich in American culture. Yet, I was blown away by the racial stereotypes in this book that would get a book banned had it been written by an author of a different complexion.

For example, there is an anecdote in this novel about black people’s sense of time that appears to relate to a stereotype I first discovered when Hillary Clinton and Bill de Blasio were ridiculed for using the term “CP time” in a skit. Check that out:

I’d never heard of that before 2016 but learned at the time that it stands for “colored people” time, a reference to a racial stereotype that black people are more likely to be late. Growing up in rural Oregon, I didn’t get exposed to these things.

So, it was illuminating when I read this passage: “He jus’ keepin’ colored folks time. When white folks say eight o’clock dey mean eight o’clock. When uh colored person say eight o’clock, dat jes’ mean uh hour ago. He’ll be heah in plenty time.” Was this the cultural origin of that slur? Possibly, this book has been a very influential novel in the Black community for almost a century.

But it speaks to a strange etiquette we’ve developed as a society where the politeness of what you say is dependent on the color of your skin. This appears to be an example of that.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.