African American Community and Spirituality
Spirituality is central to the community and social framework of If Beale Street Could Talk. Tish notes a palpable atmospheric change from the chaos of Saturday to the cleanliness of Sunday mornings: “on Sunday mornings the clouds have lifted, the storm has done its damage and gone. No matter what the damage was, everybody’s clean now. The women have somehow managed to get it all together, to hold everything together. So, here everybody is, cleaned, scrubbed, brushed, and greased” (20). The church is a place for the collective to unite and escape from the hustle and bustle of weekday routines; Tish notes that this break has a noticeable impact on peoples’ moods: “They’re going to come home and fall out and be friendly” (20). People also treat their church as representative of their community and, thus, their worth. Tish describes the pride which members of Fonny’s church feel towards the actual building structure: “To tell the truth, I think the people in the church were just proud that their church was so big and that they had somehow got their hands on it” (22). Additionally, as the church says something about the worth and values of its attendees, there are judgments and tensions between different church communities. Tish is Baptist and feels that Mrs. Hunt judges her for such. Yet Tish also casts judgement on Fonny’s church for their practices: “People did not often get happy in our church: we were more respectable, more civilized, than sanctified” (23).
Names/Naming
If Beale Street Could Talk opens with the narrator Tish reflecting on the specifics of her own name. Christened as Clementine, Tish appears to have little to do with her "true" name in all senses. Tish also acknowledges that Fonny’s true name is Alonzo and that he too has an unrelated nickname. The role of names, naming, and identity runs throughout the novel from this opening scene to the final words. Tish notes that names hold much more than just an arrangement of sounds. She talks about the name she has given to her sister, which others have taken up as well: "Sis—I called her Sis as a way of calling her out of her name and also, maybe as a way of claiming her" (38). Characters can also manipulate names as a way of assigning or removing respect or power from a given person. For instance, when Sharon, Tish, and Mr. Hayward meet regarding Fonny’s case, a shift towards greater emotional connection between the characters is mirrored by a shift in formality through naming. In this moment, Mr. Hayward requests that Sharon address him as Hayward: “You know something—? I wish you’d drop the mister” (97).
Family Matters
Throughout If Beale Street Could Talk, the family unit plays a central role in the joy and tensions of the novel’s characters. Critic Trudier Harris claims that "[t]he family [serves] as the ultimate unit of salvation" in the novel. This is perhaps most evident in the way Tish’s family accepts Fonny into their lives. Fonny’s problems are Tish’s problems, and Tish’s problems are the family’s problems. Sharon repeatedly affirms Fonny’s place within the collective. When Ernestine states: "Shit. We got to work it out. Fonny's like one of us,” Sharon counters: "'He is one of us" (40). Thus, the Rivers family takes on Fonny’s struggles as their own. Tish and Joseph also embrace the interconnectivity of family through the reality of her pregnancy, "I was his daughter, all right: I had found someone to love and I was loved and he was released and verified. That child in my belly was also, after all his child, too, for there would have been no Tish if there had been no Joseph…That baby was our baby, it was on its way, my father's great hand on my belly held it and warmed it: in spite of all that hung above our heads, that child was promised safety" (49).
Though the Rivers family acts as a force for good and salvation within the novel, the family unit can also be united as a negative power. The Hunt family stands in opposition to the virtue of the Rivers family, yet their unity in such a stance is undeniable. Tish describes the Hunt family as a unit composed of different individuals which fit into one collective stance: "There was, then, this funny silence: and everyone was staring at me. I felt Mrs. Hunt's eyes, more malevolent, more frightened, than ever. She was leaning forward, one hand tight on the spoon buried in her ice cream. Sheila looked terrified. Adrienne's lips curled in a contemptuous smile, and she leaned forward to speak, but her father's hand, hostile, menacing, rose to check her. She leaned back. Frank leaned forward" (67). In this passage, the different actions of the Hunt family members compound to form a unified stance of “hostil[ity]” and tension.
Finally, though the majority of family connections in the novel are formed based on bloodlines, families can absorb or push out individuals regardless of genetics. Fonny stands as a model example of this shift as Tish’s family works to support him while his biological family disavows him despite their blood ties: "Fonny’s family didn't give a shit about him and were not going to do a thing to help him. We were his family now, the only family he had: and now everything was up to us" (74).
Intrafamilial Divisions of Color and Status
Rather than one homogenous unit built by the division between blacks and whites, the African American community in If Beale Street Could Talk is divided from within along lines of class, color and status. One issue the novel deals with is "colorism," or a prejudice against the darker skin tones within the African American community. In the world the novel describes, lighter-skinned individuals are often cherished for their exotic beauty while darker-skinned people are seen as unattractive or less worthy. Tish consistently describes Mrs. Hunt and her daughters as “fair” and “beautiful” with “long” hair (19). In contrast, Tish characterizes Fonny as “much darker than [his mother and sisters], his hair is just plain nappy and all the grease his mother put into it every Sunday couldn't take out the naps “(19). Thus, Tish herself notices and somewhat reinforces the division between light and dark in the black community.
Mrs. Hunt and her daughters echo colorism in their treatment of characters like Frank and Fonny. Tish notices this tension in the pity Mrs. Hunt gives her for having to go out with Fonny: "Fonny really takes after his father: so, Mrs. Hunt gave me a real sweet patient smile as Fonny brought me out the house that Sunday morning" (19). Additionally, Mrs. Hunt is often embarrassed by her son’s complexion and hair: "In Sunday school, there wasn't nobody to admire her—her carefully washed and covered body and her snow-white soul. Frank was not about to get up and take Fonny off to Sunday school and the sisters didn't want to dirty their hands on their nappy-headed brother" (22). The characterization of Mrs. Hunt’s “snow-white soul” against Fonny’s “dirty” body and “nappy-headed” hair solidifies the distinction between dark and light skin and the anti-black prejudice that gets reinforced from within the African American community.
The tension between lighter and darker skin in the black community is not new. Mary Fair Burks in “James Baldwin’s Protest Novel: If Beale Street Could Talk” traces the colorism Mrs. Hunt and her daughters enact on Fonny to American history: "Fonny's mother and sisters were mulattoes and as such felt superior to both the Black father and the Brown unattractive boy…The theme goes back to the Plantation Tradition, which acknowledges the superiority of mulattoes over Blacks who become field 'niggers' while mulattoes are elevated to the status of house 'niggers.'"
Colorism does not erase the racism that all African Americans face in the novel, but rather complicates the relationships between black individuals throughout. For example, even though Mrs. Hunt values her daughters for their fair skin, they still face racism and hardship within the larger New York community: "They were really just ordinary Harlem girls, even though they'd made it as far as City College. But absolutely nothing was happening for them at City College—nothing: the brothers with degrees didn't want them; those who wanted their women black wanted them black; and those who wanted their women white wanted them white" (37).
The Fate And Condition of Black Prisoners in America
The plot in If Beale Street Could Talk centers around the tension of Fonny’s false arrest and the challenges and pain that it causes him, Tish, and their families. In the portrayal of Fonny's unjust incarceration, Baldwin portrays how prejudiced the police and prison system can be against black individuals. Daniel’s story also mirrors Fonny’s in that both men were accused of a crime with little evidence, wrongly picked out of a lineup, and then bear the burden of a crime of which they are innocent. In Daniel’s case, he was accused of stealing a car despite his inability to drive: “'They said—they still say—stole a car. Man, I can’t even drive a car, and I tried to make my lawyer—but he was really their lawyer, dig, he worked for the city—prove that, but he didn’t'” (102). Daniel points out that his lawyer “was really their lawyer,” allied not with him but with “the city.” This points to a larger issue than just the convictions of Daniel and Fonny; the prison and police systems in New York are rigged to put oppressed people at a disadvantage. Black men like Fonny and Daniel are pawns in a greater oppressive system, leading them to feel helpless despite their innocence: “But I didn’t do nothing. They were just playing with me, man, because they could. And I’m lucky it was only two years, you dig? Because they can do with you whatever they want. Whatever they want” (103). The consequences of this unjust reality are not just jail time and the disruption of the lives of an individual and his family, but also a deep psychological scarring and degradation: “the worst thing, man, the worst thing—is that they can make you so fucking scared. Scared, man. Sacred” (103).
Cross-ethnic Solidarity (or Lack Thereof)
In If Beale Street Could Talk, there is a central tension between the solidarity and sometimes lack thereof of different ethnic groups, specifically of the Black and Puerto Rican communities, both of which face the oppression of the white majority. While she is in "the Tombs" visiting Fonny, Tish picks up on the racial demographics of the other people in the jail: "I've never come across any shame down here, except shame like mine, except the shame of the hardworking black ladies, who call me Daughter, and the shame of proud Puerto Ricans who don't understand what's happened—no one who speaks to them speaks Spanish, for example—and who are ashamed that they have loved ones in jail" (7). In this passage, Tish identifies with the other women of color who have to endure what she is also going through—having a "loved [one] in jail." The long description of these women, as well as the extended sentence broken up by rhythmic commas, create a sense of community and collectivity between Tish and these women. Additionally, Ernestine finds inspiration for her profession from the struggle of a Puerto Rican girl: "She gave up her plans for going to college, and worked for a while in a hospital. She met a little girl in that hospital, the little girl was dying, and, at the age of twelve, she was already a junkie. And this wasn't a black girl. She was Puerto Rican. Ernestine started working with children" (39). Both Tish and Ernestine, therefore, have encounters with Puerto Rican individuals and connect with their pain and suffering.
On the other hand, the central tension of the novel lies in Fonny’s wrongful conviction, which is set in motion by Victoria, a Peurto Rican woman. Mrs. Rogers will not return to New York City from Puerto Rico to testify against Fonny, which severely complicates his trial. When Sharon tracks Victoria down in Puerto Rico, she attempts to appeal to the solidarity which Tish and Ernestine both encounter in New York between their two communities: “’You’ve put a man in jail, daughter, a man you’ve never seen…he’s black…like us” (169). Yet unlike in Tish and Ernestine’s experiences, Victoria does not unite with Sharon in her plea to save Fonny, but instead decides to remain in Puerto Rico and kicks Sharon out of her home. Thus, there is some hope for solidarity between Black and Puerto Rican communities, but it does not always translate on the individual level.
Gender roles
Baldwin exposes very strict gender roles in If Beale Street Could Talk. When Tish sees Fonny interact with a group of male waiters, she claims to gain a glimpse into a world of men previously closed to her. “I had never seen the love and respect that men can have for each other” (58). According to Tish, this world poses a “threat” to many women as “they feel locked out” (58). This world of men is framed as “a language which [women] cannot decipher and therefore cannot manipulate” (58). At the same time, Baldwin, through Tish’s voice, claims that women exist in a world of “silence and secrecy” contrary to the “noise” of the male circles (58). Thus, there is a strong division between women and the world of men.
The division between men and women is also unbalanced in many ways throughout the novel. When describing the power of desire, Baldwin asserts through Tish that “a woman is tremendously controlled by what the man’s imagination makes of her” while “a man exists in his own imagination, and can never be at the mercy of a woman’s” (59). There is a direct opposition of power here in which the man’s desires have the capacity to define and create the role of the woman, while the woman remains powerless in the male sphere. Tish asserts these realities at face value, as matter-of-fact realizations that govern the society in which she lives.
There are also instances in which traditional gender roles are challenged and molded to specific contexts. When Joseph is “giving away” Tish to Fonny after he proposes, he takes on the traditional paternal role of passing his daughter onto her next male caretaker. When Fonny and Tish’s meet to discuss the potential marriage, Joseph asks Fonny: “How you going to feed her?...You got a job?” (86). These questions ultimately sum up to Joseph’s real intention: gauging whether Fonny will be able to provide for Tish as the new man of the house. While the two men talk about the marriage arrangement, Tish and her mother are left in the other room, intentionally excluded from the patriarchical dealings: “Men are men, and sometimes they must be left alone…they are locked in [to the room] because of their responsibility for the women outside” (88-89). Thus, the marriage discussion between Fonny and Joseph reinforces the narrative of men caring for women financially and intellectually through the direct exclusion of the female characters.
