Harlem Shuffle

Ray’s financial success continues to grow in Part 2. From furniture sales to jewelry fencing, he succeeds because he is willing and able to thrive in both the straight world and the criminal world. His capacity for self-improvement is also fueled by his determination. Ray knows that he is not the smartest, richest, or strongest person, and he knows that his race places him at an inherent disadvantage in a racist society, so he depends on his iron-willed determination—and his talent for compartmentalization—to propel him to success. The evidence for his can be found in his college work, the late-night jewelry classes he arranges for himself, his desire to check out his competitors’ furniture stores, and the slow and meticulous way he plots revenge against Wilfred Duke. Ray wants to present himself as a hardworking upstart from a difficult background, and this success story is true. However, he hides certain aspects, such as the criminal source of some of his income—including the $30,000 he used to open the furniture store in the first place. Nevertheless, he applies himself equally as hard to his criminal enterprises as he does to his legal businesses. Ray’s capacity for self-improvement justifies his self-perception as a hardworking and respectable man, even if he is less willing to acknowledge how hard he refines his skills as a criminal.

The Dumas Club represents an idea of African American success in the Harlem community. However, the club’s membership selection process is careful and prejudiced: they typically only admit light-skinned men from certain backgrounds, while women are entirely forbidden from applying. The pillars of the Harlem community view themselves as the local upper-crust and, in doing so, they only succeed in replicating the stratified nature of the American society on a local level. They are men who loudly proclaim that they are anti-racist and that they are working to further the cause of the African Americans, but their solution involves creating a hierarchal, discriminatory society. The only difference is that they are the privileged members of the Dumas Club, while they would be treated with contempt by New York City’s white high society. Rather than forging a brave new world free of racism and prejudice, they replicate the prejudiced world with themselves at the center. The colorism of the Dumas Club’s gatekeepers is rooted in historical fact. In an NPR interview, Whitehead explains that many Black social clubs in the 19th and 20th centuries were known as “paper bag clubs”—meaning “you could only enter them if you had a, you know, upstanding job, and also if you were lighter than a paper bag.” (Gross, Terry. “Colson Whitehead Returns To His Home Turf With ‘Harlem Shuffle.’” 15 Sep. 2021.)

Whitehead also continues to use mid-century crime novel tropes in these chapters to comment implicitly on modern American racism. The fact that the entire police force seems to be closely intertwined with criminal elements—a dynamic represented by Detective Munson—is a common theme in detective fiction. Yet given violent historical and contemporary tensions between police officers and Black Americans, this absence of the police as an oppressive force provides a contrast to the seemingly never-ending litany of police shootings Whitehead’s modern audience sees in the news. As The Atlantic’s Jennifer Wilson writes in her review of Harlem Shuffle, “Some readers may find the absence of a real police presence in the novel a missed opportunity for social commentary, but others—I’m among them—can appreciate that Whitehead’s omission allows the people in his book to savor the delight that transgression brings.” (Wilson, Jennifer. “What Is Crime in a Country Built on It?” The Atlantic. 10 Sep. 2021.)

Meanwhile, Ray begins to worry about Freddie’s behavior—not because Freddie is his cousin, but because Freddie is a threat to his success. For a long time, Freddie has existed on the boundary of Ray’s legal and illegal lives. As both family member and fellow criminal, he is one of the only characters who is permitted entry into both parts of Ray’s life. But Freddie’s behavior becomes increasingly reckless and, coupled with Ray’s success, the two cousins drift apart. Freddie and Linus grow close because both resent the successful model of their relatives and want to succeed on their own terms. When Freddie sees Ray, he is reminded of how unsuccessful his life has become. As a result, the cousins grow further and further apart. The fault lines introduced in the relationship between Freddie and Ray in Part 2 of the novel become the main narrative catalyst of Part 3.