James and the Lie of “Just Be Yourself”

This month, we have discussed our hidden selves through several lenses. First, in Himouto Umaru-chan, we see Umaru present herself differently depending on whom she is talking to. It mostly shows how it is okay to have people who only have access to certain parts of ourselves. It’s a part of respecting our boundaries and the access we give to others. In Narcissistic Traps, by Sharelle Ellis, we see how people hide themselves for malicious reasons. We see bad actors trying to lure their victims into a toxic relationship. However, what if there was another reason to hide ourselves? What if it was done in a sense of protection? That is what is explored in the novel James by Percival Everett.

James is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from James's perspective. In the story, James finds out that he is being separated from his family and sold to another slave owner. While this is occurring, Huck fakes his own death to escape his abusive father. Both, scared about their fates, go on the run together down the Mississippi River. The difference between this novel and the original book is its examination of duality: how James really is and how he performs to the expectations of his white owners.

In the novel, we see that James and the other slaves in the area know how to speak, read, and write standard English. However, when they are around white people, they speak broken English and pretend that they are dumb and superstitious. James and the other slaves do this as a form of protection. Being themselves could get them in trouble with their white owners. For example, when James held Judge Thatcher at gunpoint, his first question was not about the gun or sparing his life. He wanted to know how James knew how to read and write. That scared the judge more than anything because it goes against his belief that slaves are stupid, and it intimidates him to know that slaves can learn.

The difference between James from Himouto and Narcissistic Traps is that the latter two have a choice in hiding their true selves, whether it was for good or bad intentions. James doesn’t have that option. James was sold several times to different slave masters, had to watch his friend get raped by an overseer, and watch a slave get hanged for giving him a pencil. James hated that these things happened, but he couldn’t intervene because it would have gotten him killed. Slaves didn’t have rights or were even considered human. Despite wanting to be himself, he was still considered property to other white people, and society never let him forget that. Even with the story ending with the start of the Civil War, James has little faith that slaves will be truly free if the North wins.

I want to say that James should have hope that things would be better in the future. However, I can’t really say that with a straight face. As much progress as we have made as a country, we have been regressing for a while now. I am a woman, black, and disabled. However, in today’s society, all of those things are threatened. As a woman, my birth control rights have been taken away with the overturn of Roe vs. Wade and the difficult access to certain contraceptives. As a black person, I see that there is a narrative in the government to make slavery not seem as devastating as it was, and the erasure of diversity and cultural reading at schools, even at the college level. As a person with a disability, I see the government trying to overhaul Medicaid and reduce the amount that people get from SSI. It is scary to see all the things that I am being threatened in this way. I wonder if we can ever get back to the point of being ourselves being enough, or if that was just a fallacy to begin with. In the spirit of the book, do you think it is possible to be ourselves in today’s climate?