Tragedy in America's Racial Memory

In “The White Man’s Guilt,” James Baldwin observes that “history is literally present in all that we do,” and that—due to their avoidance of that history—white Americans have become impaled upon it “like a butterfly on a pin.” Similarly, in The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. du Bois highlights the role a certain kind of ignorance plays in the maintenance of racial oppression, writing that the “tragedy of the age” is not that men are poor, or wicked, or ignorant, but “that men know so little of men.” Each of these authors brings a critical perspective to their readings of history and the American political tradition. Those readings are framed through the mode of the tragic, which uncovers an essential and politically salient method of understanding our past, present, and future. Tragedy arises from a confluence of seemingly paradoxical notions, being fated yet also freely chosen. It highlights the plurality and freedom of human life, yet also points to its fragility, vulnerability, and the unbearable weight external factors can place upon it. Tragedy centers our historically encumbered existence: we are thrown into an already ongoing world that we must freely navigate, yet we often lack the knowledge to effectively do so. An awareness of tragedy—of our precarious existence, the limits to what know, and the wider effects of our inheritances—is needed for democratic politics to be sustained. If, as Aristotle claims, politics depends upon learning to rule and to be ruled, then the ability to effectively wield power requires the ability to give it up. Political governance rests upon the capacity to endure loss, or upon the experience of the tragic. Through a reading of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, in conjunction with works by Baldwin and du Bois, I develop an interpretation of American history and encumbered identity through the mode of the tragic. I argue that a tragic understanding of our tradition is essential to realizing that tradition’s promises and high ideals. Triumphalist accounts can often cover up or excuse away enduring challenges, undermining the value of the tradition they seek to conserve while condemning present generations, like Oedipus, to not understanding their own histories—and to therefore unwittingly making choices they would otherwise condemn. A full understanding of the American political tradition requires the critical and tragedian perspective of those who, as Baldwin puts it, are “the most despised children of the great Western house.”