Private Domain by James Alan McPherson
"Private Domain" by James Alan McPherson is a satirical short story that explores themes of identity, cultural appropriation, and the complexities of race within a contemporary American context. The narrative centers on a young black man named Rodney, who, despite his middle-class background and education, feels compelled to adopt the behaviors and attitudes of streetwise black culture to connect with his predominantly white social circle. This internal conflict is exacerbated by his interactions with characters like Willie, a down-and-out man who instructs Rodney in urban slang and cultural references.
As Rodney navigates this unfamiliar territory, he grapples with feelings of alienation, both from his roots and from the expectations of his white friends, who see him as an authority on black culture. The story highlights the irony of Rodney's attempts to fit in, as he performs a version of blackness that feels inauthentic to his girlfriend Lynn, who recognizes the phoniness of his act. The climax reveals a tense moment between Rodney and his white friend Charlie, where cultural knowledge becomes a battleground for authenticity. Ultimately, Rodney's desperate attempts to reclaim his status among peers culminate in a moment of irony, as he resorts to mimicking what he perceives as street culture. The story offers a poignant critique of race relations, identity performance, and the often superficial understanding of cultural dynamics.
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Private Domain by James Alan McPherson
First published: 1969
Type of plot: Satire
Time of work: The 1970's
Locale: New York City
Principal Characters:
Rodney , a young black university studentLynn , his live-in loverWillie , a down-and-out black manCharlie Pratt , a white man who admires black music
The Story
This is an ironic story, with a somewhat bitter bite, about a young black man named Rodney who, because of his middle-class background and education, has so thoroughly accepted the white man's values that he must make a self-conscious effort to learn the ways of the streetwise black in order to be "in" with his "hip" and self-consciously liberal white friends.
The story begins with Rodney buying drinks for a down-and-out black man named Willie in return for being "educated" in the slang and musical knowledge of the urban "cat." Willie instructs Rodney that one's "bag" is where one keeps things one does best and that whatever is in one's bag is one's "thing" or "stick." Willie also tells him about a large rock-and-roll memorial in Cleveland in which a famous singer, "Fatso Checkers" (a fictional name for Chubby Checkers), did not appear but was replaced by another singer, "Dirty Rivers" (a fictional name for Muddy Waters), who improvised a song onstage that made the "cats" go wild because they "dug" it so.
When Rodney leaves the bar, he worries about being in this particular area of the city; is suspicious that the neighborhood blacks, with their shifty eyes and broad black noses, are after his money; and is relieved to find that no one has broken into his car. When he hears some young boys singing an obscene but childish rhyme, he is repulsed at first but then thinks that it is clever and memorizes it. When the boys follow a black prostitute down the street, making obscene references to her genitals, he is only sorry that he did not bring his notebook. During all this activity, Rodney's attitude is like that of a sociology student who is studying an exotic, foreign culture. He even tries to quiz a young man selling a Muslim newspaper about why he became a Muslim so that he can make such an experience intellectually his own.
Rodney's middle-class "white" prudishness is revealed when he returns home to his black girlfriend and scolds her for sitting cross-legged on the floor so that her panties show. When, using the new slang he has picked up, he tells her that if sitting like that is her "thing," she should put it in a separate "bag" and bury it someplace, she chides him by calling him "bay-bee," a term that he hates in private, although he obviously desires such affectation of black slang in public. When his white friend Charlie Pratt calls, inviting him to listen to some music with some other "cats," he says "cool," although Pratt makes him feel uncomfortable by being proud to use the vocabulary that Rodney had been trying to forget all his life.
At the party, Pratt, a devotee of black music who owns more than two thousand records of blues, gospel, folk, and jazz, shows off a new "find"—a rare album by Roscoe and Shirley from 1964. Rodney thinks about how, in 1964, he was trying to make up for a lifetime of not knowing anything about Baroque; now that he knows about Baroque, he has never heard of Roscoe and Shirley, but he tries to hide his unease by relating Willie's story about the rock-and-roll memorial. Pratt, however, in a bit of one-upmanship, not only knows about the concert but also has tapes of Dirty Rivers's impromptu vocal. As they listen to the tape, Pratt's white guests arrive and obviously look to Rodney as the resident expert on all things black. Rodney improperly beats time to the music, but he knows that as he is the only black male in the room, the others will assume that he alone knows the proper beat and will follow his lead. Rodney knows that he has to feel more from the music than the others and thus exclaims, "[M]ercy! mercy! mercy! This cat is together." Only Rodney's girlfriend Lynn knows how phony his act is.
The climax of the story comes when Pratt and Rodney get into an argument about whether Dirty Rivers or Ashy Williamson is the best singer with the most soul. Although Rodney affects his secondhand "black" knowledge, Pratt proves to be more "black" than he is, gaining the agreement not only of his white friends but also of Rodney's girlfriend. Bested and backed up against a wall, Rodney waits a few moments and then, to no one in particular, repeats the obscene rhyme he heard earlier from the street children, and thus ironically wins back his temporarily lost regard as the resident streetwise and hip black. The story ends on the way home as Lynn chides him, in typical middle-class fashion, for being the life of the party and letting his color come through. All that Rodney can think about is going back to talk to Willie some more, building up his collection of Ashy Williamson records, and definitely not making love to Lynn.