Race, Racism, and Identity Theme Analysis

A Hope in the Unseen is set in inner-city Washington, D.C., in the 1990s, where Cedric Jennings seeks to lift himself out of poverty and attend Brown University. The story chronicles Cedric’s successes and failures along the way, focusing on the struggles that African Americans face when they aspire to improve their social or economic status. Throughout the story, Cedric works to fit in without losing his sense of self. This proves difficult as Cedric is pigeonholed into certain roles and stereotypes because of his blackness. The story builds on the idea of race as a social construct, highlighting how it is continually reiterated—and thus perpetuated—through learned attitudes and behaviors.

From an early age, Cedric receives messages that he is not black enough, based on his work ethic and ambition. In Cedric’s neighborhood, the concept of being “black” is reinforced through social markers like an indifferent or negative attitude towards academics, lack of emotional expression, and a narrow view of masculinity. Cedric’s academic achievement makes him both an outsider and a target of ridicule and occasional violence. At his high school, Cedric begins to skip out on the awards assemblies due to the calls of “nerd,” “egghead,” and “whitey.” Once, when he attended the ceremony and received award money for his achievement, he was almost immediately confronted by a student with a gun, looking to steal his money and his pride. Even Cedric’s own father, Cedric, Sr., belittles him, describing young Cedric as a nerdy mama’s boy, while Cedric’s friend LaTisha jokes that he “just ain’t a woman’s man.” While he actively pushes against the social codes that permeate his environment, Cedric has also internalized them in many ways. Among his peers, African American men are valued for defying authority, demonstrating courage through threats or acts of violence, and rejecting any form of intellectualism. Logically, then, Cedric realizes that all that he embodies—the polar opposite of the ideal African American man in his community—emasculates him entirely.

Once Cedric is exposed to the world beyond his neighborhood, his racial identity is redefined for him. Yet while Cedric’s racial identity is inverted at MIT and again at Brown—he is suddenly deemed authentically black rather than not black enough—he is still unable to control that identity and continues to feels like an outsider. In his summer program at MIT, he is seen as authentically black, even among a group of racially diverse students. He uses the word “ghetto” to describe himself, reinforcing an “edgy urban version of blackness.” In contrast to his relative whiteness at Ballou, Cedric represents the epitome of blackness in this larger community of students of color through his speech, taste in clothing, and music choices. In his first week at Brown, during a game of “cultural pursuit,” Cedric is overtaken by students asking him about Rosa Parks and reflects that he hates having “the identity carrying the highest voltage” in the room. His friendship with a white classmate named Zayd is complicated by the fact that Zayd seems to admire his blackness, while Cedric resents Zayd for the privilege he enjoys and often does not recognize. He sometimes lashes out at Zayd, worried that he is using Cedric as a token black friend in order to make himself seem edgier. This only exacerbates Cedric’s impression that he is perceived as a jumble of African-American stereotypes, rather than an individual.

Cedric gradually develops his own sense of identity as the story unfolds. He is able to accept that his academic achievements do not make him any less racially authentic, and to integrate elements of his African American identity into his new, more racially diverse world. His tension eases as he learns to express his concerns about race. For example, Cedric and Zayd talk openly about Zayd’s intentions regarding their friendship. Cedric opens up to his roommate, Rob, sharing his experiences with gangs and violence during high school, and begins to appreciate the fact that his white, upper-class roommate is genuinely trying to gain a better understanding of his background. During his freshman year, Cedric watches as his classmates and friends find refuge in clubs dedicated to individual racial or ethnic groups, including the Harambee House, where many black students live and hold social events. Cedric resists joining in because it seems to represent exactly what he was running away from by attending Brown in the first place, though later on he occasionally attends events there. He has trouble balancing his desire to be around a community that feels familiar to him with his fear of being defined and marginalized by his race. Cedric’s date with Chiniqua, the other black student in his dorm, helps him feel comfortable as a black student at Brown, as they share their experiences living in two worlds at once. They bond over their shared familiarity with Popular Club, a clothing store popular in low-income areas, and classic R&B music that their white classmates would not have heard of. After watching a film called A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Cedric considers its overly simplified vision of blackness. The film establishes one character, the “ghetto scoundrel,” as the epitome of racial authenticity, while the college-educated and principled woman is portrayed as “losing touch with her black soul.” Cedric thinks about how far from those stereotypes he has come since leaving home, noting the artificiality of these polarizing images of African Americans, and his alternative interpretation that encompasses elements of both characters.

A large part of Cedric’s education is a process of self-discovery, and by the end of the narrative, he is able to place himself outside of the narrow definitions of race that have been imposed on him. Suskind thus reminds readers of one of the main obstacles to success for African Americans—the overly simplified markers of racial identity that strip them of their power to build their own futures.