Fathia Qandeel

Professor Von Uhl & Professor Yankwitt

Individual and Society H8

9 December 2021

 Drug abuse pertaining to the black community and artistic gift

 

        In a perfect world, we can envision a utopia where all people are seen and treated equally. Sadly this isn’t the true reality we live in currently. If you take a moment to turn on your news channel, open up a social media app, or take a walk through the street, you will notice all of the injustices and unequal treatment that people of color are facing every day. A vivid example of this is a story by James Baldwin titled “Sonny’s Blues,” which tells the story of a young black man named Sonny through the perspective of the narrator, his unnamed brother. We learn about their difficult lives in Harlem during the 1950s, particularly Sonny’s, who has recently been released from prison, where he was sent due to his heroin addiction. Throughout the story, there is a heavy feeling of gloom, sadness, and failure in which society paints over Sonny. He has a difficult time finding his place as a Black man with a dream of becoming a musician in a society that views him as a failure who will always go back to addiction. Baldwin portrays that the faithlessness that Sonny’s community has in him makes it hard for Sonny to succeed as a young Black man; using a psychoanalytical lens, it is clear that Sonny uses his artistic gift as a Jazz pianist to break free from the norms and society’s expectations that he would be subjected to always going back to addiction. 

   

        Sonny’s story is one of the many that portray the neglect that young black people face in society due to their race. Baldwin depicts this through a conversation between Sonny’s childhood friend and Sonny’s brother:

[Sonny’s Friend:] “Listen. They’ll let him out and then it’ll just start all over again. That’s what I mean.” 

[Sonny’s Brother:] “You mean – they’ll let him out. And then he’ll just start working his way back in again. You mean he’ll never kick the habit. Is that what you mean?” 

[Sonny’s Friend:] “That’s right” (126) 

Sonny’s old friend is voicing the beliefs of the outside world that, even if Sonny is released from jail sober, he’s going to go back to drugs. This belief that Sonny will remain a failure is held not only by the world outside of Harlem but also by the Harlem community, who have been fed the stereotype that once a black man has made a mistake, he is unlikely to become successful. 

   These ideas about the Black community not only feed the stereotypes but also perpetuate them. When Sonny’s brother continues his conversation with the friend we notice how the stereotypes are perpetuated when he asks why Sonny would try to almost kill himself by using drugs. But the friend replies by saying, “He don’t want to die. He wants to live. Don’t nobody want to die, ever” (Baldwin 126). This portrays how people like Sonny take drugs to live a life apart from all of society’s and the world’s criticisms, as the friend points out. An article that explains the use of drugs in the black community is titled “Stereotype or Reality: Another Look at Alcohol and Drug Use Among African American Children,” by Linda E. Bass and Edna Kane Williams, which addresses the stereotypes made about young black Americans regarding drug and alcohol use.  The authors write, “Many see African American communities….as being devoid of basic decency, devoid of hope, where the citizens are so consumed by the deviance and social disorganization” (Bass and Williams 78).  The authors also claim that “The pain and suffering caused by victimization can become the source of the stress that drives them to start using drugs in order to self-medicate” (83). The idea that people victimize the black community isn’t only unjust, but it also affects the younger generation because after being fed these stereotypes, they go on to playing out these roles. This is relevant to Sonny’s addiction since it was his means of “self-medicating” and escaping society. Sonny used this method of self-medicating to escape society’s ills. We can’t be certain what happened to Sonny because the narration is given by his brother, but as a black man in Harlem in the 1950s, there had to be a lot of “talk” and racism on people like Sonny. 

          Sonny overcomes the darkness between society and himself with his talent and his dream to become a musician. Even after being labeled as an addict and a young man who’s troubled, Sonny was able to overcome the standard people gave to him. He is able to overcome his troubles through his “artistic gift” which Freud defines as “A person who is at loggerheads with reality possesses an artistic gift…he can transform his phantasies into artistic creations instead of into symptoms”(2235). Someone who has an artistic gift is one who takes something that isn’t socially acceptable, and transforms it into something more acceptable through the form of art. Sonny’s addiction to heroin and going to jail isn’t something that is socially acceptable and Sonny was able to get out of jail and put this “addiction” into something else which is music. In the story, “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator says “Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played…Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others…. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did” (Baldwin 148). In this moment Sonny is able to play the piano through his love for music and his brother describes how beautiful the music is, and how he felt something different through Sonny. After a difficult life, Sonny was able to take his addiction and put that energy into his music. Not only that, but he appears to be attempting to break away from the stigma that has been placed upon him by others. He won’t be able to accomplish this, though, unless the people around him believe he is genuinely free of addiction. This contradicts Sonny’s efforts to not just find his position, but also to please others around him so that he can return to a regular life.

      Sonny is just one fictional character that provides an example of  Black musicians during the 1900s. A man that goes by the name Miles Davis was very well known for his jazz music. Not only this but he was heavily addicted to heroin, cocaine, and alcohol, similar to Sonny. It is said that Davis passed away due to his addictions. Around the end of the 1950s Davis’s jazz music was only getting better however in his autobiography “Miles Davis: Autobiography” by  Miles Davis himself he touches upon white supremacy and gives his own experience during his time. In one quote he states:

     “ White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don’t understand. They don’t want to have to admit that a black person could be doing something that they don’t know about. Or that he could be maybe a little more -or a whole lot more -intelligent than them. They can’t stand to admit that kind of shit to themselves” (249). 

Davis shows how the black community was conveyed during the 1900s and how black people weren’t given the chance to do the things white people could. Black people like Sonny and Davis were brushed off for the talent they had and for the intelligence they had due to their skin. This causes the younger generations of the black community to take drugs and drink alcohol because in a society where you are not accepted, no matter how hard you try, there is almost sadly no point in even trying in the first place. 

  Despite Sonny’s hardships and difficult times that he faced in such a condescending society, we are able to see that Sonny found success with an artistic gift. We learn about the preconceptions that are imposed on the black community through the story “Sonny’s Blues”, and how this influences how the black community abuse drugs and alcohol. People like Sonny and Miles Davis are so consumed by the world’s tragic ideas, they may never see the true talent and strength they have. The artistic gift is a way both Sonny and Miles Davis tried to get through their addiction. Sadly, Miles Davis died from his addiction and who knows what could have happened to Sonny if the story had continued. In our current society, we have seen progress when it comes to justice for the black community however, as we all know in the past year we have seen so many people trying to change the black community. Sadly we will never live in a utopia and stories like “Sonny’s Blues” demonstrate one of the numerous ways people of color are objectified as “less than,” as James Baldwin so eloquently illustrates through Sonny.