Gunnar's Self-Discovery

After reading the end of The White Boy Shuffle, I began thinking of how much had changed from the beginning to the end of the novel. Moving from chapter to chapter, I initially felt that there wasn’t much connectivity and each chapter could essentially be read on its own. However, as we got closer to the end of the novel, the biggest transformation I noticed was Gunnar’s personality. At the beginning of the novel, Beatty depicts Gunnar as an educated but naïve child who is manipulated and controlled to a degree by the white society he lives in. Although he had a multiculturalistic education, white people were treating him as a commodity and viewing him as “another black person” rather than an individual. Over the course of the novel, Gunnar realizes his true “purpose” in life despite what society chooses for him.

Gunnar’s upbringing is an interesting one – one that is very different from what other kids experience – because of the fact that he is a black boy growing up in a white, relatively accepting society that still views him as different. One example of this disconnect he experiences from his white peers is seen in the new name he is given: “funny, cool black guy”. Even when he is invited to parties or other events, it seems as if he is invited not because of who he is but because of the whites wanting a “black guy”. Though he sort of realizes this disparity, he basically just sees himself in the position he is assigned by the white society around him. It’s not until he moves to Hillside that he begins to realize his life in Santa Monica was a surreal one. After moving past some initial disconnect, Gunnar soon makes black friends in Hillside and quickly becomes a basketball star. While his innate talent helps him rise to popularity, he starts noticing that he is seen as more of a “basketball machine” than an individual by the white coaches and fans. We touched on this idea in class when we discussed how it's as if they bring him and others simply to play basketball but find no other uses for them within the role of the school. Gunnar's final performance at Hillside shows what he has learned through this personally educational experience by coming out in black face and even making a point of sitting down on his old school’s bench.

By the time Gunnar gets to college, he gains even more of an understanding about where he stands in society. He is a pretty well-known poet, and he realizes that whatever he does, his fans idolize him. Even when he takes off all of this clothes in public and parades down the street, police officers don’t arrest him because of his poetic fame and credibility. This makes Gunnar realize that whatever he does, people will judge him for what they portray him as but not for who he actually is. I think this plays a major role in his outlook on life because rather than caring about pleasing the white society, he does the exact opposite of what he would assume they would want to see. It’s almost as if white people see him as something different than what he really is and even when they try to be accepting, they are subconsciously incapable of viewing him as anything other than a performer for their purposes.