Book Review: The White Boy Shuffle

The White Boy Shuffle, by Paul Beatty

I felt uncomfortable when I started reading this book.

I bought it because I had read Beatty's award-winning novel, The Sellout, which in 2015 won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award. The White Boy Shuffle is his first book, written in 1996.

It concerns Gunner Kaufman, the blackest white surfer dude in Santa Monica. Kaufman is a novelty in his hometown, being the only person of color in his neighborhood and on the beaches. He regales his friends and classmates with his blisteringly funny stories about his ancestors.

But it's the telling of those stories that make me uneasy. Yes, Beatty is black, and he has the right to write about African-Americans, their history, and their culture in whatever way he pleases. And he does, using racist epithets, tropes, and colorful language. It was hysterical. And I laughed. But I felt horrible doing so. As a white man, I cannot simply and easily share his use of such racial terms, and I probably should not admit I laughed out loud more than once at his doing so. But at least I looked around to make sure no one saw me chuckling.

Anyway, Kaufman's mother thinks he is losing touch with his blackness, and to remedy it, she decides to move the fatherless family to a black neighborhood in Los Angeles. A poor, crime-ridden, ghetto neighborhood in South-Central L.A. There, his first visitors are two police officers, who demand to know which gang he's in. When he claims none, the cops reply that because he's a free agent, they'll be watching him.

Also watching him are the gangs in the 'hood, who promptly beat him up for talking to the cops.

Eventually, he settles in, trading his surfing skills for the basketball court, and honing his poetry. He becomes widely popular, and when asked to speak at a demonstration, reluctantly does, turning himself into a self-described Negro demagogue.

Widely funny, sometimes somber, often outrageous, White Boy Shuffle is an intense novel addressing questions of race, class, and identity that are as relevant today as they were 24 years ago.