Racism and Shared Humanity Theme Analysis

I saw a huge, very old Negro sitting on a raft near me. He was ugly. His nose was flat and his face was broad; his head was a mass of wiry gray hair. For a moment, I could not figure out where I was or who he was. Then I remembered him working with the deck gang of the Hato.

[…]

The Negro said, “You ’ad a mos’ terrible crack on d’ead, bahss […] an’ I harl you board dis raff.”

[…] His face couldn’t have been blacker, or his teeth whiter. They made an alabaster trench in his mouth, and his pink-purple lips peeled back over them like the meat of a conch shell. He had a big welt, like a scar, on his left cheek. I knew he was West Indian. I had seen many of them in Willemstad, but he was the biggest one I’d ever seen.

I then watched as he used his powerful arms and hands to rip up boards from the outside edges of the raft. He pounded them back together on cleats, forming two triangles; then he hammed the bases into slots between the raft boards. He stripped off his shirt and his pants, then demanded mine. I didn’t know what had happened to my leather jacket or my sweater. But soon, we had a flimsy shelter from the burning sun.

Crawling under it to sprawl beside me, he said, “We ’ave rare good luck, young bahss. D’wattah kag did not bus’ when d’raff was launch, an’ we ’ave a few biscuit, some choclade, an’ d’matches in d’tin is dry. So we ’ave rare good luck.” He grinned at me then.

I asked, “Timothy, where is your home?”

“St. Thomas,” he said. “Charlotte Amalie, on St. Thomas.” He added, “’Tis a Virgin Islan’.”

“Then you are an American,” I said. I remembered from school that we had bought the Virgins from Denmark.

He laughed. “I suppose, young bahss. I nevar gave it much thought. I sail all d’isaln’s, as well as Venezuela, Colombo, Panama….I jus’ nevar gave it much thought I was American.”

I said, “Your parents were African, Timothy?”

He laughed, low and soft. “Young bahss, you want me to say I true come from Afre-ca?”

“You say what you want.” It was just that Timothy looked very much like the men I’d seen in jungle pictures. Flat nose and heavy lips.

“Now,” he said, “I mus’ go downg to d’reef an’ fetch langosta. We’ll ros’ it, to be true.”

I became frightened again the minute he said it. I didn’t want to be left alone, and I was afraid something might happen to him. “Take me with you, Timothy,” I pleaded.

“Not on d’reef,” he answered firmly. “I ’ave not been dere before. If ’tis safe, tomorrow I will take you.” With that, he went down the hill without saying another word. My mother was right, I thought. They had their place and we had ours. He did not really like me, or he would have taken me along. He was different.

Soon, he came to stand over me. “Now, young bahss,” he said. He seemed to be waiting.

“Yes?”

There was a silence until Timothy broke it with anguish. “Wid d’rock, say ‘help’.”

I looked in his direction and suddenly understood that Timothy could not spell. He was just too stubborn, or too proud, to admit it.

I nodded and began feeling around the sand for a stick.

He asked, “What you reachin’ for?”

“A stick to make lines with.”

He placed one in my hands, and I carefully lettered H-E-L-P on the sand while he stood above me, watching. He kept murmuring “Ah-huh, ah-huh,” as if making sure I was spelling it correctly.

I tried again but it didn’t work. I stood up, threw the palm fibers at him, and screamed, “You ugly black man! I won’t do it! You’re stupid and you can’t even spell.”

Timothy’s heavy hand struck my face sharply.

Stunned, I touched my face where he’d hit me. Then I turned away from where I thought he was. My cheek stung, but I wouldn’t let him see me with tears in my eyes.

I heard him saying very gently, “B’getting’ back to my wark, my own self.”

The rope, I thought. It wasn’t for him. It was for me.

After a while, I said, “Timothy…”

He did not answer but walked over to me, pressing more palm fronds into my hands. He murmured, “’Tis veree easy, ovah an’ under…” Then he went back to singing about fungee and feesh.

Something happened to me that day on the cay. I’m not quite sure what it was even now, but I had begun to change.

I said to Timothy, “I want to be your friend.”

He said softly, “Young bahss, you ’ave always been my friend.”

I said, “Can you call me Phillip instead of young boss?”

“Phill-eep,” he said warmly.

Because it had been on my mind I told him that my mother didn’t like black people and asked him why.

He answered slowly, “I don’ like some white people my own self, but ’twould be outrageous if I didn’ like any o’ dem.”

Wanting to hear it from Timothy, I asked him why there were different colors of skin, white and black, brown and red, and he laughed back, “Why b’fees different color, or flower b’different color? I true don’ know, Phill-eep, but I true tink beneath d’skin is all d’same.”

Herr Jonckheer had said something like that in school but it did not mean quite as much as when Timothy said it.

[…] Suddenly, I wished my father and mother could see us here together on the little island.

I moved close to Timothy’s big body before I went to sleep. I remember smiling in the darkness. He felt neither black nor white.

It was almost as if Id’ graduated from the survival course that Timothy had been putting me through since we had landed on the cay.

It rained that night, a very soft rain. Not even enough to drip through the palm frond roof. Timothy breathed softly beside me. I had now been with him every moment of the day and night for two months, but I had not seen him. I remembered that ugly welted face. But now, in my memory, it did not seem ugly at all. It seemed only kind and strong.

I asked, “Timothy, are you still black?”

His laughter filled the hut.

I must have worked for half an hour before I had him free from the trunk. He fell backwards into the wet sand, and lay there moaning. I knew there was very little I could do for him except to sit by him in the light rain, holding his hand. In my world of darkness, I had learned that holding a hand could be like medicine.

[…]

I touched his back. It felt warm and sticky. […]

Timothy had been cut to ribbons by the wind, which drove the rain and tiny grains of sand before it. It had flayed his back and his legs until there were very few places that weren’t cut. He was bleeding, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I found his hard, horny hand again, wrapped mine around it, and lay down beside him.

I went to sleep too.